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Published on 1 Comment on Social Media Tools for Teaching and Learning

by Janice Florent

Social media has evolved into more than a simple tool to stay in touch with friends or to share vacation pictures. Educators are finding interesting ways to use social media in their teaching and learning. Benefits to using social media in teaching and learning include putting concepts into context, keeping course content up-to-date, and fostering a sense of community both in and out of the classroom.

Facebook and Twitter may be ubiquitous, but there are many other social media tools out there that can enhance teaching and learning.

Facebook and Twitter are social media tools that are familiar to most people. Here are a few other social media tools that are being used in education:

You can read more about how three educators are using these social media tools in the Campus Technology article, 6 Alternative Social Media Tools for Teaching and Learning.

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Published on 1 Comment on Bb Tip #130: Lock Discussion Threads

If you setup a discussion forum with date and time restrictions, once the scheduled available time has passed the forum becomes unavailable and disappears from the student's view. If you would like students to be able to read posts once the date restriction has past but not be able to submit new posts, you can "lock" the discussion thread to prevent new posts. Students may read the threads but not make any additions or modifications.

image showing how to lock db thread

Follow these steps to do it.

To lock discussion board threads, you should:

  1. Open the Forum in the Discussion Board.
  2. Select the threads you want to lock (you can select all threads by checking the box to the left of “Date” in the header).
  3. Click the [Thread Actions] menu button and choose [Lock] from the list. Verify the status under the discussion board shows "Locked".
  4. Once you have successfully locked the thread, remember to go back and edit the forum to remove the date and time restrictions so that the students can see the threads.

Want more information?

Step-by-step instructions are available [PDF].
Drip-feeding course contents to students.
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 Using QR Codes in Education

by Janice Florent

QR (QR being short for Quick Response) codes were first created in 1994 by Toyota to track vehicles in manufacturing using a small barcode that allowed for high-speed component scanning. Although initially used for tracking parts in vehicle manufacturing, QR code technology is experiencing a revival — but not in the automotive industry. The small, square codes are ubiquitous, showing up on everything from billboards and flyers to food packaging.

image of a QR code

QR codes allow people to connect to video, audio, pictures, web sites and more by linking the individual to content on any supported smart phone or with a desktop reader. With the increasing use of mobile technology, QR codes are becoming more common in business and educational settings. The possibilities for their use are endless, and many translate into the classroom, offering a fun and exciting way for students to use technology for learning. If you are interested in how you might utilize QR codes in teaching and learning, read more in this article 50 Great Ways to Use QR Codes in the College Classroom.

Also, here is a link to my Prezi from a past CAT workshop on Educational Uses for QR Codes.

Are you using QR codes? If so, we would like to hear about it. Please feel free to leave a comment telling us how you are using QR codes in your teaching and learning.

Published on Leave a comment on Bb Tip #129: Course Calendar

You can use the course calendar to provide students with dates for course-related events. Instructors can create events on their respective course calendars. Everyone who is enrolled in the course will see the course-related events in their calendar.

The calendar displays a consolidated view of all institution, course, organization, and personal calendar events. You can view events by day, week, or month. Color coding makes it easy to distinguish which course each event is tied to.

image of a Blackboard calendar

Common calendar entries include:

  • Instructor office hours
  • Due dates for assignments
  • Exams
  • Guest speakers
  • Meetings

Course items with due dates are automatically created in the course calendar. If an instructor edits an item to change the due date, the calendar gets updated as well.

Drag and drop works in the calendar. Instructors can drag and drop an item onto a new date to change the due date.

As a shortcut to view, edit, or grade attempts for an item, instructors can simply click on the item in the calendar.

You cannot import external calendars into Blackboard. However, you can import your Bb Learn calendar into an external calendar application (i.e., Google Calendar, iCal).

Follow these steps to do it.

To create a new event on the course calendar:

  1. On the calendar, click the plus (+) to create a new event or click a specific date to create an event.
  2. Type the New Event Name.
  3. Select the course calendar to associate the event to.
  4. Select the Start and End times.
  5. Type the Event Description.
  6. Click [Save].

