eschudel – Page 35 – Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning

Walls Optional at Camosun College- May 2nd

I wanted to let you know what is happening at Walls Optional this year (on Thursday, May 2nd to be exact). For those of you who don’t know, Walls Optional is Camosun’s annual one-day conference celebrating the amazing work of the people at our college. Every year we have a different theme, and with the launch of the new Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policy, this year’s Walls is all about Inclusion through Universal Design for Learning.

“Our goal is to explore how we can develop and support teaching & learning environments that are inclusive to an increasingly diverse student population:

“The homogenous class made up of students of similar abilities, backgrounds, ethnicities, interests, learning styles, languages and expectations is long gone – if it ever existed.” [from “You Need to Know About Universal Design for Learning”, 2014]

Inclusivity is at the heart of the proactive strategies found in the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) guidelines. The more we practice and discuss UDL strategies in our teaching & learning environments, the more flexible our course materials, activities and assessment methods will become, and the fewer barriers members of our diverse student population will encounter.

Walls Optional 2019 will open with a facilitated dialogue consisting of faculty and students who will speak to the theme of “inclusion through UDL”, and their experiences with this approach in their own classrooms. We will then break into peer-led workshops, of either 45 minutes or 5 minutes (“lightning rounds”) in length, and end with a closing plenary session.”

To find out more once our presentation schedule has been posted, and to register for this immersion experience into UDL, go to our website (http://camosun.ca/about/teaching-learning/events/walls-optional.html) – We look forward to seeing you there!

Viewing Quiz Attempts in D2L – a Student Tutorial

Scenario

This tutorial will cover the steps involved when students want to view their quiz attempt results in D2L. NOTE that you will only be able to review quiz results if your instructor has released them! For further information, please contact desupport@camosun.ca for assistance.

Steps

Go to your course in D2L.
Go to the Quizzes tool (through the Tools drop-down menu in the navigation bar) or click on the title of the quiz in the Content area (if your instructor has put a link in Content).
Click on the down-arrow next to the title of the completed quiz you want to view, and select Submissions.
Click on the Attempt you want to view.
When you have finished reviewing the attempt, click Done.

Customizing Your Enter Grades Table in D2L’s Gradebook

Scenario

This tutorial will cover the steps involved when you want to only see specific columns in your Enter Grades table. This will make it easier to grade specific items when you have a really large gradebook – especially useful at this time of year! For further information, please contact desupport@camosun.ca for assistance.

Steps

Go to the Grades tool in your course, and make sure you are in the Enter Grades.
Click the More Actions button and select Hide/Show Columns.
In the Hide/Show Columns pop-up box, select the Grade Item columns you wish to see in the Enter Grades table, and then click Save. You will then see only those items in the table – you can go back to Hide/Show Columns at any point to change which columns you see.
You will now only see those selected items in the Enter Grades table.

One other function that can help with grading in the Enter Grades table is switching the table from Standard View to Spreadsheet View. This is especially handy if you have more than one grade item to grade – Spreadsheet View allows you to enter grades for multiple items at once. To use Spreadsheet View:

Go to Enter Grades in the Grades tool.
Click Switch to Spreadsheet View.
You will now see your grades table with boxes into which you can enter grades.

Things to Remember

When you choose which columns to see, remember that this is only for your view, as the instructor for the course. This will not affect the students’ gradebook view. To choose which grade items students see, you will need to edit the grade item(s) and use the Hide this grade item setting in the Restrictions tab.

eLearning Spring Workshops!!

Don’t forget to register for our spring workshops. They start May 6th, and we have some great new offerings, including our Kaltura workshops which will introduce you to our new streaming media service, Camosun’s YouTube, if you will. Hope to see you this spring!! We will be updating this page with room numbers for the Lansdowne workshops soon.

Check out the workshop descriptions below, and register at https://www.surveymonkey.ca/r/B7KYD8P

If you have any questions, or don’t see what you are looking for, email Emily Schudel at schudele@camosun.ca.

