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Author: Janice Florent

Technology Coordinator in the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Faculty Development at Xavier University of Louisiana

About Janice Florent

Technology Coordinator in the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Faculty Development at Xavier University of Louisiana

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Published on 1 Comment on Ideas to Keep Your Online Course Interesting

by Janice Florent

The underlying theme for last year’s Sloan Consortium International Symposium on Emerging Technologies for Online Learning (ET4Online) was on how instructors can refresh their online course to keep it interesting for students.

In an Online Colleges blog post about the symposium, Dr. Melissa Venable writes,

The primary goal of keeping an online course current or fresh is improving the experience and environment for all involved. This effort can include content and assignments, as well as social interaction and technology upgrades, and it doesn’t have to mean a large-scale initiative. Small changes and modifications can make a positive difference for both students and instructors.

Dr. Venable posted a few ideas from the symposium to help instructors refresh their online course. Those ideas are:

Threaded Discussions

  • Include student generated discussion questions.
  • Vary your comments and replies.
  • Use the Content Editor to format a text-based response (e.g., bold and italics, bullets) and add embedded links, images, and multimedia.

Multimedia Options

  • Build a community with audio.
  • Increase your presence with video.
  • Use the Content Editor…MORE! Audio and video options are integrated into the Content Editor, allowing you and your students to record from within the course.

Assignments and Activities

  • Consider assignments that foster student interaction with each other.
  • Give students choices for assignment completion (i.e., choosing between writing a paper and creating a video.)
  • Integrate “active learning" breaks.

If you are interested in getting more information about refreshing your online course, read Dr. Venable's “9 Ideas to Keep Your Online Course Interesting” blog post.

Photo Credit: "bulbs-light bulbs-idea" by geralt from Pixabay

Published on Leave a comment on Create a Sense of Community for Online Learners

by Janice Florent

Online instructors must find new ways to engage their students and create a sense of community in a virtual world. Simple participation in an online course is not enough to create and sustain an online learning community.

How do you engage your students and inspire them to engage one another? In a THE Journal article, Chris Riedel, shared tips he got from the FETC conference to help educators create a sense of community online. Those tips are:

Create a compelling first impression - use tools like a smart phone, a webcam, or iMovie to build a memorable introduction to the course and course material. This is a great way to break the ice.
Encourage students to create their own spaces for learning - these include blogs, wikis, social media and other outlets.
Connect to students in multiple ways - find digital spaces students are comfortable with and let them take control.
Create support groups - create "support groups" of students who can be there for one another and provide an additional mechanism for learning.
Video trumps text - use video to communicate with students and encourage students to use video to connect with each other.
Audio trumps text - there is value in using voice; audio can add real value to your interactions with students and their interactions with each other.
Be a connector first, a content expert second - find guest speakers to add context and value to what is being learned in the class setting.
Play together - give students the freedom to explore new things and play with new ideas and technologies.
Define the expectations of the community - every class should have to answer two questions:

  • What did you learn from others?
  • What did you contribute to the learning of others?

While the focus of THE Journal website is on informing and educating K-12 teachers and administrators, Chris' tips for creating a sense of community for online learners are relevant for any online instructor. For more information read his “9 Tips for Creating a Sense of Community for Distance Learners” article.

Published on Leave a comment on Tips for Mouth-watering eLearning

by Janice Florent

In a recent 360training.com blog post Shazia Wajid writes,

Have you cooked up a delectable feast of content for your elearning course? It’s time to take a taste and analyze it. How is the pace of your course? Is it “well-spiced” with things that engage and delight—but not overloaded with elements fighting for attention? Does it leave your learners feeling satisfied after they consume it?

There are many ways to improve your eLearning content. Take a step back and consider Shazia’s five tips to fine-tune your eLearning content before serving it up to learners.

