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by Karen Nichols

In the September 8, 2014 issue of Faculty Focus, Amy Erickson and Catz Neset offer in their article "Building Community and Creating Relevance in the Online Classroom," several best practices for creating video announcements to post in Blackboard (or whatever Learning Management System you may be using).

In addition to your students having more exposure to you as a "real" person speaking to them, video announcements can also be a presentation of material or virtual tour of the week's lesson, narrated by you.

Here is the authors' formula for success:

  • Provide an introduction each week and share your availability
  • Give feedback and answer questions from the previous week
  • Showcase exceptional student work from the previous week
  • Highlight the objectives of the coming week and any special preparation or required resources
  • Connect your coursework to relevant current events
  • **I would add to this list:  Keep in mind that students may be using mobile devices to access Blackboard so you'll want to create your video announcement to be easily viewed on a smartphone or ipad

Video announcements are not limited to strictly online courses. Posting a video announcement in a traditional face to face class can be a timesaver in that you can answer questions from last week and set up the coming week's agenda before the students arrive in class.

Here's a video announcement from Xavier's own Mark Gstohl.  He introduces himself, gives his contact information and tells the students about an upcoming assignment.  He also adds a bit of humor which goes a long way to building a rapport with the students.

Please feel free to share a link to one of your video announcements!

by Karen Nichols
A recent edition of Faculty Focus includes an article on successful discussions conducted online. There is after all an art to effective online communication. These considerations include the necessity to communicate with all students in the discussion forum. Personally, I respond to each of my students' original postings, but I do not intrude in subsequent conversations between the students. (I do monitor them however, to ensure that the students are communicating appropriately.)

The Faculty Focus article also describes how you should communicate with your students depending on their individual needs. For example, if a student actively and fully participates in the discussions, you may wish to challenge him/her, while students who express confusion may need more direction and time spent in explaining the goals of the discussion assignments.

Further, try to be open to a variety of responses and lengths. More is not always better so be sure to give shorter postings and unexpected opinions and answers due consideration. Along these lines, there is an art to knowing when to lead the discussions and when to gently guide them along in order for the students to feel comfortable taking the lead themselves and/or expressing their sentiments even if they may differ from those of the instructor.

Last year, Blackboard sponsored a discussion on breathing new life into Discussion Boards:

Do you use online discussions? If so, what are some of your best practices and suggestions?

by Karen Nichols

Greetings! I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for this incredible first year in CAT as Xavier's Distance Education Coordinator. I have learned so much and feel so privileged to be part of such an extraordinary team. CAT has an exciting calendar of events and workshops for the upcoming academic year and I'm looking forward to presenting a few as well as participating in them.

It would be easy to look back at this past year or to look around at the current state of distance education at Xavier, but I prefer to use the opportunity to look beyond our campus instead. My professional reading has led me to a positive report on the state of distance education in Africa.

The eLearning Africa Report 2014 contains several interesting articles, from a retrospective of Nelson Mandela's contributions in the field of education to a focus on distance education in three arenas--agriculture, health and tourism. 55 countries in Africa are included in the various data analyses. I highly recommend the editorial at the beginning in order to give you an idea of the scope and fairly optimistic tone of the report.

With the beginning of the fall semester right around the corner, I'm busily making preparations for our faculty and students but I'm glad that I took the time to learn about our distance education colleagues in Africa and the hope and vision they have for the future and their students. I believe I'll celebrate my future anniversaries by "looking outward" as well.

by Karen Nichols

I've just returned from a Distance Learning Administration conference on Jekyll Island in Georgia. It's a small island that is part of the Golden Isles group and very green, ecofriendly and easily navigable on foot or bike. I discovered there were over a hundred "geocaches" just on that small island and many of them were environment, nature and/or ecology-themed. Until recently, I didn't know about geocaching even though it's been in existence since 2000.

What is Geocaching?  Geocaching uses GPS-enabled devices to play an outdoor treasure hunting game.  It's international in scope and easy to play.  Basic membership is free.  Here's a quick introductory video:

Jekyll Island is a sea turtle sanctuary and is home to the Georgia Sea Turtle Center where the turtles are given medical treatment and the center offers educational exhibits and programming. A few of the geocaches had the sea turtle as the theme.

