And I am going to go absolutely nowhere! Well, maybe Cobble Hill for coffee and ratatouille in the forest! Or walks on the beach! Or a longshot is Tofino or Alberta! But anywhere I do go, will be very random and very spur of the moment!
I did scale back my OAC posts this past year (September ’21 to July ’22) but still managed some fun posts and pages, as well as some updates and brand new random posts – you know the kind- COVID kind of interfered with daily updates as we had TWO years of students coming back to UVIC! The regular ‘1st Years’ and the ‘then’ the current ‘2nd Years’ … who never did set foot on campus during COVID! September 2021 was THE busiest I have ever seen on campus! Who knows how busy September 2022 will be but .. it WILL be busy!
AND ANNOUNCING THAT I HAVE FINISHED 99.99% of the NEWEST CHD JEOARDY – GREG’S PLAYLIST II in September and for all our new and returning COOPS! Good luck! And even MORE prizes (Chocolate!) to win and new TYPES of questions too!
And I will also have a new shorter version of my CALL Orientation which will be only about 2 minutes long and less than a dozen slides! Okay, that was hard to do, to keep it THAT short, but I will still keep some Star Trek and Easter Egg elements in there … the usual for this Bog Blog! For a quick sneak peek, but only the working/BETA version, you can download it here in PDF format, or watch it at YouTube in video format! I even kept it shorter than the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds trailer ! But it will still probably change and be even better than it is right now! YAY!
Thanks for all the support and reading all my fun Bog Blog posts and pages at UVic! More to come in September! WOOT!
Everyone stay safe and healthy today, tomorrow and for the rest of the year!
Not to worry . . .
Back on August 29th to prep for
. . . Septem . . . PURR !!!!
So, what exactly IS … The CALL Facility at UVic? Well, here goes!
Including new ‘BETA‘ content
for September 2022 !
I have a NEW PDF (and PDF-video!) for a NEW version of The CALL Facility Orientation for September 2022!
⬇️September 2022⬇️ NEW BETA VERSION The CALL Facility Orientation ⬇️Click Below to download⬇️
And just below is my “Director’s Cut” YouTube version, converted from PowerPoint – and less than 2 minutes in length (1:59! LOL!) I will definitely have some updates and upgrades between now and then as I ‘Field Test’ this new approach to showing everyone The CALL Facility and preparing for September 2022.
Previous versions (Page) of my CALL intro had MANY slides of all the available resources for each language/course/Department that used CALL for homework, assignments, WICKET, etc. That has totally changed due to Covid and I wanted a very quick, very informative slide show that ANYONE could quickly see (and show!) and not be resource or ‘click heavy’. I hope I have accomplished that!
I will continue to tweak it and after a few live CALL orientations, I will update these resources! Of course, I retain the right to .. include my brand of humour throughout! Oh, by the way, without a doubt, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is THE BEST STAR TREK SERIES OF ALL TIME! And … Spoiler Alert – this could actually pop up as a Jeopardy Questions in the new September CHD Training Day! You .. never … know!
I will have future Bog Blog posts about “Heading Back to UVic“, “Oldest Computers in the World“, “On Vacation“, “Welcome Back to UVic” in September, and even some updated Pages and more totally random stuff that I seem to … maybe … specialize in! LOL!
CHD Jeopardy Greg’s Playlist II
And … another SPOILER ALERT– a brand new CHD Jeopardy Greg’s Playlist II for September CHD Training too! YAY JEOPARDY!
Thanks to EVERYONE at CHD for participating and your support too! I can’t make CALL Orientations or CHD Jeopardy without all of you and your assistance, support and … rolling eyes!! Thank you!