Visual appeal: Images can play an important role in learning, either as a garnish to set the mood or as the primary element served up on a given page. An image can break up the monotony of “text only” pages.
Bite-size: Split content in small pieces or “chunks.” When content is divided into small chunks (also referred to as microlectures), learners find it easier to understand.
Flavor and nourishment: Keep learners focused by asking questions, either rhetorical or integrated into activities. Involve learners with compelling stories. Grab their attention by using real-life examples and use expressive words with which the learner can relate.
Is there a fly in the soup? While writing and reviewing content, always double-check for spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes.
Is everything else as it should be? Copy and paste is convenient but it can be the source of unexpected formatting errors. Always preview your content after you copy and paste. If you’ve copied content from another course that has links to external websites, verify those external links are still working.

If you take these tips into consideration when designing your eLearning course, you will be well on your way towards developing a course learners will find tempting and mouth-watering!

For more information on Shazia’s tips read her “Top 5 Tips for Mouth-watering eLearning” blog post.

Published on Leave a comment on Bb Tip #137: Turnitin – Voice Comments

The ability for an instructor to leave a personal voice comment is a powerful tool for providing feedback to students.

image showing Turnitin voice comments

Turnitin GradeMark has a feature that lets instructors add a voice comment to a student’s paper. With just a few clicks, instructors can quickly record a detailed message of up to 3 minutes in length and attach it to the student’s paper. Instructors can use the orally recorded feedback as a supplement to written comments.

Want more information?

Step-by-step instructions for voice comments are available [Video]
How to use Turnitin GradeMark (PDF) (Interactive Tutorial)
Explore Blackboard’s On Demand Learning Center.
Check out help for instructors at help.blackboard.com.
Try these Blackboard How-To documents.
Visit the Blackboard FAQs for additional blackboard information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

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Published on 2 Comments on Bb Tip #136: Merging Courses

Blackboard has a Section Merge Tool that allows faculty to combine two or more courses into a single course. Faculty do not have to make a request to the Information Technology Center to merge their courses.

Using the Section Merge Tool to combine courses can be useful when you are teaching multiple sections of the same course or when you are teaching a course that is cross-listed. Merging courses allows you to have all the students in a single Blackboard course which can be useful for collaborative work. Merging courses reduces the number of courses an instructor has to manage within Blackboard, especially when each section has identical content.

Once you’ve merged courses you can upload your course content and assignments into the merged course; communicate with the students in the merged course; setup collaborative course work; and have one gradebook for the merged course. You can create groups within your merged course that correspond to the original course sections. This way you can target a particular course section (group) of students for specific things (e.g. send email to a specific group, make content available to specific group, enter/view gradebook entries for a specific group, etc.)

NOTE: Merging of courses is typically done at the start of the semester before content is added and before students submit course work. You should wait to merge courses if there is a possibility that there will be last minute changes to instructor course section assignments. You can request a Master Course Shell to build your course and then transfer the content into your merged course.

You should carefully consider whether merging courses is right for you. Some disadvantages to merging courses are:

  • Course enrollments for the merged courses will be combined which can make grading student work a challenge. You can use Smart Views to make grading easier.
  • If you decide you want to unmerge courses after students have submitted course work, student work and grades will be lost. Only student enrollments are retained when you unmerge courses.

Follow these steps to do it.

In order to merge courses you must be listed as the instructor for each of the courses.

  1. Login to Blackboard and click on the [Section Merge] tab.
  2. Click on [Click Here to Create and Manage Merged Courses] on the Section Merge Tool page.
  3. Click on [Setup New Merged Course] on the Manage Merged Courses page.
  4. Carefully select ALL courses you want to be merged (combined) from the list and click [Submit].
  5. On the Select Existing Course page, select the course you want to be the merged (combined) course (i.e. the course where you want all enrolled students to be and where you want to upload course contents). Click [Submit].
  6. You should see a green confirmation bar indicating the merge was successful. Only the merged course name will appear in the list of courses for both the instructor and enrolled students. 

Want more information?

Step-by-step instructions are available [PDF].
Explore Blackboard’s On Demand Learning Center.
Check out help for instructors at help.blackboard.com.
Try these Blackboard How-To documents.
Visit the Blackboard FAQs for additional blackboard information
or schedule a one-on-one session, email, or
call Janice Florent: (504) 520-7418.