To add a course item with a due date to the course calendar:

When you create items with due dates, the calendar event automatically appears on the course calendar. Content items with adaptive release and availability rules are shown on the calendar at the appropriate time, ensuring that the release of an item on the course calendar is in sync with the availability rules you set.

To edit or delete an event:

Click the event to edit or delete it. OR

Click and drag the event to another date in the main view (or on the smaller monthly view) to change the due date of the event. The time of the event and calendar it is associated with remain the same.

If the event is a course item that has date availability rules set, you should edit the item to adjust the availability dates.

Want more information?

Working with the Calendar
Using the Blackboard Calendar (video)
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 It’s Carnival Time–So Let’s Talk Avatars

by Karen Nichols

Did you experiment with avatars when they were the latest craze some years ago? Maybe you created one (or more) to enjoy gaming experiences such as Second Life. Mardi Gras is a great time to re-visit the use of avatars in education because, like masking for carnival, avatars can provide you and your students with opportunities for role-playing as well as creating conversations and presentations as well as providing information. Anecdotally, my students used to tell me that if I send them a message in the form of an avatar, they'll actually open it and listen to it because they're fun and different and not boring like words on a page. As a French instructor, I would ask the students to create an avatar that speaks French or have them use the avatar to explain a cultural event we were learning.

Voki is the most popular free site for education, although there is a paid version of it too. It belongs to the company that offers a premium range of services for monthly fees called Site Pal.

If you would like to use simple avatars to dress up an email or announcement to your students or have the students create an avatar for a particular assignment, then you can start with the free site, Voki. Voki will allow you to create one-time avatars and messages without signing up for an account. Here are the directions:

1. Once on Voki.com, click on the Create tab, top left of the page.

2. Choose Customize your Character and then play around a bit to check out the facial features, clothing, etc.  When finished, click the small green Done tab at the bottom right corner.

3. Next choose Give it a Voice.  You'll see a variety of options from calling in or recording your text so that the voki will have your voice, to typing a message and choosing one of the voices already programmed.  Note that if you type the text and choose a voice, there will be no emotion and some of the words may not be pronounced as you wish.  This is the choice I made for the little voki below so that you could hear what I'm explaining.  I also had to spell phonetically, Happy Mardi Grah, so that the US voice would not pronounce the "s".  Remember to click the green Done tab at the bottom right corner.

4. Choose a background next.

5.  Choose a player, the frame for the voki with the buttons the receivers will click on.

6.  Happy with your voki?  Click publish and name it.  When you click "publish" you receive the option to email a friend, link to it via the website, or copy the code to embed the voki as I did below.

http://www.voki.com/pickup.php?scid=11002983&height=267&width=200

Site Pal, the premium site intended for the corporate world, is much more robust and not only offers simple avatars like Voki, but other ways to use them. My colleague who teaches Spanish and I have experimented with Artificial Intelligence in the form of a Graduate Assistant avatar. You may have seen something similar if you shop online catalogs. Our Grad Assistant was available with a click on any page in the language course. She popped up and asked how she could help. The student would type in a question, and if we had programmed in an answer for it, she would explain it to them. We used the idea of a Graduate Assistant, but you could design an avatar that's YOU answering their questions, and thus be available for your students 24/7! Instead of masking as someone or something different for Mardi Gras, here you would be creating a "virtual you" who can keep working as you try to sleep or grade or research. Sound intriguing? If so, contact me and let's talk avatars!

Published on Leave a comment on Add Voice Narration to PowerPoint Slides

by Janice Florent

Did you know that you can add voiceovers (recorded narrations) to PowerPoint presentations? Adding recorded narrations to PowerPoint presentations is a useful feature. Benefits of adding recorded narrations to PowerPoint presentations include:

  • Presentations with voiceovers can be played back by students at their convenience.
  • Students can review the presentation over and over again until they grasp the content.