It occurs to me that … I really like blogging here at OAC! I published a daily blog in the initial months of remote computing and all of a sudden, I had published almost 230 Posts! And a handful of Pages too. What is the difference between a ‘BogPost‘ and a ‘BogPage‘, well, I wrote a Post about that called “Pages and Posts … What Gives?“
And of course, that led me to think about which ones were my … favourites amongst them all! Yeah, not fair, but … I make the rules here! So I will now attempt to list, in no particular order, my “Top 10 Favourite Posts”
I will have one ‘filter’ though … the Post had to have the word “favourite” in it somewhere – preferably the title! So that will sub sort it quite a bit! So, HERE GOES!
“Open Book Exams . . . . or . . . . My Favourite Textbooks“. How can anyone LIKE a textbook much less make it a Favourite? Well, I did! I have kept many of my favourite textbooks throughout the years! Why not! They helped me get through many a tough course and … that I enjoyed them was a side bonus!
“CART2D2 – There is no try! Do or Do Not Young Skywalker!” THIS is a favourite because CART2D2 is a favourite! We are still playing around with this to find some great uses and the next big use will be at our first IN PERSON CHD TRAINING SESSION on May 28th! YAY! There is no try … Do or Do Not!
“Comparing Apples and Oranges but not actually ….. Oranges!” Recycling is HUGE at UVic and I try to recycle as much as I possibly can. And when CHD had quite literally a MOUNTAIN OF TECH show up last summer, CALL was used as a staging area for so much tech! And with so much PACKING AND CARDBOARD TOO! So any chance I get to promote recycling, I take it! And we are in the beginning stages of a new refresh so … warm up your Blue Bins, UVic!
“Throwback Thursday . . . or . . . Language Quotes! (and a bit of nostalgia!)” Who doesn’t enjoy a quick quote as a comeback or as a poster in their office! I probably only have a few stored in my long term PRAM that could be ZAPPED at any moment! So quotes about computers, life and especially Languages, is right up my alley in CALL!
“Bold Italics Comic Sans . . . or Word Processors Through the Years” One of my first ever Computer Science assignments, on punched cards no less, was to write a program to replace 3 words (that my Instructor had set in a paragraph (read from a mainframe!) with 3 other words. THAT WAS VERY HARD! But now, Gmail docs, Office, Pages … all have keyboard SHORTCUTS for Find and Replace! And none of them use punched cards as source code! Only shows that I correctly guessed that my future career … was NOT to be a Programmer!
“I Excel at PowerPoint . . . or Computer Puns and Jokes” What would any Top 10 List be without including a post about my favourite jokes and puns! I never let an opportunity to ‘pun’ go unpunished! And I am usually RESTRAINING myself too!
“CALL CHD JEOPARDY OPUS“. How could I create a Top 10 and NOT include Jeopardy! Okay, a bit of a cheat here as this is actually a PAGE that can be accessed anytime from any of my Posts. AND is always updated to the most recent version of JEOPARDY! In fact, the first IN PERSON CHD Training will be on Saturday, May 28th and I will have a brand new Jeopardy – Greg’s Playlist! And it will have new elements such as Fill-in-the-Blanks, Multiple Choice and even some Scavenger Hunts for prizes!
So many Posts/Pages … so little time! I am not writing at the same pace, but reserve my Posts/Pages for my remote day, unless something comes up.
It might take awhile, here’s to my next 230+ Posts and Pages and Randomness at UVic! YAY!
I discovered a feature of WordPress here at OAC that can create Video Playlists in a post! I have used Photo Galleryquite a bit, once I learned how to use them, and published some of my favourite photographs I have taken at this post, Photography Gallery.
This feature allows you to build a .. Video Playlist .. as the name indicates. Very much like a YouTube Playlist, but for OAC purposes, based on media you have at your own OAC Media Library.
All you have to do is have some video media (MP4/M4V work best) uploaded to your Media Library. Then in your new or already existing Post/Page, click on the “Add Media” button. Under “Actions“, click “Create video playlist“. All the videos that are in your Media library will now appear. Click on the ones you want to be in your playlist and a Blue Checkmark will appear on each one.
Then in the bottom right hand corner, click on “Create a new video playlist“. Then click “Insert video playlist” … et voilà …your video playlist is inserted into your Post!
