Blackboard Training

What is Blackboard? It’s a far cry from what our grandparents had to use, but basically, it is digital educational classroom software.

As a teacher, you can communicate via email students, setup announcements, create quizzes, discussion boards, post presentations or videos for learning purposes, and collaborate all online.

As a student, you can login remotely anytime to see what’s happening in class, when assignments are due, and submit it online. You can ask your teacher questions right away rather than having to wait for the next class.

The best part of Blackboard’s technology is that it actually tracks student’s grades making it way easier for both teacher and student to review their current homework assignments, due dates, and test status.

To learn more check out Blackboard.com or their online video training via their Blackboard YouTube Channel.

Recently, I received my certificate for completing Blackboard 101 Training from Mercy College.

Identity Theft

This week my students are learning how identity theft happens. One way is through phishing scams by hackers. Another way is through the use of social engineering by luring you or others to give up personal information.

We are covering the various types of malware, viruses, worms, and scareware. I am also sharing about the difference between the deep web vs. the dark web.

Deep Web vs. Dark Web Video

The main takeaways:

Learn how to protect your computers, laptops, and smartphones by using antivirus software, strong passwords, and install a firewall to block port access.

Avoid posting on social media everything you are doing or sharing confidential data about yourself or your company’s trade secrets over the Internet.

To prevent loss of data during electrical storms be sure to use a surge protector with a battery that allows time for backup and proper shutdown along with a good warranty that includes replacement of equipment.

Use precaution when opening emails or links, by only responding to those you know personally.

Hackers are lurking in the shadows to con you to gain access to your data to sell it for money, even while using wifi hotspots and mobile devices.

Thankfully, cybersecurity, computer forensics, and biometric technology continue to improve, as government law enforcement battle hackers and their wrongful tactics daily.

Again, remember that anything is traceable once it is posted to the web.

The Rise of the Internet

This week my classes will have the privilege of hearing guest speaker, Rick Boivie from IBM Thomas Research Center from Yorktown Heights, NY. He will be sharing about IBM100 the ‘Rise of the Internet‘.

In the late-1980s, IBM helped create a network of supercomputer centers dubbed NSFNET (the National Science Foundation Network), one of the first networks to use TCP/IP. The project essentially gave birth to the Internet—and business and life around the world changed forever. Click to Read More…

About: Rick Boivie is a Distinguished Engineer and manager of Advanced Internet and Security Technologies at IBM’s Watson Research Center. Boivie was the lead programmer, principal architect and manager of the IBM Academic Information Systems team in Milford, Connecticut. His team developed the routers that would run the Internet from 1988 to 1995.

Midterm Exams

Does taking a test cause you to feel overwhelmed? One teacher express that just the word ‘test’ alone often causes anxiety for some students; so going forward I will use the word ‘task’.

Last week, the class did well with the interactive ‘Jeopardy’ review. Hopefully, they’ll do well on their midterms this week. It is two parts, which includes a written part along with a MS-Word grader project.

Here are suggestions for college students when it comes to surviving midterms by Princeton Review:

• Midterm Mania

• Tips to Ace Midterms

Operating Systems

In week 5, the class is studying different operating systems that are required for a computer to work, such as MS-Windows, Linux, or Mac OS 10.

They’re also being taught about how to protect a computer using various utility programs like antivirus software, as well as, how to use Microsoft Windows’s built-in features that are used to maintain a computer’s hard drive to run properly.

The links below include videos to learn more about different kinds of operating systems and how to run disk cleanup and disk defrag features.

Operating Systems Video

Computer Maintenance Video