Lansdowne Workshops

What’s new in D2L: Monday, May 6, 10:00-11:30am, Room Ewing 110

Designed for instructors who have previously taught with D2L, this workshop will focus on the new features available in the recent upgrade. This session will focus on new functionality and some of the benefits for faculty and learners.

Introducing D2L to your Students: Tuesday, May 7, 10:00-11:30am, Room Ewing 110

Using D2L, but not sure how comfortable your students are with it? Come and find out what other faculty at Camosun are doing to introduce D2L to their students.

D2L Quizzes – How, Why, and the Daylight Experience: Monday, May 13, 2:00-4:00pm, Room Ewing 110

This hands-on workshop will cover creating, managing, and grading quizzes and the question library in the new version of D2L, Daylight Experience. Basic familiarity with D2L is recommended for participants interested in this workshop.

Facilitating Discussions and Collaborative Work in D2L: Tuesday, May 14, 10:00-11:30am, Room Ewing 110

In this workshop we will examine a variety of online communication tools within D2L, and discuss various facilitation techniques that you can use to engage learners and promote collaboration online.

Fun with Rubrics: Friday, May 17, 9:00am-12:00pm, Room Ewing 110

This hands-on workshop will discuss best practices around designing a variety of rubrics and integrating them into your assessment, participation, and feedback strategies. Note that we will set up a simple rubric during the session to practice using the tool, but participants are encouraged to bring their own rubrics for discussion with the group. Basic familiarity with D2L is recommended for participants interested in this workshop.

D2L Design Considerations for Mobile Devices: Tuesday, May 21, 2:00-3:30pm, Room Ewing 110

More and more students are using mobile devices (phones and tablets) to work in their D2L course sites. But how does it actually look to students? Bring your tablet and phones to this workshop, and try out some design techniques to make sure your students can get the most out of your D2L site on their own devices.

Ethical Dimensions of Educational Technology: Online May 15-22 + Face-to-Face, Wednesday, May 22, 1:00-4:00pm, LLC151

Many of us are integrating educational technology into our teaching, but how many of us are discussing the ethical issues that come along with those technologies? This blended workshop will support conversations around institutional policy, privacy, social justice, accessibility, and personal risk, when it comes to educational technology, and help you develop strategies for being creative and innovative while keeping these issues in mind. NOTE: the online component will run first, taking 1-2 hours to complete over a week, and will be followed by a 3 hour face to face session.

Creating Community in the Online Classroom: Online May 20-27 + Face-t0-Face Monday, May 27, 2:00-3:30pm, LLC151

What does it mean to create an online community for your students? What considerations do you need to keep in mind when developing online activities to support that online community? This blended workshop will give you the opportunity to engage in online community building, and to work with your peers face-to-face to develop strategies for integrating online community-building activities into your course. NOTE: the online component will run first, taking 1-2 hours to complete over a week, and will be followed by a 1½ hour face to face session.

WordPress for Students: Tuesday, May 28, 2:00-4:00pm, Room Ewing 100

WordPress is a blogging and website creation tool which is now available in the Canadian cloud, meaning that if you would like your students to build blogs and websites as part of their learning, we can now offer a solution which will be in compliance with the BC Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. Come find out more about how to set up a site for yourself, and what you need to know to get your students started.

Social Media use in Education: Wednesday, May 29, 10:00am-12:00pm, LLC151

Interested in integrating social media into your classroom? This workshop will examine various social media tools used in the teaching and learning and discuss best practices. In addition, participants will have the opportunity to share strategies on how social media can be incorporated into their own courses.

Getting Started with Readspeaker/TextAid in D2L: Thursday, May 30, 2:00-4:00pm, Room Ewing 100

ReadSpeaker offers text-to-speech solutions for websites, online course materials, e-books and digital documents. In this session, we will introduce you to the collection of ReadSpeaker tools we now have available within D2L courses and show you how you and your students can use and access these tools.

Getting Started with ePortfolio in D2L: Friday, May 31, 10:00am-12:00pm, Room Ewing 110

Looking for options for your students to collect and share documents, assessments, presentations, etc. with other students and faculty across their Program? Come find out how ePortfolio in D2L might support you!

