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Category: CAT & Mouse: E-Learning

Published on Leave a comment on 3 Interesting Mobile Apps to Engage Students

This past Monday, my friend, colleague and full-time online instructor, Dr. Teresa Canganelli, came to CAT to present 3 mobile apps. For anyone who was unable to attend, I thought I would share them with you.

Tellagami is a free app that allows you to create avatars and record a message for your students up to 30 seconds in length. What a fun and engaging way to reach your students to remind them of an upcoming test or answer a question many of them were asking.

Audioboo is not only an easy and free way to record a message up to 3 minutes long, but it houses a vast library of recordings from around the world on myriad topics.  The site has been flooded with comments and recordings concerning yesterday's passing of Nelson Mandela.  Here is one from the Nelson Mandela Institution.

listen to ‘"Deep gratitude" for #Madiba, says @NOIweala, chairman of Nelson #Mandela Institution, Q&A:’ on Audioboo

Evernote is a wonderful way to manage files, lecture notes, documents , share them, store them and edit them. In addition, Evernote has numerous add-ons, some of which are free as well.  Teresa highly recommended Evernote Clipper which allows you to clip and save web pages.  This feature is great since websites may change or pages may be removed.

If you decide to look into any of these apps and have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me and I’ll be happy to assist. x7692 Karen Nichols

Published on Leave a comment on Help Students Research on the Internet

In an attempt to make students start working on a research project long before 24 hours from the due date, as well as discuss plagiarism and the pitfalls of research on the internet, I've been researching the internet myself.

I checked into Google Alerts.  I've been experimenting with setting up the searches and verifying the results.  It's quite easy to begin using immediately.  So I suggest that at the beginning of the course when discussing the syllabus, instructors take about 5 minutes to have the students set up a Google Alert on their mobile devices for each possible research topic they may wish to explore.

For Google Alerts, there is very little to fill out and you can specify how often to receive notification that matches to your search have been found:

Google Alerts is fast and simple to use
Google Alerts is fast and simple to use.

By having the students set up weekly alerts and seeing that they can limit their searches instead of being overwhelmed with a million hits, it is hoped that at least once a week (or however often they have set up the alert), they will be thinking about their research project throughout the semester rather than at the last minute.  Happy searching!

Published on Leave a comment on National Distance Learning Week

Next week (Nov 11-15) is National Distance Learning Week.

What does that mean for us at XULA Online? Annual events afford us the opportunity to see how far we’ve come and make sure we’re on the right track to get where we want to go. On a national level, we are also part of a larger community of learners, all striving for similar goals.

So, let’s start by looking back. This time last year (November 2012) Xavier had just offered 8 online summer sections in the College of Arts and Sciences and we were gearing up to offer more for the following summer. The FaCTS topic of “Engaging Students in Online Courses” had just been announced and the E Learning Committee had been formed and was meeting to analyze what challenges must be overcome if Xavier were going to make a push to increase online/hybrid course offerings.

Now, in November 2013, Xavier has just offered 28 online/hybrid sections this past summer with an enrollment of over 450 students, and that from very minimal promotion of these courses. The students found the courses because the demand was there. This fall, our FaCTS panel discussed their online experiences to a filled seminar room. The E Learning Committee has been morphed into the XULA Online Advisory Board and tasked to work on Faculty and Student Handbooks among other things. In addition, a respectable number of online/hybrid courses is being offered this fall and in the spring plus plans are being made for an even larger selection of summer courses.

We’re making available to instructors the CAT Online Faculty Resource Center very shortly, have conducted several Blackboard Collaborate training sessions, and have met with individual faculty members and department representatives to discuss future offerings and how to prepare instructors. To celebrate National Distance Learning Week, Quality Matters is offering special workshops and if you’ve already taken the first Quality Matters course, you’re eligible for one of these workshops as well. (If you didn’t receive the email and may be interested, just contact me at x7692.)

Services are being considered for ensuring academic honesty in online test-taking (Respondus Monitor, student readiness to succeed in online classes (SmarterMeasure) and a much-needed 24/7 student technical support service (Blackboard Student Services).  In addition, XULA Online is now part of social media:  xulaonline@xula.edu is our email address; www.xula.edu/xulaonline is our website, and we're on Facebook, Twitter and Linked In.

Quite important for me is that I was fortunate enough to have been chosen as the not so new now Distance Education Coordinator and I’m just thrilled to be learning so much from my CAT colleagues and meeting with faculty and student!. I am doing my best to listen and respond to your suggestions, needs and challenges.