It’s not difficult to add voiceovers to PowerPoint presentations. Your computer must be equipped with a sound card, microphone, and speakers for you to record and hear the voiceovers.

Kelly Walsh, of EmergingEdTech.com, created this 3-minute Teaching with Tech Tip: Voice Over PowerPoint 2010 video that explains how to do it.

The eLearning Department at Champlain College posted some tips for recording narration into PowerPoint that you may find helpful. Additionally, you can find further explanation on setting and using slide timings at Microsoft's website.

Caution: Adding voiceovers can significantly increase the size of your PowerPoint presentation. If you have a long presentation with a lot of recorded narration, it may take a little while for students to download the file.

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Published on 1 Comment on Bb Tip #128: Drip-Feeding

"Drip-feeding" is a term you will likely hear in association with online and hybrid learning. While the term "drip-feeding" is new to many people, most are familiar with the concept.

faucet with water dripping slowing

Drip-feeding is "scheduled lesson delivery." Essentially, professors can determine when they want certain content in their courses to become available. Professors can configure their course content and then set-up the sequential delivery of that content. Once set-up, the Learning Management System (LMS) will auto-drip the content to students without any more work by the professor.

The “Date and Time Restrictions” in Blackboard control when items are available to students. Utilizing date/time restrictions allow faculty to create content at a time that is convenient to them and make it visible to students at the appropriate time. This can be very handy because faculty can set-up their course content well in advance of when they want it to be available to their students. For example, create all the course content at the beginning of the semester, set the date/time restrictions, and then let Blackboard auto-drip the content.

Some professors may be hesitant to set date/time restrictions for the entire semester because assignment dates/times may need to be adjusted as the semester progresses. This means, the professor would have to go into the content items to adjust the dates/times when necessary. The Date Management tool can simplify this process. The Date Management tool allows professors to easily change due dates, availability dates, and adaptive release dates at one time (all on one page). The Date Management tool will save professors some time as they will not have to edit each individual item to adjust the dates/times. My Bb Tip #125: Date Management blog post explains how to use this tool.

Drip-feeding course content will not work for every situation. However, if you think it can work for you, give it a try.

Follow these steps to do it.

To set Date and Time Restrictions, you should:

  1. Log in to Blackboard and access the relevant area of your course.
  2. Add new content or edit existing content.
  3. In the Options section, you will find the option to Select Date and Time Restrictions. Select the availability options you require: Display After, Display Until or both.

    4. navigation

  4. Use the date picker to select the date you want the content to be available.
    5. navigation
  5. Use the time picker to select the time you want the content to be available.
    6. navigation
  6. Click [Submit] to save the changes.

Want more information?

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.

Photo credit: work found at ndbutter / CC BY NC-ND 2.0

Published on Leave a comment on Avoid Death by PowerPoint

by Janice Florent

Nowadays more classrooms (virtual and face-to-face) have the ability to project and share a variety of computer-based materials. One of the most common methods of sharing information with students is to use PowerPoint presentations. Although PowerPoint can be a powerful teaching tool, it has been soundly criticized for producing boring presentations, full of endless content that fails to show context and relationships between ideas. This tendency of PowerPoint obviously works against what professors should strive for: stimulating students to connect ideas and engage in critical thinking.

I came across these tips in an Atomic Learning blog post that may help to resuscitate PowerPoint presentations:

  • Mix up your media – don’t rely solely on text or clipart, consider other media types (e.g. photos, video clips, music)
  • Use eye-catching graphics/software - an impactful visual experience can be created when you use eye-catching software and graphics
  • Send content ahead of time - consider "flipping" your presentation
  • Intersperse content with discussion, group exercises, and reflection time

If these tips have piqued your interest, you can read more in the article, 6 Ways to Avoid Death by PowerPoint.