Published on Leave a comment on Office Hours Alternative

by Janice Florent

Faculty often report that most students do not take advantage of office hours. Usually the students who do take advantage of office hours are not the ones who need the most help. Consequently some faculty have come up with alternative offices hours to encourage students to seek help.

In a recent faculty focus article, Dr. Maryellen Weimer wrote about two professors who reformatted their office hours into something they called "course centers." The course centers are 1-2 hour blocks of time faculty spend in an unoccupied classroom. Students can come and go as they please and work on whatever they want during that time. If students want help, they can ask for assistance. Otherwise the faculty member just floats around the room.

The faculty wanted to create an environment in the course centers in which students felt like they were just spending time studying, rather than explicitly getting help; where students felt welcome getting together with other students for a study session; and where they felt no pressure to have a set of questions ready to ask the instructor.

It is important to note that the "course centers" did not replace traditional office hours, they supplemented them.

Additionally, Dr. Weimer compiled the following suggestions from the comments made in response to her “Why Students Don’t Attend Office Hours” article:

Schedule office hours when they’re convenient – for both the faculty member and the students.
Require a visit, preferably early in the course - one reader shared that she invites each student with a personal note (staggering the notes so she’s not overwhelmed). Those who don’t show for a meeting get a “missed you” note. Students make the choice albeit under conditions that make it harder to not show up.
Reward those who come with points - make the visit worth something; those who use this approach recommend just a small amount of points.
Meet someplace other than the office - suggestions included “student spaces” like the student center or the campus cafeteria.

For more information read Dr. Weimer’s "Office Hours Alternative Resonates with Students" and "Office Hours Redux" articles.

Published on Leave a comment on How to Fight Plagiarism in Your Classes

by Janice Florent

plagiarism word cloud image

With the introduction of the internet, copying someone else’s work is a lot easier. How widespread is the problem? A 2011-2012 report published by iParadigms (makers of Turnitin) reported the top ten sites for matched content were social networking & content sharing, paper mills & cheat sites, homework & academic, and Wikipedia.

A Turnitin report of matched sources from the 2014-2015 academic year here at XU shows that of the 2,800 submitted papers, 22% had a match percent of 25% or above.

Though the internet is often a big source for plagiarism, it also offers solutions such as Turnitin and SafeAssign. Neither of which is foolproof.

In a recent edudemic article, Leigh Ann Whittle wrote,

Plagiarism is an ongoing problem in education, but we don’t have to accept it as part of classroom life. Educating ourselves and our students on the perils of plagiarism and carefully designing our assignments can alleviate some issues associated with this ever growing problem.

Leigh Ann goes on to offer the following suggestions to fight plagiarism:

How to detect plagiarism

  1. Detect unusual writing behavior
  2. Do snippet Google searches
  3. Use a plagiarism detection service (like Turnitin and SafeAssign)

How to stop plagiarism

  1. Make assignments that live in the moment
  2. Get creative with assignments
  3. Establish staggered project deadlines
  4. Emphasize the importance of citations

How to prevent plagiarism

  1. Open up a dialogue
  2. Be clear about expectations
  3. Have students examine their own work
  4. Offer support

You can read more in Leigh Ann’s article “How to Fight Plagiarism in Your Classroom.”

We have Turnitin (plagiarism detection tool) here at Xavier. If you are interested in using Turnitin in your classes, consider attending these upcoming workshops.

Blackboard: Using Turnitin (Plagiarism Detection Tool)
Monday, May 25, 10:00 - 11:15 am
Blackboard: Using Turnitin for Peer Review
Monday, May 25, 1:30-3:00 pm

Click on the links for more information about the workshops (including where to RSVP).

Image credit: "Staff and student perceptions of plagiarism" by jobadge | CC BY-NC 2.0

Published on Leave a comment on Online Group Work

by Janice Florent

Most students have mixed feelings about group work and usually moan and groan when they find out they are required to work on a group assignment. This is also true for students taking online classes. Group work is more challenging for online students because they may have to work with peers in different time zones, use different technologies for online collaboration, and communicate in ways that can make it difficult to understand someone’s personality or tone.

Many students cite lack of cooperation, work equity and dependency on others as major factors in disliking group work. Ironically, this is precisely why group work is essential for learning.