Kaltura 1: Getting Started with Kaltura: Streaming Media at Camosun! Monday, June 3, 2:00-4:00pm, Room Ewing 110

Kaltura is Camosun’s a streaming media tool (we sometimes call it Camosun’s YouTube). This means faculty and students now have a place to create, edit, and house their course-related videos. Kaltura also integrates with D2L. Come to this hand-on session to find out more about what Kaltura is, what it can do, and learn how you can use it for your courses.

Kaltura 2: Kaltura Media Capture: Creating Multimedia Magic! Tuesday, June 4, 10:00am-12:00pm, Room Ewing 100

Are you interested in creating engaging media pieces for your courses? Not sure where to begin? Join Bob Preston for this hands-on workshop Kaltura Capture Space.

BlackBoard Collaborate Ultra: Information session: Wednesday, June 5, 10:00-11:00am, LLC151

Blackboard Collaborate Ultra is a synchronous classroom tool that is coming to Camosun. This means that faculty now have an online tool with audio, video, chat, and whiteboard/desktop sharing capabilities to support their teaching in real-time. Come find out more about Blackboard Collaborate and how it can be used, as well as when it will be available, at this information session.

Kaltura 3: Best practices around integrating media into D2L: Wednesday, June 5, 2:00-4:00pm, Room Ewing 100

This hands-on workshop covers the technical consideration of integrating multimedia into a D2L course, answering the questions: What do you need to keep in mind when integrating a multimedia piece into a D2L course? What are the benefits of linking versus embedding? Where can I store my video files? Why can’t I just import media files into D2L? How do I effectively insert audio files? When is copyright a consideration? Time will be set aside for you to integrate and test your multimedia components in D2L. Basic familiarity with D2L is recommended for participants interested in this workshop.

Interurban D2L Workshops

Getting Started with D2L (New Instructors): Friday, May 3, 10:00-11:30am, LACC235

This workshop will provide you with an overview of the essential teaching tools available in our learning management system, D2L. Participants will be able to take away a practical, course development checklist to assist with learning D2L. Whether you are looking to supplement your face-to-face classes, transition from using a basic course website or simply want to learn more about how to enhance your current teaching methodologies with using D2L, this workshop has a little something for everyone. Come explore the possibilities!

What’s New in D2L (for instructors with D2L experience): Friday, May 3, 1:30-3:00pm, LACC235

Designed for instructors who have previously taught with D2L, this workshop will focus on the new features available in D2L. This session will focus on new functionality and some of the benefits for faculty and learners.

Introduction to Kaltura (Streaming Media at Camosun): Information Session: Monday, May 6, 10:30-11:30am, LACC235

Kaltura is a streaming media tool that is coming to Camosun. This means faculty and students will now have a place to create, edit, and house their course-related videos. Kaltura also integrates with D2L. Come find out more about what Kaltura is, what it can do, how you can use it for your courses and when it will be available.

Course Spring Cleaning: Thursday, May 9, 10:00-11:30am, LACC235

This workshop will focus on setting up (or refining) your course homepage, widgets, navigation and themes. We’ll also show you some best practices surrounding course maintenance (cleaning up manage files & question libraries) and how to manage release dates associated with your course from one central location in D2L (saving you time!).

Working with Master Courses and Development Sites: Friday, May 10, 10:00-11:30am, LACC235

This workshop will highlight various models and collaboration strategies used by faculty to support the development, use and maintenance of master courses and development sites in D2L. Come learn how master courses are being used to share content, resources, teaching strategies, activities and assessments.

Open Education Resources: What, Why and How: Wednesday, May 15. 1:00-2:30pm, Room TBD

At the heart of the Open Education movement lies the idea that publicly-funded knowledge and knowledge products (textbooks, curricula, lecture notes, tests, assignments, video, images) should be made freely available to the public (including students). As educators dedicated to the creation and transfer of knowledge this idea is appealing. But how does it work? What constitutes Open Education Resources (OER)? How are they licensed? Where can you find them? What are the best ways to use them? In this workshop we will explore how to use Open Education Resources to remove barriers to education.