Published on Leave a comment on CAT News: January 2015

CAT XX 1994-2014 Sustainability

Celebrating Twenty Years

This spring, the Center for the Advancement of Teaching (CAT) continues to mark its 20th anniversary year. Since its inception in 1994, CAT has existed to fulfill its mission “to advance the art and science of teaching and learning” and has enjoyed broad faculty participation in its services and activities. In celebration of its 20th anniversary, CAT staff have planned a series of special events, including a gala on February 3rd, at which we will recognize faculty who have served over the years, and announce our new plans and initiatives for the future.

CAT has been able to sustain its initiatives and offerings over two decades by evolving with the times to meet faculty needs. In celebration of this success, CAT staff have organized their offerings around the theme of Sustainability — exploring issues related to sustainability in the curriculum as well as sustaining the whole faculty member across all areas of responsibility.

Over the past several months, CAT has explored ways to expand its services (and ultimately its mission) in supporting the faculty member in all areas of responsibility – Teaching, Scholarship, and Service – utilizing a teacher-scholar model based on comprehensive faculty development. To this end, CAT put together a team with a representative from each Division to explore an expansion of its mission/values/programs that takes a holistic approach to developing the faculty member. The report from this group proposes some bold changes for CAT and is currently under consideration by the Vice President for Academic Affairs.

Programming

In the fall we organized our Eighth Annual Fall Faculty Book Club. In keeping with our Sustainability theme, members discussed Earth in Mind: On Education, Environment, and the Human Prospect by David W. Orr.

CAT has a full calendar of activities scheduled for the spring semester that can be viewed on our website. We are offering a slate of workshops this semester on topics including mentoring, teaching with technology, developing a personal vision and many others.

As part of our continuing series, "Contemplation & Conversation," CAT is sponsoring a series of meetings in the Meditation Room of the St. Katharine Drexel Chapel. These sessions are intended to support faculty well-being and open up a dialog about contemplative pedagogy.

Programs for New Faculty

In the fall, we welcomed twelve new faculty members to Xavier University. Throughout the academic year, we host monthly brown bags for this group, discussing topics such as teaching at an HBCU, getting grants, and creating effective assignments. The New Faculty mentoring program is also underway. Dr. Stassi DiMaggio (Chemistry) continues to serve as faculty in residence, working closely with new faculty in their transition to Xavier's culture of excellence in teaching, scholarship, service and collegiality.

Grants

The Center for the Advancement of Teaching is honored to receive a $500,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon foundation. The grant, entitled CAT Turns XX: Sustainability for Teachers-Scholars, will provide continued support for our Faculty Communities of Teaching Scholars initiative as well as establish a Contemplative Pedagogy Working Group. The grant will also support new scholarship-related initiatives offered through CAT.

In early January, CAT submitted a proposal for a $944,000 Cyberlearning and Future Technologies grant to the National Science Foundation.

Staff News

Mr. Bart Everson (Media Artist, CAT) attended the annual conference of the International Digital Media and Arts Association at Utah Valley University in November.

Ms. Janice Florent (Technology Coordinator, CAT) attended the Bb World, UB Tech, and InfoComm conferences this past summer.

Dr. Elizabeth Yost Hammer (Director, CAT) led a workshop on Active Learning and participated in a panel on Trends in Higher Education at the University of the Andes in Bogota, Columbia.

Dr. Karen Nichols (Distance Education Coordinator) attended for the first time the annual POD (Professional and Organizational Development Network in Higher Education) conference in Dallas in October.

Published on Leave a comment on Bb Tip #127: Course-to-Course Navigation

It is not necessary to go to the Home page or Courses tab to access your other Blackboard courses. The course-to-course navigation feature allows you to quickly move from one course to another.

Follow these steps to do it.

Click on the course-to-course navigation arrow and select the course you want to go to.

navigation

Note: When selecting a course using course-to-course navigation, you will land in the same content area or course tool when you enter the selected course. For example, if you are in the Grade Center of a course and use course-to-course navigation to enter another course you will land in the Grade Center of the selected course. If you switch to a course that does not contain the same tool or task, the page set as the course entry point will appear.

Want more information?

Explore Blackboard’s On Demand Learning Center.
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.