Online Group Projects — Yikes! You can hear the moans and groans of students echoing through your computer monitors as you start the first week of your online course. The reasons for requiring a group project vary from one discipline to another, but there are educational and career motives for requiring group projects.

Steven Johnson’s "Where good ideas come from" video gives an excellent explanation as to why group work is important.

Successful online group collaborative assignments can be a challenge in an online course. In a recent Faculty Focus article, Gregory Wells, instructional designer at Colorado State University, provided a few suggestions for improving online group work assignments. Those suggestions are:

Define the Project - the project should be integrated into the course objectives and not be viewed as an extra assignment or busy work.
Establish Milestones - the project should include specific milestones during the course.
Use the Learning Management System (Blackboard) - offer private group discussion areas, chat areas, and other collaboration tools that will encourage both communication and participation.
Simplify and Clarify Grading - it is imperative that you establish clear grading expectations for the group project.
Provide Encouragement - it is important to encourage and communicate the specific details of the project. Instructors can not assume students have the knowledge, competencies and skills necessary to engage in group work. They must prepare students for the obstacles they may face.

Following Gregory’s suggestions will not eliminate all of the potential issues that come into play with online group work, but these suggestions will certainly minimize the issues and can turn those moans and groans into excited and energized students that understand the importance of group work.

For more information on Gregory’s suggestions, read his article, “Five Steps to Improving Online Group Work Assignments.”

Additionally, you may find helpful information in these online group work resources:

Published on Leave a comment on Tips to Caffeinate Your Presentations

by Janice Florent

In his book “Brain Rules”, John Medina, cognitive psychologist and University of Washington professor, suggests the time limit of an audience before zoning out is about ten minutes. Given this short attention span, what can you do to keep an audience engaged?

To address this problem, some educators are beginning to take this timing to heart, stopping to give students the opportunity to think-pair-share, answer questions, discuss what they just learned or project what's coming next.

In a recent article, Dr. Lynell Burmark, winner of Stanford University’s prestigious Walter Gores Award for Excellence in Teaching, lists three tips to enhance presentations. One tip is the use of pictures, like the well-known poster above, as a way to ask questions. For example, toward the end of a class period, project the image and then assign as homework to find out everything students can about it, including who the woman was and what she represents in the image.

Another tip is to compare and contrast. Display (and annotate) images side-by-side while small groups of students discuss those similarities and differences.

Lastly, Dr. Burmark suggests you take video breaks. These breaks can be used to show illustrative videos.

For more information, read Dr. Burmark's article, “3 Tips to Caffeinate Teacher and Student Presentations.”

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Published on 1 Comment on Synchronous vs Asynchronous eLearning
Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Classes

One decision to be made when developing an online course is the method of delivery. The method of delivery can be synchronous or asynchronous. Synchronous learning takes place in a real-time environment, while asynchronous learning takes place at the convenience of the learner.

In a recent Architela blog post, the author wrote,

It seems like a logical progression to turn traditional classroom learning into online learning by simply replicating the experience through the use of an online classroom. However reliance on synchronous delivery has advantages but also many limitations and disadvantages.

The author went on to list advantages and disadvantages of both synchronous and asynchronous course delivery and concluded with,

Choosing which mode of delivery to use should be based on the most efficacious activities for promoting learning, which in turn depend on the learning goals and objectives.

Ideally, online courses should include both synchronous and asynchronous learning activities. This allows students to benefit from the different delivery formats regardless of their schedules or preferred learning methods. This approach provides students with access to immediate help if needed, while still giving them the ability to learn at their own pace.

You can read more in the Synchronous versus Asynchronous Learning blog post at architela.com.

Additionally, if you are interested in offering virtual classes and/or virtual office hours, consider attending these upcoming Blackboard Collaborate workshops:

Blackboard Collaborate: Web Conferencing Basics
Tuesday, May 26, 1:00 - 2:30 pm
Blackboard Collaborate: Beyond the Basics
Friday, May 29, 10:00 - 11:30 am

Click on the links for more information about the workshops (including where to RSVP).