Moving ahead amid the flurry of so much activity in so many different arenas, it’s important to always, always remember that STUDENT LEARNING is our goal for XULA Online. After all, it is called National Distance LEARNING Week! I’m looking forward to November 2014 and excited and curious to see what I’ll have to report then.

David Powell

David Powell explains his recipe for success in Spanish 1020 online.

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Published on 1 Comment on Enhance your (online) classes with virtual tours

Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could take our students on a world-wide tour of the greatest museums or laboratories so that they can see original artwork or DNA research being carried out firsthand? With the latest technological advances in 3-D and other apps now so readily available, these same museums and labs have developed and posted online, virtual tours of their treasures. Including these in your online classes or even as a project or enrichment assignment in your face to face classes, can greatly enhance the students' learning experience and have them googling for more.

ABPI (The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry) has actually developed an entire site of tours and activities designed specifically for schools and the virtual tours are user-friendly.

For museums, one of my favorite series of interactive tours is on the site of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. It doesn't hurt that the tour allows you to choose a painting or other piece of art and email it as an ecard to someone. I love to send ecards and what better choice than a specially-chosen work of art for the recipient?

So if you'd like to share with your students a best-loved museum (for me, Musée PIcasso, Antibes) or give them a new and different experience (Alpine Astrovillage AAV Lue-Stailas), spend a few minutes searching the internet and you'll soon find numerous virtual tours that, for a moment, will make your students feel they're on the Riviera or looking up at the stars in the Swiss Alps.

Published on Leave a comment on CAT Welcomes Sue Frantz

Sue Frantz

Today CAT welcomes Sue Frantz who will be showcasing some essential technology in The Academic's Toolbox. We're learning plenty which we'll be sure to share in the weeks and months ahead.

Published on Leave a comment on Quality Matters Conference: Fun and Informative!

I had planned to submit my blog post while at the conference but I was so busy learning and networking that I'm back in the office now.  So here's a quick summary of my experiences.  The Quality Matters organization is comprised of many dedicated professionals and the member institutions are equally concerned with developing and teaching quality online or hybrid courses (QM uses "blended"; we at Xavier use "hybrid") in order to have positive student outcomes. They're also big on "takeaways" so I have literally hundreds of resources now, and will be posting several key ones to CAT's Online Faculty Resource Center (debuting soon). For your information, here are a number of the actual presentations that were posted as well.

My takeaways from the conference are

  1. we can offer workshops for faculty on actually teaching online, which is entirely separate from developing the course
  2. we need to do more to make our courses accessible from the beginning rather than create accommodations after the fact (I also learned that numbers are better than bullets for screen readers so I'll be using numbers from now on)
  3. we don't need to reinvent the wheel--we can partner with other institutions to offer more for our students
  4. size does matter, especially in online language courses
  5. faculty preparation and skills are necessary components for SACS approval of online and hybrid courses/programs

and I could continue, but I think having begun and ended with faculty concerns really shows how important they are to student success and therefore why CAT is dedicated to assisting our faculty in developing and teaching online and hybrid courses for our students at Xavier.

Published on Leave a comment on I just tweeted @FlorenceNightingale

I have to admit that I’ve been skeptical about using Twitter for students. I know all of the research is saying to make use of the social media services that they’re already using if you want to reach them and have good student participation but I've been hesitant to try Twitter.

Well I found out about one project that actually seems to work well!  Twitter sites have been set up for historical figures and characters. You can have your students follow people like William Shakespeare, Florence Nightingale, Benjamin Franklin or King Henry VIII, sites that are already in place. You can also set up your own historical figure on Twitter. (See how to be a historical figure on Twitter.)

Ben Franklin & Friends, pre-Twitter era (iClipart)
Ben Franklin & Friends, pre-Twitter era (iClipart)

The idea of having the students tweet questions and comments to @KingArthur would probably not find favor with the Society for Creative Anachronism, but why not? I can see where the students could become fully engaged in tweeting @BenFranklin (after he’s had a few beers and would be in a happy mood of course). Setting up a Twitter account like this could have uses in several disciplines other than history. As a French instructor, I can certainly see the value in setting these up for famous writers and historical figures we were studying, and then having the students tweet en français.

Remember the party game of explaining your “Last Supper” list of people with whom you’d like to share a meal once you get to heaven? Well, here’s a way to converse with your dream list via Twitter! Let’s see, I need to look for a Twitter account for @BobMarley, @CocoChanel, @ElinorofAquitaine, @LéopoldSédarSenghor and @MahatmaGandhi for starters. Who’s on your dream list? Happy Tweeting!