You can change the order if you want by editing the Video playlist quite easily, if you want to change the order from how you uploaded them.
If the OAC Media Library does not want to upload your video, use Handbrake to convert to either MP4 or M4V. Free software for both Mac and WIN and works like a charm for converting SO MANY FORMATS!
A few more helpful links for creating a Video Playlist at OAC. Not all the features mentioned will work at OAC but there are many hints and images at these sites to help create your Video Playlists at OAC. ENJOY!
The CALL Facility now has dual monitors on each workstation! Well, not all of them. The Instructors stations (#37 & #38) are connected to the VDP and can project to the entire room. And room is needed for laptops and materials at each station.
The idea to install them came from a Poster Session for Linguistics, described in an earlier post! It was so successful that the monitors at HSD (in storage) that were headed to be recycled, a box of HDMI-DVI dongles and some DVI cables were found …. DUAL MONITORS! And at absolutely no cost at all! I joke that I found a penny under a station, so my budget not only came in UNDER budget .. but showed a profit!!!!
There are combinations of Portrait and/or Landscape and relatively easy to switch around. I will survey students throughout the summer to see what combination might be preferable.
Most students are away for the summer and fewer classes are actually scheduled so it will still look like ‘new’ equipment for September!
Thanks to colleagues T, H and G for helping me set them up! Those cable trays are heavy, awkward and filled with .. cables! LOL! And a very green mini-project, saving tech from a landfill too!
I recently found out just where my ‘CALL me Bog‘ blog … ranks here at OAC at UVic in terms of number of Posts and number of Views! NOT that anything I write here is ‘earth shattering’ but … it might just be able to kick up some dust from under an old serial port keyboard some days! LOL!
So, the Top 5 OAC websites at UVic for number of Posts are:
Yeah, okay, comparing Apples and Oranges and … WINDOWS! But all the rest are all Faculties, Departments, Groups, Organizations, etc. so … maybe I am the #1 individual blog! But each of those sites are amazing and I have actively followed My UVic Life and UVic Teach Anywhere. I recommend them all!
CALL Me Bog Page Views
And one more stat is the number of Page Views and with that I rank a bit higher! CALL Me Bog is #7 in Page Views at 13,624!! Always room to improve, grow and get more Views and more Posts and Pages!
The gap to move up is fairly significant so I doubt that I can move up too much with Page Views! But you never know when one of my Posts will go viral at UVic! To Infinity and Beyond! LOL!
And some more mini-updates in CALL – almost done putting in .. TWO MONITORS AT EACH WORKSTATION! Only 5 left to go! I will update the next post, next week with a photo! YAY DUAL MONITORS! Many thanks to my colleagues T, H and G for helping me out and setting them up!
PS: I have a new laptop and monitor and .. added another one too!
Trio Grande
Stay tuned for when all the monitors are installed! .. SOON!
More of a ‘Back to the Future‘ vibe as CALL hosted a Poster Session for Linguistics near the end of the semester! A poster session might sound boring but … never in CALL and this one was QUITE UNIQUE!
7 groups needed to present a digital ‘Poster‘ on a computer, with a monitor that could display in Portrait … literally! So SK (Instructor) came down a day ahead and we literally FLIPPED the new monitors (from last August refresh) in CALL … et voila … PORTRAIT MODE! I had to change the preferences to Portrait but that was a few seconds on each computer!
SK had a sample .png file, copied it to the desktop and it worked perfectly with the basic viewer software on each platform (MAC/WIN)!
All the groups had to do was login with their Netlink credentials, copy the file to the desktop and view it as Full Screen and it worked perfectly!
And I am going to recycle some older monitors (from HSD! Thanks H!), slowly, and try to outfit as many workstations in CALL with DUAL MONITORS! That will be very useful and welcomed by all users of CALL! I will have a mix of Landscape and Landscape/Portrait for students to try!
The CALL Facility will be the first and only drop-in classroom/lab that has both Mac and WIN computers, webcams and dual monitors! And so much much more too!