Designing for Engagement: Moving beyond Text and Images: Thursday, May 16, 10:00-11:30am, LACC135

Come learn how to transform your content to accommodate a variety of learning styles and abilities. We’ll begin with an overview of the content tool and its functionality to get you started with building content. We’ll then explore how you can transform various types of content including (but not limited to): PDFs, PPT and Word documents to a web-accessible format that improves the teaching and learning experience.

Introduction to Blackboard Collaborate Ultra: Information Session: Friday, May 17, 10:30-11:30am, LACC235

Blackboard Collaborate Ultra is a synchronous classroom tool that is coming to Camosun. This means that faculty now have an online tool with audio, video, chat, and whiteboard/desktop sharing capabilities to support their teaching in real-time. Come find out more about Blackboard Collaborate and how it can be used, as well as when it will be available.

Setting up Your Gradebook: Thursday, May 23, 1:00-2:30pm, LACC235

This hands-on workshop will focus on setting up your D2L Gradebook from start to finish. Please bring your course outline (or a breakdown of your assessment items) to the workshop if you wish to build your own Gradebook.

Quizzes & Leveraging Course Analytics in D2L: Friday, May 24, 10:00-11:30am., LACC235

This workshop will begin with an overview of how to create, customize and grade quizzes. Participants will also learn how to take advantage of the D2L’s robust analytics to enhance the learner experience and identify redesign opportunities.

Exploring Different Ways to Use Rubrics: Thursday, May 30, 10:00-11:30am, LACC235

Come learn how you can streamline your assessment strategy, communicate expectations and feedback for your learners while also building in quality assurance measures and cutting down on manual marking. Various examples, lessons learned and planning tips will be shared. Participants will have the opportunity to build or refine a rubric.

Taking a Closer Look at Communication & Collaboration in D2L: Thursday, June 6, 10:00-11:30am, LACC235

Take a closer look at how instructors can use communication tools to connect with students and support collaborative learning experiences.

Using WordPress for Student Blogs: Information Session: Friday, June 7, 10:30-11:30am, LACC236

WordPress is a blogging and website creation tool which is now available in the Canadian cloud, meaning that if you would like your students to build blogs and websites as part of their learning, we can now offer a solution which will be in compliance with the BC Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. Come find out more about how to set up a site for yourself, and what you need to know to get your students started.

Conditional Release + Intelligent Agents: Thursday, June 13, 10:00-11:30am, LACC235

This workshop will provide participants with an overview of how conditional release and intelligent agents can support the development of personalized learning paths for students within your course.

Creative Applications in eLearning: Friday, June 14, 10:00-11:30am, LACC235

This workshop will showcase some creative ways to deliver content, engage learners and put a twist on some of the common teaching tools in D2L.

4 Great People to Follow on Twitter

When integrating educational technology into our teaching, we often find ourselves faced with a myriad of challenges and ethical issues to consider beyond the simple question of how the tool supports our learning outcomes. If you are wondering where to turn, here are four experts I follow on Twitter whose work has helped me work through some of the struggles I have faced when assessing a new tool. And yes, these are only four – if you have a go-to expert on your list, let me know in the comments!

Jesse Stommel: https://twitter.com/Jessifer

According to his website, “Jesse Stommel is Executive Director of the Division of Teaching and Learning Technologies at University of Mary Washington. He is also Co-founder of Digital Pedagogy Lab and Hybrid Pedagogy: an open-access journal of learning, teaching, and technology. He has a PhD from University of Colorado Boulder.”

Exploring digital pedagogy from a critical lens, with the student forefront in his mind, he says about his own practice, “My scholarly work is about the sometimes wondrous, sometimes horrifying relationship between bodies and technology. My particular expertise is in digital pedagogy, digital humanities, and open education. I believe all learning is necessarily hybrid. In on-ground pedagogy, it is important to engage students’ digital selves. And, with digital and online pedagogy, our challenge is not merely to replace (or offer substitutes for) face-to-face education, but to find new and innovative ways to engage students in the practice of learning.”

