Now, here we are at the beginning of the new semester. How time flies! In expectation of this new semester, this week’s Teaching Tip includes a handful of items to check off your list as you prepare your courses for the first day of class.
Free Online Tools: Digital files come into our lives from many directions: colleagues, students, friends, etc. Everyone has their preferred method of file creation, and the end product may not be a file type we want or are able to read or use. And while some files are pretty easy to convert on our own (.doc to .pdf, for example), there are other types of files for which it’s easier to use an online conversion tool.
Whether you’re designing an all new course or revising and preparing an existing course for a new semester, it’s a lot of work. And work equals time, right? Yes, but that we’re not all necessarily organizing our to-do lists in the most useful way.
Last week we discussed the gold standard of online learning experience design: Your course is complete prior to students ever sitting in their virtual seats. Your intended outcomes are firmly in your sights and you can now devote time during the semester to feedback, assessment, and mentoring. Your solid design and your consistent presence work together to achieve everyone’s educational dreams.
One of the most common questions I hear is, “how much time is it going to take to develop my online course?' This question reminds me of similar questions such as, “How long does it take to build a house?' and “How long does it take to make dinner?' The answers to these, of course, are, “it depends.'
Dr. Nicole Cundiff and Janene McMahan travelled to the Organizational Behavior Teaching Conference 2015 in La Verne, California. The session, Building Collaborative Community Development Tools, was met with interest with one faculty member wanting Nicole to consider another target audience, non-profits and the boards of nonprofit organizations, for this app. The session description was: A collaborative application […]
If you’re a longtime Windows user, you might be wishing for a visual folder structure view of your course. You may be more familiar with a “tree' structure where you see folders with a “+' sign indicating something in the folder. When you click on the folder icon that is right above the course name, a new window will open that allows you to navigate quickly to a nested tree structure where titles are links. This option is also available for students.
Course development is an ever-evolving process. We tweak and adjust for many reasons. Maybe we decide an activity didn’t quite work the way we intended, or we discover new content to share with students. Early planning can make the revision process more efficient and less stressful.
You read an article, hear a story or see a show that inspires you to work a new type of assignment or exercise into your course. You decide on an idea. It sounds interesting and you think your students will respond well to it. You spend hours researching and outlining your new exercise. You anticipate its implementation with excitement and hope. The day comes. And then...
Got a minute? That’s how long it takes to set up Screencastify if the Chrome web browser is installed on your computer. As an instructor, you are the content expert. Sometimes it is hard to explain a concept. If you could just show your students what you mean it would be so easy! Using Screencastify is one more way you can do that.
‘Informal learning’ can be described as the learning process that takes place outside the educational institution. It is spontaneous, self-directed, not curriculum-based or qualification oriented and is accidental in nature.1 For example, clicking through on a Facebook link out of curiosity and learning about something as a result.
The Blackboard Learn application for iOS has been available for quite a while. The application is very student friendly and is a great option for accessing course material and posting to the discussion board using a mobile device. The Blackboard Grader application is now available (iOS iPad only) and should prove to be a great advantage for instructors.