CALL New Layout
For a quick recap of many new additions and updates, go to this post.
All the new furniture has arrived in CALL! Okay, that is not necessarily ‘new‘ news! But I have repositioned the furniture to allow for better distancing, better sight lines and better viewing of the entire CALL Facility, at least from my perspective. The old layout is after the new layout photos below.
CALL Layout I
CALL Layout II
CALL Layout III
The best feature of this new layout (thanks to rolling desks!) is distancing to make sure everyone has enough room, should they want it. There are lots of open workstations for students and of course, all new computers from last August too.
You might notice that the LARGE rolling whiteboards are not at the back of the room. I have moved them into strategically ‘hidden‘ locations in CALL!
They are still IN CALL, and can be moved anywhere quickly. I just found that some students (not all!) were using them at the back to hide that they were removing their masks and eating in CALL. Masks must be worn at all times and no food or beverages in any classrooms at UVic. There are also 2 smaller rolling whiteboards too!
Thanks to EVERYONE for all your help and support over the past 2+ years. Without my colleagues support and friendship, I have no idea how I would have fared! THANK YOU ALL!
And how about a new feature every so often – a Throwback Link to topics … somewhat close to this one! LOL!
What an exhausting and long year since last August – my last full vacation!
And exhausting … for ALL OF US! I am so fortunate to have been able to work with such amazing and incredible colleagues at The Computer Help Desk over the past … 500+ DAYS! Yes, it has been that long since we started working remotely, late in March of 2020!
Without ALL of their support, humour, leadership, imagination, guidance and every single possible ‘intangible‘ that each and every single one of them, ALL BRING to our Teams meetings, emails, texts, GIFs, Emojis, Jeopardy, Quote Contests, it would have been impossible to accomplish a fraction of what WE ALL DID AS A TEAM!
THANK YOU ALL!
A few key UVic and BC websites for returning to campus in September for everyone!
Clearihue has … SECRETS? Well, maybe not … secrets …. exactly! More like HIDDEN GEMS that many students might not know about! So I will list a few of what I consider to be Clearihue’s Hidden Gems! And … Spoiler Alert … the VERY BEST ONE IS AT THE END! [Double Spoiler – shameless product placement on my part!]
The Computer Help Desk! What, how can CHD be a Hidden Gem? Well, why not ask someone … how to get there! We are located in the A-Wing of the BASEMENT of Clearihue! Simple enough, but only 2 stairwells with twists and turns, or ONLY ONE elevator with MORE twists and turns … will get you to the front counter of The Computer Help Desk!
And did you also know there are TWO MORE satellite CHD locations in Clearihue? At the entrance to all the Computing Classrooms in A-wing, first floor and …. in The CALL Facility too! I’ll bet you didn’t know that!
Computing Classrooms! The actual computing classrooms, 1st Floor of A-Wing … AND in the Lower Floor of A-Wing too!. Many students do not know that there are 4 classrooms (3 WIN / 1 MAC) and a Multi-Media (WIN & MAC) alcove for drop-in use upstairs! AND that there are 3 MORE classrooms and Multimedia computers in the basement! Rooms ARE booked for scheduled classroom use, but are fully drop-in outside of those posted times. And when Covid is over, hopefully we can go back to just dropping into the computer labs!
During Covid, all other rooms in all other buildings are unavailable. We strictly adhere to UVIC Covid guidelines in ALL our Computing Facilities and The Computer Help Desk in Clearihue.
Clearihue A102Clearihue A030 (Click photo for more pictures)
And if you have not been to our newest upgrade classroom in Clearihue A030 in the basement of Clearihue, just down the hallway from The Computer Help Desk CLEA037. It is a really SPIFF CLASSROOM!
BEC Bookable Rooms
And it gets even BETTER! Ever want to book a room for a study session or a group project and nothing is available at the Library? Well, check out BEC and their Rooms that you can book! AND THAT INCLUDES A ROOM DEDICATED TO VR TECHNOLOGY! Okay, so technically, not in Clearihue, but let’s call it a HIDDEN HIDDENGEM, eh! Bet you didn’t know THAT!
