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Category: CAT & Mouse: E-Learning

Published on Leave a comment on Great STEM resource (and other disciplines too)!

by Karen Nichols

At last month's OLC Innovate Conference here in New Orleans, I attended many interesting sessions. I found the one on Brainfacts.org particularly useful and would like to share it with you.

The Brainfacts site is the brainchild of the Society for Neuroscience.  According to the presenter, Alissa Ortman, the original intent was to publish correct information in easy to understand language and dispel myths about their field.  The site, which now has numerous partners and contributors, is a safe, reliable resource for you to recommend to your students.  The contributors are all vetted and the information is presented using a variety of tools and platforms and written at about a tenth-grade level.  You can also sign up for their blog, or follow them on Facebook and/or Twitter.

Information for Educators, the Press and Policymakers may be accessed from the top right of the homepage.  The information has been curated into 6 categories in a dropdown format which can be accessed from several different webpages.  They are:  About Neuroscience, Brain Basics, Sensing, Thinking & Behaving, Diseases & Disorders, Across the Lifespan, and In Society.

Here are a few links to give you a sample of the information and formats:

Video:  Why Does Food Make Your Mouth Water?

Podcast: Patient HM and His Missing Memories

Blog:  Zika:  10 Things to Know

I'm following Brainfacts.org on both Facebook and Twitter and I hope you'll find the information interesting and useful too.

coNeCte|BlogdaSociedadeBrasileiradeNeurociênciase

Published on Leave a comment on Going from Face-to-face to Online Teaching

by Janice Florent

woman sitting at a table looking at mobile device with a laptop computer nearby

Successfully moving courses online involves more than simply transferring what you are currently doing in your face-to-face class to the online class. If your aim is to create a meaningful online learning experience with long-lasting effects, you will have to rethink the way you teach.

In a recent Faculty Focus article, Rob Kelly quoted Professor Paul Caron who said,

If you simply take your face-to-face class and put it online and teach it electronically, you will fail miserably.

Rob goes on to list some challenges with moving your course online and ways you can overcome them. They are,

Communicate frequently. The online learning environment lacks the visual and auditory cues that instructors and students often take for granted in the face-to-face classroom. This lack of visual and auditory cues can hinder the ability to develop rapport, motivate, and engage students.

Use multimedia. Multimedia can stimulate more than one sense at a time, and in doing so, may be more attention-getting and attention-holding than just using text alone. You can build a community with audio and increase your presence with video.

Monitor “attendance.” Online courses require students to be self-directed learners. If students are not accessing the course regularly and keeping up with their course work they are less likely to be successful in the course.

Make the subject relevant. One of the challenges of teaching a core course is that students aren’t automatically interested in the subject. When students see how the course is relevant to them, they stay interested. Invite guest speakers to provide career specific examples or include “real world” examples to illustrate course content. Design assignments to be flexible and allow students to pursue interests.

Rather than trying to replicate the face-to-face classroom, online, you want to design an experience that engages students in learning in a way that fosters their interest and curiosity, and ultimately facilitates deep-level learning that comes to them by way of technology. (Parker, 2013).

If this blog post has piqued your interest, you can read more in the Faculty Focus article, From F2F to Online: Getting It Right as well as the following blog posts:

Image Credit: African American Browsing by rawpixel from Pixabay

Published on Leave a comment on Yes, you can add service learning to online courses!

by Karen Nichols with contributions by Jeremy Tuman

Jeremy Tuman, our faculty-in-residence for service learning, recently collaborated with me on a presentation about adding service learning to online courses. I'd like to share our presentation with you and invite you to provide any feedback you may have. Thank you!

Published on Leave a comment on Conversation #43: Robert Crow on Distance Education

Download Conversation #43

Robert CrowA conversation with Dr. Robert Crow of Western Carolina University (WCU) on teaching, learning, and distance education.