What a great way to get children excited about discovery and learning! In our Xavier zip code, 70125, there are over 900 geocaches so you can begin exploring today.

Are you looking for new ways to engage more of your students? Do you want to provide more authentic learning opportunities for your students? Searching for some way to help students write concisely, critically examine arguments, or take notes? One strategy you might consider using is a “backchannel”

Dr. Michelle Rodems, program manager at the School of Interdisciplinary and Graduate Studies (SIGS) and at the Delphi Center for Teaching and Learning suggests using a “backchannel” to give your students a secondary way to communicate with you or each other.

Want to know more? Read Dr. Rodems' article on "Using a Backchannel to Engage Students."

Google Chrome offers a variety of extensions for taking notes on the web page you're browsing. After my own experiences (I still teach as an adjunct and taught online over 20 years before becoming the Distance Education Coordinator) and hearing stories from other educators, I am wondering if these online note taking services could help combat plagiarism.

Copying and pasting from online sources is so easy for students. Even if they go back and try to change a few words here and there, their work is usually flagged in such apps as Turnitin. If we make it easier for them to take notes on the materials, they would then have to write more of their own content for their papers and other assignments.

Here are 5 Chrome extensions, all with various features, that we can recommend to our students. They are Simple Notepad, Note anywhere, Mini Notepad, Note Board, and Chrome Notepad. Viveka Nagar reviewed these 5 features this past fall for I love free software.

Since it's not unusual for me to have sticky notes surrounding my computer screen and liberally posted across my desk and on walls, I tend to prefer the Note Anywhere add-on.  Here's a snapshot from their app store of what it may look like:

Note anywhere screen shot
Note anywhere screen shot

I invite you to experiment with some or all of these possibilities and let us know if you and your students find them useful.  Karen Nichols

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Microlecturing is a short (1-3 minutes long) multi-media presentation used to engage learners. Jana Jab, co-founder of Edynco, has a concise but detailed article discussing when one would want to use microlectures and how to create them.

What can microlectures do?

  • provide a brief overview of a topic using key concepts
  • provide step-by-step instructions (i.e. how to solve a problem)
  • provide a personal introduction to a topic to engage your learners
  • provide a breakdown of a larger lecture into smaller more manageable pieces for your learners


How can one create a microlecture
?

Of course, you can always come to CAT and use our Camtasia studio and receive expert support from Bart Everson--Happy Microlecturing!

Spritz, a Boston-based tech company, is releasing to the general public a new app that allows you to speed read in a different way from other similar products that are currently available.

After a few years of research and development, they are ready to launch a wearable technology product for Samsung. This reader lines up the words to our actual way of reading (slightly left of center of each word) so that one's head isn't constantly moving as we read across and down a page.

image from spritzinc.com
image from spritzinc.com

I tried samples of three different speeds provided and found it difficult to concentrate. My mind wanted to wander--make associations with other texts, search memories. While I think this app could be extremely useful for technical reading, I'm not sure I would like to use it for literature or even non-literary fiction. Part of the "fun" of reading is savoring well-written prose or conjuring up delightful images of the characters and places described. At up to 1000 words a minute, there's no time for that!

Want to experience what it would feel like to "spritz"? Elite Daily offers samples as well as additional information. If you have a need for speed and are looking for time-saving measures, this might be the app for you! And if you decide to try it, please let us know what you think.

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Mia MacMeekin, who is an educator and lawyer, developed an Infographic with tips and best practices to facilitate online discussions. She writes:

The online discussion board has received differing reviews. Many believe it is a place that students simply write mini-papers, with little to no feedback. Others believe that it is a true learning tool for online courses.

Online Discussion Tips

You can read Mia MacMeekin’s Online Discussion Tips blog post on her An Ethical Island blog.

How did CAT's Media Artist, Bart Everson, come to be trapped in this inhospitable alien landscape?

Don't be alarmed. We are just testing a new feature in our Camtasia Studio. We are in the process of installing a green screen, which can be used to drop just about any background you want behind you in your video.

Stop by some time and check it out.