Rajiv Jhangiani: https://twitter.com/thatpsychprof

A champion of and innovator in the Open Pedagogy movement, Jhangiani says on his website: “I am the Special Advisor to the Provost on Open Education and a faculty member in the Department of Psychology at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. I currently serve as an Associate Editor of Psychology Learning and Teaching and an Ambassador for the Center for Open Science. Together with Robin DeRosa, I am co-founder of the Open Pedagogy Notebook. I also serve as an Advisory Buddy with Virtually Connecting and on the board of KDocs, KPU’s Official Documentary Film Festival.”

I highly recommend exploring the Open Pedagogy Notebook site which contains concrete examples of open pedagogy in action, and encourages you to collaborate and engage with open pedagogy practitioners from around the world.

Julia Hengstler: https://twitter.com/jhengstler

An advocate for and specialist in privacy as it applies to our world of educational technology, The White Hatter tells us that “Julia Hengstler is a Professor, Educational Technologist, and Chair of the Centre for Education & CyberHumanity (Faculty of Education, Vancouver Island University, Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada) … Her doctoral research specializes in privacy and the use of educational technology in BC public schools… With over more than 25 years as an educator in BC’s public-school system, Julia has taught a wide variety of subject areas and grade levels ranging from K-12 to post-graduate. Julia blogs about education and technology at “ED Tech Thoughts”.”

Much of Hengstler’s work revolves around understanding and managing your digital footprint, and the impact of using social media in education.

Jess Mitchell: https://twitter.com/jesshmitchell

Jess Mitchell is the Senior Manager of the Inclusive Design Research Centre at OCAD University in Toronto, Ontario which “was created as Canada’s first research hub focused on digital inclusion. It is adding new approaches to learning that are championing cross-disciplinary practice, collaboration, and the integration of emerging technologies.” (https://casestudies.etgroup.ca/ocad/)

An advocate for inclusive design, as you may have guessed, Mitchell “manages large-scale international projects and initiatives focusing on fostering innovation within diverse communities while achieving outcomes that benefit everyone”, which is inclusive design in a nutshell: inclusive design benefits all, and practicing inclusive design makes something more accessible overall. When I started reading more about inclusive design, I realized that there is a difference between inclusive design and universal design, as well as between inclusive design and accessibility. The essay “The Number 1 Thing You’re Getting Wrong about inclusive Design” is a good place to start when beginning to puzzle through the distinctions. Following Jess Mitchell will help clarify them.

Printing Content in D2L – a Student Tutorial

Scenario

This tutorial will cover the steps involved with printing PDFs, WORD documents, and PowerPoint course materials from within the Content tool. For further information, please contact desupport@camosun.ca for assistance.

Steps

Go to your course in D2L.
Go to the Content tool (through the Tools drop-down menu in the navigation bar).

To print documents (WORD, PDF, PPT)

In the Table of Contents box, click on the title of the Module containing the files/pages you want to print.
Click on the title of the content page you want to print.
Scroll down to the bottom of the content page and click the Download button to save the file to your computer, then open it in the appropriate program (for example, WORD or PowerPoint) and print the document from there.

To print multiple pages of Content

In the Table of Contents box, click on the title of the Module you want to work with.
Click the Download button at the top of the page. The files in the Module will be “compressed” into a zip file, which you can save onto your computer, and then unzip into separate files which you can then print.

Keeping Final Grades Updated in D2L

As the term winds down, you may find yourself looking at your course Gradebooks in D2L to see how students are doing. One easy way to do this is to set your Final Calculated Grades to be continuously updated as grades are added – you can see it, but students won’t unless you release the Final Calculated Grades column!

Scenario

This tutorial will cover the steps involved when you want to keep the Final Calculated Grade column updated (in the Enter Grades area) as you add marks to grade items.