And there are a few other locations in Clearihue that might warrant a bit of a scavenger hunt on your part ……
Clearihue Corner (CLE B001b)
And this is a highly guarded, super secret, need to know basis location ….. NOT! But it is just as hard to get to as The Computer Help Desk! Either from the pictured elevator in B-Wing, or the stairwells at the groundlevel corners of B-Wing. Spacious, quiet, comfy sofas and plugins too! There are even recycle bins to put your organics, plastics, refuse and paper! BE GREEN! There are classrooms, office space and meeting rooms, so just remember to be quiet and polite in this section of Clearihue please.
CLE B001bCLE B001b
Clearihue Inner Courtyard
What a great hidden gem .. hidden in plain site! Quiet, accessible from literally every corner, with sun and shade for all! Even some steps to sit on for a group lunch! Hidden in plain site! the photo below is actually available as a Virtual Background for Zoom! Oh, and … remember … no smoking anywhere inside Ring Road!
And, I saved the BEST for the last! And no apologies for .. WORKING IN THE CALL FACILITY! Shameless promotion! CALL has been around since the Fall of 1989 … and so have I! I have given countless demos, orientations, workshops, projects and assistance to countless students, staff, faculty and guests. And I am amazed each year how many people DO NOT KNOW WE EXIST! I have done many CALL OAC posts and I have a PAGE that is always available no matter what Post you are reading, listing all the Pages too. It is only current to January of 2020 … because … well … Covid. As soon as we are back, I will update absolutely EVERYTHING!
The CALL Facility CLE A025
What is VERY exciting is that just after everyone started to work from home .. NEW FURNITURE ARRIVED IN THE CALL FACILITY! I wrote a post about it here and a few of the photos are below! Click here to see all the new furniture!
New CALL FurnitureNew CALL Furniture
And could it get BETTER? YES, OF COURSE!
At the back of CALL are 2 new large screen monitors and desk space for 6 people at each one! Want to preview your group project in PowerPoint? Want to watch a movie for class? Want to see your Word document SUPER SIZED? Then use this area!
CALL Facility Large ScreensCALL Facility Large Screens
And CALL has USB headsets, optical media, Dual-Boot computers, study space and … The Computer Help Desk BUILT IN TOO! The CALL Facility is the LARGEST COMPUTING CLASSROOM ON CAMPUS!! And yeah, I have been working there since 1989 and it is SO MUCH FUN! Great learning environment and best of all … GREAT UVic STUDENTS AND FANTASTIC COLLEAGUES AT THE HELP DESK!
True story – a student wandered into CALL one day, asking if she could find a computer to charge her iPhone. I said sure, she could use one of the iMacs for either WIN or MAC or just to charge! She asked what ‘this place‘ was. I then asked her what her degree/major was. She replied ‘Linguistics and Italian’. I told her that CALL was HER lab to use, not only for her courses, but at any time she wanted!
And then she said that she was ABOUT TO GRADUATE AND HER PROFS HAD NEVER TOLD HER ABOUT THE CALL FACILITY!
That definitely qualifes The CALL Facility as a Hidden Gem!
I hope you investigate and look for all these Hidden Gems in Clearihue!
The Computer Help Desk – 3 locations in Clearihue
Computing Classrooms – Upstairs and Down
Clearihue Corner – So quiet
Inner Courtyard – Hiding in Plain Sight
The CALL Facility – You can check out, but you can never leave
less than a dozen slides! Okay, that was hard to do, to keep it THAT short, but I will still keep some Star Trek and Easter Egg elements in there … the usual for this Bog Blog! For a quick sneak peek, but only the working/BETA version, you can download it here in PDF format, or watch it at YouTube in video format! I even kept it shorter than the Star Trek: Strange New Worlds trailer ! But it will still probably change and be even better than it is right now! YAY!