Robert Crow, Ph. D., is an assistant professor of educational research. Before joining the faculty in the College of Education and Allied Professions, Dr. Crow served as Coordinator of Instructional Development & Assessment for WCU's Coulter Faculty Commons, working primarily in faculty professional development. Dr. Crow's expertise in assessment and evaluation has led to collaborations with other 4-year institutions, community colleges, PK-12 schools, and institutional accreditation agencies such as SACS-COC. Dr. Crow's research interests include assessment and evaluation of student learning and of learning environments.

Links for this episode:

...continue reading "Conversation #43: Robert Crow on Distance Education"

Published on Leave a comment on Dr. Amanda Helm’s Self-Graded Checklists

checklist

Our Educational Technology Community (ETC) had a special guest presentation this past Friday. Dr. Amanda Helm, Assistant Professor in the Division of Business, demonstrated to our virtual participants how she uses Self-Graded Checklists in Blackboard, along with the adaptive release feature, to help students "grade" their work before they submit it.

Dr. Helm posts a quiz she has developed based on the instructions and rubrics she gives to students for each assignment.  The students must complete this quiz before they are able to officially submit their assignment.  When the student answers the quiz questions, they receive automatic feedback in order to improve their work before submitting, as well as an estimation of the letter grade they can expect to receive.

A variety of quiz questions are asked, depending on the project.  They may be as simple as "How long is your single-spaced typed paper?" and "How many sources did you cite?" or more complex in nature, asking content questions which are dependent on the assignment.

To learn more, here is the guest link to the virtual presentation.  It's recommended that you choose to watch the mp4 version:

https://blackboard.xula.edu/webapps/bb-collaborate-BBLEARN/recording/launchGuest?uid=9769e94d-9f6c-4c37-a3a2-ada950fbbcdb

Dr. Helm reports that her students are submitting better quality work by taking this 5 minute assessment before they can officially post their assignments.  She also says that the students have told her that they make adjustments to their work after receiving the quiz results and that her students don't mind taking the 5 minute quiz before being able to submit their work.

Thank you Dr. Helm for sharing this great idea with us!

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Published on 1 Comment on Digital Copyrights

by Janice Florent

Finding quality images, audio, video, etc. to use in your Blackboard course is one of the most important and potentially daunting aspects of developing your course. There are certain legal rights for digital content. You cannot, for example, just pull an image off of a Google image search and use it. There are some important things you should understand about digital copyrights before you use an image or other digital content that you did not create on your own.

copyright vs copyleft vs creative commons

Copyright is all about balancing the rights of authors with the rights of the public to use the work without seeking permission or paying royalties. Under copyright, authors have the right to control the use of their work subject to exceptions permitted under the law. If the use exceeds such exceptions, then infringing on someone's copyright can result in the infringer paying money damages (civil liability) and/or going to prison (criminal liability).

Copyleft (a play on the word copyright) is the practice of offering people the right to freely distribute copies and modified versions of a work with the stipulation that the same rights be preserved in derivative works down the line.

Fair use is a limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work.

Works in the public domain are those whose intellectual property rights have expired, have been forfeited, or are inapplicable.

A Creative Commons (CC) license is a public copyright license that enables the free distribution of an otherwise copyrighted work.

The image below describes how Creative Commons licenses relates to traditional copyright and the public domain.

copyright spectrum

Here are a few links to resources to help you better understand Creative Commons licenses and copyrights:

Image credits:
copyright, copyleft, and creative commons icons found in public domain
"the spectrum of rights" by Michelle Pacansky-Brock is licensed under CC-BY 2.0

Published on Leave a comment on After the deep breath, then what? Creating a virtual presence

by Karen Nichols

In my previous blogpost, I presented the benefits of vertically centering oneself by taking a long deep breath. This brief exercise can be used for face to face scenarios but also as one is preparing for a virtual meeting or even to record/video oneself for students. So, the deep breath has been taken and we're ready for ... what exactly?  How do we go about creating a virtual presence?

I like this definition of virtual presence:

Ariel Group at Pearson CITE

This definition by the Ariel Group (referenced in the previous blogpost as well) sets the stage for showing how they have adapted their PRES (being present) model to the virtual world. The vPRES (virtual presence) model is outlined in their presentation at Pearson's CITE 2015 conference.  Here's a quick overview from their presentation:

•virtually--Choose technology that supports your goals.