Steps

Go to the Grades tool in your course.
From either Enter Grades or Manage Grades, click Settings.
Click on the Calculations Options tab.
Under Auto Update (at the bottom of the page), select Automatically keep final grades updated. Click Save. Then click Close. When you go to the Enter Grades area, you will now see that the Final Calculated Grades column is updated each time you add new marks to grade items.

Things to Remember

Note that students will NOT be able to see these ongoing Final Calculated Grade column updates unless you release the Final Calculated Grade item.

Reminder: eLearning Drop-ins, or book a consult!

As we head into the final weeks of the Winter 2019 term, you may be starting to think about how to set up your Final Grade in the D2L Gradebook, or about setting up your courses for the Spring term, and we here in eLearning wanted to remind you that we are here to help!

If you need any help setting up your D2L course sites, or have any questions now or during the term about D2L or how to use (or why you might want to use) any of its tools, we are here for you!

Our eLearning Support team is available from 8:30-4:30, Monday-Friday by phone (250-370-3488) or by email (desupport@camosun.ca) or even by in-person in the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) offices in the Lansdowne Library. And they are available for your students to, so be sure to direct them to eLearning Support if they have technical issues with D2L (like logging in!)

We also have 6 instructional designers who are available to help you by appointment, or during our eLearning drop-ins. Our Lansdowne drop-ins are on Tuesdays 12:30-1:30pm in the CETL offices in the Lansdowne Library, and out Interurban drop-ins are on Fridays from 11:30am-12:30pm in our CETL offices in the Liz Ashton Campus Centre, room 235.

If you would like to contact an instructional designer to schedule a consult regarding a specific question you are having around using D2L, or for information on how to use a specific D2L tool, or with any questions you may have about using other educational technologies to support your teaching (or even if you have a pedagogical challenge and are wondering what educational technology might help you with your challenge), contact eLearning support (desupport@camosun.ca) and we can set you up!

You can also find out more about who is available to help you with your eLearning needs by visiting the Contact Us section of the main CETL website and email an instructional designer directly.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Attaching Feedback to a Grade Item in D2L

This tutorial is designed for faculty who have previous experience using the Grades tool and HTML editor in D2L. For further information, please contact desupport@camosun.ca for assistance.

Scenario

This tutorial will cover the steps involved when you want to add feedback or attach feedback files for students in the Grades tool.

Steps

Go to the Grades tool in your course, and make sure you are in the Enter Grades area.
Click the down arrow next to the grade item you want to add feedback to, and select Grade All.
Click the Feedback (pencil) icon for whichever student you want to provide feedback.
In the Grade Feedback pop-up box, type or copy/paste your feedback into the Feedback box (the HTML editor). You can also use the Insert Stuff or Quicklink options (the icons on the top, left) to upload feedback files for your students (they will be stored in Manage Files). Click Save. Then click Save again once you have finished adding all your grades and feedback for this grade item.Note that the Private Comments box is used to leave comments/information for people in the course who have grading permissions (for example, another instructor, a TA, etc.)

Things to Remember

If you are linking grade items to other activities in D2L, for example Dropbox, we recommend that you add feedback, or upload feedback files, to those tools rather than adding them in the Grades tool.

Viewing Assignment Feedback – a Student D2L Tutorial

Scenario

This tutorial will cover how to view assignment feedback that your instructor has left for you in the Dropbox in D2L (if your course is using the Dropbox tool for assignments!)

Steps

Go to your course in D2L.
Go to the Dropbox tool (through the Tools drop-down menu in the navigation bar). Note that you have to go to Dropbox to view your feedback, as you won’t receive notifications for feedback (only for grades).
Click the View Feedback link next to the assignment you wish to review feedback for.
Review the Dropbox Feedback, and/or download the Attached Files (which may contain track changes, comments, etc. from your instructor). Click Done when you have finished reviewing the feedback.

Things to Remember

NOTE that you will only be able to view Dropbox feedback after your instructor has released it! For further information, please contact desupport@camosun.ca for assistance.