Skip to content

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Greetings from CAT!  I’m Karen Nichols, the new Distance Education Coordinator and I’m so excited to be a part of such a great team and university.  Xavier’s online initiatives these past two summers have been quite successful and I’ve been tasked to assist in making Xavier Online bigger and better.  Fortunately, Xavier has wonderful, creative faculty members who bring a great deal of expertise to the distance education arena.

In addition to the faculty who have already developed and taught online courses, several others have expressed an interest in learning more about hybrid or fully online courses.  So, as my bi-weekly contribution to CAT Food, I’d like to feature an article, video or some bit of news on distance education which I hope will be useful and informative.

For my first entry I recommend a short video about Coursera, Stanford’s MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) project which I find so inspiring.  The sentiments echo my own after being a part of distance education for 22+ years:

Did you watch the video just now?  It always makes me a little misty-eyed.  If you're thinking about teaching online this article from Faculty Focus offers several points to consider.  And even if you're not ready for online teaching, I hope you'll find the "Eight Roles of an Effective Online Teacher" useful in a face to face class as well.

I look forward to meeting and working with more of the faculty here at Xavier so please don’t hesitate to contact me and I’ll be happy to get together with you to discuss any projects or ideas you may have.  Wishing you a great week!

Download Conversation #18

Dave Yearwood

A conversation with Dave Yearwood of University of North Dakota, on teaching, learning and online engagement.

The one thing I'm really cautious about is making sure these technologies are not used as souped-up dump trucks. Meaning you load them up with content and you just drive it to where students are and you drop off the content and say to students, "Now you work with it." That's the one thing I try to stress that we have to be careful about not doing with our students.

Links for this episode:

2

50 Web Tools in 50 Minutes

Thanks to everyone who attended our workshop on "50 Web Tools in 50 Minutes."

Full House

For your clicking convenience, check out the full list of web-based tools that we covered.

  1. Online OCR — Convert scanned documents to text.
  2. Wordle — Word clouds! (example) See also Tagxedo
  3. Up-Goer Five Text Editor— Can you explain a hard idea using only the ten hundred most used words?
  4. Scribd — Document sharing. (example)
  5. WordPress.com — Blogging platform.
  6. Edublogs — Like WordPress.com or Blogger but specifically tailored to educational needs.
  7. Wikipedia — "a collaboratively edited, multilingual, free Internet encyclopedia"
  8. NolaWiki — "a collaborative, reliable, comprehensive look at the people, places, events and ideas of the city of New Orleans."
  9. Wikispaces — Create your own wiki. (Note: This page is hosted on Wikispaces.)
  10. Google Sites — Create your own website/wiki. (example)
  11. visualizing.org — Find (and share) visualizations of complex issues. (example)
  12. Many Eyes — Find and create data visualizations. (example)
  13. Pinterest — A social environment for collecting, discovering and sharing images. (example) (more on educational use)
  14. Compfight — Search tool that makes it easy to find Flickr photos, including those licensed for re-use.
  15. YouTube — Everybody knows about YouTube, but did you know about their Education Channel?
  16. Vimeo — Video hosting. Like YouTube but cooler. Lack of support for captioning could be a deal-breaker.
  17. CaptionTube — Speaking of which, here's a tool for captioning YouTube videos. (example)
  18. TED-Ed — Like YouTube's Education Channel but even more highly curated.
  19. Animoto — Easy-to-make online videos from photos and music. Free for videos under 30 seconds. (example)
  20. Screenr — Screen recording. Yes, it's web-based. (example)
  21. SoundCloud — Audio sharing platform. Free version limited to 120 minutes total. (example)
  22. AudioBoo — Audio sharing platform. Free version limited to three minutes per file. (example)
  23. Educreations — Recordable interactive whiteboard. Captures voice and handwriting/drawing to produce movies. Especially nice with an iPad but can also be used via web browser. (example)
  24. Prezi — Make (and find) crazy zooming presentations. (example)
  25. Timetoast — Build (and find) interactive timelines. (example)
  26. Capzles — Make (and find) multimedia storylines. Educational version in the works. (example)
  27. SlideShare — Share and find presentations (mainly PowerPoint). (example)
  28. VoiceThread — "A VoiceThread is a collaborative, interactive, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos." (example)
  29. MentorMob — Make and find learning playlists. Virtually all media supported: videos, PDFs, webpages, etc. (example)
  30. Quora — Social Q&A site. There are many of these but Quora's the best. (example)
  31. Khan Academy — Lectures and quizzes with an emphasis on math, science and finance. (example)
  32. Poll Everywhere — Easy way to aggregate live responses. (example) (example) (see also Socrative)
  33. SurveyMonkey — Surveys made easy.
  34. Moodle — Free course-management system.
  35. Quizlet — Make and find study tools (flash cards etc.) (example)
  36. Evernote — Store notes, images, documents, web clips, audio notes. Searchable. Sync across your devices. Claims to recognize handwriting from, say, a photo of a whiteboard.
  37. LiveBinder — Like a three-ring binder for web pages. (example)
  38. Delivr — Make and manage QR codes. (example)
  39. Facebook — Yes, it can be used for teaching. For example, make a group for your class.
  40. Twitter — For developing connections with colleagues around the world.
  41. LinkedIn — Professional networking.
  42. Yammer — Enterprise social network: social software designed for the institutional context.
  43. Dropbox — Easy file sharing.
  44. Popplet — Mind mapping, image galleries, more. (example)
  45. MindMeister — Collaborative mind mapping. (example)
  46. Voki — Create talking avatars. See example below. (example)
  47. MakeBeliefComix — Create your own comic strips. You'll have to make a screenshot for sharing online. (example)
  48. Diigo — Bookmarks on steroids. Allows you to highlight and add sticky notes to web pages. (example)
  49. ScoopIt — Curated web content. (example)
  50. Learnist — Curated web content, possibly more education-oriented. (example)

See also: The Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies' Top 100 Tools for Learning

The National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education (NITLE) has invited Xavier faculty and staff to a rare open seminar titled, "Race and the Digital Humanities: An Introduction."

This is an online seminar, or webinar, so no travel is necessary. It's also quite unusual for a NITLE seminar to be open to non-members, so there's no cost.

The seminar will give a brief survey of the emerging field of race and the digital humanities, introduce the audience to a variety of digital projects informed by race, and provide links to resources for people interested in working in this field. Topics covered will include: the genealogy of these debates, the theoretical assumptions that inform them, and issues to consider while constructing a race and digital humanities project.

Dr. Adeline Koh is a visiting faculty fellow at Duke University (2012-2013) and an assistant professor of literature at Richard Stockton College. She is also a core contributor to the Profhacker blog at The Chronicle of Higher Education, and a member of the Editorial Board for Anvil Academic. (Follow her on Twitter.)

The seminar takes place Friday, November 16, 3 – 4pm Central Time.

If you are interested, register now.