•PRESENT--Focus on the now. Be aware of what’s happening in the virtual space; be flexible and adaptable.

•REACHING OUT--Ask questions, use polling to obtain opinions.  Reaching out is a great relationship builder.

•EXPRESSIVE--Alignment of message and physical appearance. Communicate with energy & passion.

•SELF-KNOWING--Be self-confident. Be prepared & ready for virtual interactions. Be specific in your communication.  Use concise and clear language in spoken or written communications.

Can you see how keeping these suggestions in mind will help you during video conferences, webinars, virtual office hours and classes with your students and even when recording yourself for your students?

Published on Leave a comment on Technology to Help Students Find Their Voice

by Janice Florent

birdhouse with you are your voice etched on it

It’s important for students to find their voice in eLearning. Students need the ability to recognize their own beliefs, practice articulating them in a variety of forms, and then find the confidence and the platform to express them.

There is no one-size-fits-all technology solution for students to express themselves and interact with the world. In a Edutopia blog post, Terry Heick writes,

You can indeed insist that all students blog because, from your perspective, it sounds justifiable and beneficial, but if the goal is to help students find their own voice, they will need choices.

Terry goes on to suggest some possible web tools that would allow students to find their voice. Those web tools are:

Word Press or Blogger – These tools can help students establish their own digital space to meet the world.

Storify or Storehouse – These tools allow you to collect media bits and pieces from across the web, and to socialize them (that is, to shape them into a unique form of expression through social media.)

Podcasting or VoiceThread – These tools allow students to express themselves verbally around an idea important to them.

YouTube Channels - Students can create review channels, perform music, humorously remix existing content, act, create documentaries, and an unlimited number of other possibilities.

For more information, you can read Terry’s blog post 4 Technologies to Help Students Find Their Voice in Your Classroom.

Also, check out Bart Everson’s blog post 50 Web Tools for other web tools that may be used to help students find their voice and my Blackboard tip on how to integrate web 2.0 tools in your course.

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Published on 2 Comments on Take a deep breath and…

...exhale through your mouth counting to 10.  Gaze at the floor or ceiling during this deep breath.  Then roll your shoulders back and look ahead.  This one breath will do wonders to center you and prepare you to be present for the upcoming meeting or event that you're about to join.  In her blog post, Kate Nugent of The Ariel Group calls this a "doorway moment" in that she recommends this quick vertical centering exercise before entering each meeting.  (The Ariel Group offers corporate training in communicating and establishing relationships.  They employ actors and acting coaches who give seminars to demonstrate the importance of good communication as well as techniques for achieving it.)

The Ariel Group has also been sharing various techniques at education webinars and conferences such as Pearson's CITE 2015.  It was through a webinar actually conducted by Kate Nugent that I learned the benefits of taking a deep breath before taking part in meetings and such.  Why would I, as the distance education coordinator, be writing about the "doorway moment"?  Well, we can use this centering, getting to the present technique when we're going to meet our students online in a Blackboard Collaborate session, for example.  We can also employ this technique before we record a video for our students in order to help us really focus on them and what we want to say to them.  Finally, we can insert this deep breath technique into our online courses (I'm thinking at the beginning of the study guides for their tests maybe?) and recommend that the students take a deep breath before plunging into the module.

This first step, right before we begin communicating with our students, may be the most important one in establishing our virtual presence.  We're shaking off whatever came before and moving into the present moment, fully engaged and ready to engage the students.

deep breath

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Published on 2 Comments on Twitter Cheat Sheet for Educators

by Janice Florent

Twitter is an excellent tool for consuming and for learning. Twitter has proven itself to be an indispensable tool for many educators venturing into the world of education technology. Some educators are harnessing Twitter as a part of their PLN (personal learning network) to connect, share, and network. If you are interested in using Twitter, here is a Twitter Cheat Sheet for educators to get you up to speed.

Also, follow us (CAT+FD) on Twitter @xulacat.

twitter cheat sheet for educators