P.S.  Check out this blog post (where I read about this topic) for more ways to promote creative learning: http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.com/2013/09/5-technologies-to-promote-creative.html

Published on Leave a comment on Sources of Inspiration

With the beginning of the fall semester came an increase in my workload and in the general activity of CAT. That's a good thing, but it's time again to post my bi-weekly blog and I hadn't really thought out in advance what I wanted to say.

Rather than procrastinate, I decided to just look around me for sources of inspiration. I have two new books I've begun to read for our Faculty Book Club and for discussing with the incoming Freshmen. Outside my window, they are putting the finishing touches on the new Costco. My digital photo frame is a slideshow of the summer fun my four-year old nephew had before beginning pre-K 4 at a new school. My office is decorated with trinkets and postcards that my international students have given to me over the years. My inbox has RSS feeds and newsletters from several services to which I subscribe.

What are your sources of inspiration?

What are your sources of inspiration?

Yes, from all of these sources I glean inspiration, positive energy and pleasant memories throughout the day.  The photo of my two grey cats actually gave me an idea for a discussion board topic for my online elementary French course!  At this moment, I am struck by an article from the blog "Technology for Academics" by our CAT Director's friend and colleague, Dr. Sue Frantz. This particular posting discusses how the end of a book written by a surgeon for new doctors, is extremely applicable to higher education.  Here's the first part.  I'll let you read her elaborations since she's wonderfully succinct.

“'So find something new to try, something to change. Count how often you succeed and how often you fail. Write about it. Ask people what they think. See if you can keep the conversation going.'  This is the final paragraph in Atul Gawande’s 2007 book, Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance. While his advice is directed at newly-minted physicians, it’s more broadly applicable. In our case, let’s talk higher education."  http://suefrantz.com/2013/09/03/better/

So, not only is Dr. Gawande's advice applicable to higher education in general, but the suggestions can be used to help us in distance education as well.  As we move forward with Xavier's online initiatives we are definitely trying something new in our university's history.  Keeping accurate data will allow us to continually improve the online courses for the students.  I'll have more and better topics to write about for the blog and I definitely hope to keep the conversation going by asking you for your thoughts and suggestions.

Published on Leave a comment on Digital Inequality

Couple taking photos.

Many people believe that the "digital divide" is merely generational but studies have shown disparities according to race, ethnicity, socio-economic level and even between the sexes.  Professor Rey Junco, an associate professor at Purdue University and a faculty associate at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, refers to this as "digital inequality."  "There's an assumption that all students are equally great with technology," said Professor Junco.

As Xavier University is moving to expand the eLearning initiatives across campus, I believe it's important for us to be mindful of this and to not assume that all of our students are proficient, especially with social media.  As we implement more technology in the classroom and especially online, we must remember to provide detailed instructions for the students as well as adequate technical support and training.

To read a little more about the very interesting studies concerning “digital inequality” and the implications for academic success, please check out this link from the Times Higher Education (THE) site and from an earlier CAT food podcast: http://cat.xula.edu/food/conversation-7/

I also invite you to share with the community your experiences and findings concerning "digital inequality"  amongst our students.  Perhaps together we can propose suggestions for helping the students increase their proficiency and ultimately, their chances for success here at Xavier.

Photo credit: "Couple Taking Photos" by iofoto via Yay Image Bank

Published on Leave a comment on XULA Online: Real Faculty, Real Learning

Did you know that over 350 students participated in summer session I online courses? Not one online course had to be canceled this summer due to low enrollment—students enrolled with very minimal on-campus advertising.

Summer online courses give both students and faculty the flexibility and mobility to pursue other projects while still teaching and learning.
If you’re interested in developing and/or teaching an online or hybrid course, we at CAT invite you to:

  1. Discuss your idea with the Distance Education Coordinator (Yours Truly x7692) in CAT who will assist you. Required
  2. Complete the Quality Matters online introductory course. Required
  3. Attend the CAT-sponsored FaCTS Panel presentation on Thursday October 10, 2013 at 12:15pm (lunch included). Recipients of this year’s FaCTS (Mellon foundation) grants will share with you their successes and suggestions for creating and teaching online courses. Optional but recommended
  4. Complete CAT’s Online Faculty Development Course (funded by Mellon FaCTS initiative and available during the fall semester). Optional but recommended
  5. Complete additional Blackboard training offered by CAT. Optional but recommended


Pleaseo contact me for more information—I’m looking forward to meeting and working with Xavier’s excellent faculty and staff!

P.S. "8 Lessons Learned from Teaching Online" is a short video which I hope will give you food for thought.