Category: Uncategorised

We are starting to plan our fall training, and have some Interurban workshops up and ready to register for!  Lansdowne workshop listings will be posted in August once everyone is back and raring to go for Fall!

Check out descriptions below, and register at our Survey Monkey form.

D2L Overview

Date & Time: Tuesday, August 27 from 10-11:30am; Thursday, August 29 from 10-11:30am
Location: LACC 251J, Interurban Campus
Description: This workshop will provide instructors with an overview of the essential teaching tools available in our learning management system, D2L (also known as Brightspace). Whether you are supplementing your face-to-face classes, transition from using a basic course website or simply want to learn more about to enhance your current teaching practice using D2L, this workshop has a little something for everyone. Come explore the possibilities!

Course Tune-up

Date & Time: Wednesday, August 28 from 10-11:30am
Location: LACC 251J, Interurban Campus
Description: This workshop will focus on setting up your course for Day 1. We’ll cover copying course components and customizing your homepage, widgets and navigation bar. We’ll all show you how to manage release dates associated with your content, discussions, assignments, grades, news and quizzes – from one central location in D2L.

Setting up Your Gradebook

Date & Time: Friday, September 13 from 10-11:30am
Location: LACC 251J, Interurban Campus
Description: This hands on workshop will focus on setting up your Gradebook from start to finish. Please bring your course outline (or a breakdown of your assessment items) if you wish to build your own Gradebook during the workshop.

Managing Groups in D2L

Date & Time: Friday, September 20 from 10-11:30am
Location: LACC 251J, Interurban Campus
Description: This workshop will provide an overview of how to create and manage groups in D2L. A demonstration of how to create private group discussions and group assignment folders will be provided.

Building Quizzes in D2L

Date & Time: Friday, September 27 from 10-11:30am
Location: LACC 251J, Interurban Campus
Description: This workshop will explore ways to create, customize and grade quizzes. We’ll also tackle creating Question Pools and how to organize your questions in the Question Library.

Managing Assignments

Date & Time: Friday, October 4 from 10-11:30am
Location: LACC 251J, Interurban Campus
Description: The Assignment tool in D2L enables students to submit assignments while streamlining the grading process for instructors. This workshop provides hands-on practice creating, managing and grading assignments.

Getting Started with Kaltura (Streaming Media Service)

Date & Time: Friday, October 11 from 10-11:30am
Location: LACC 251J, Interurban Campus
Description: Kaltura is Camosun College’s streaming media service that integrates into D2L. This means faculty and students 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, and how you can use it for your courses. Bring a laptop to the session if you have one.

Connecting with Your Students in Real-time

Date & Time: Friday, October 25 from 10-11:30am
Location: LACC 251J, Interurban Campus
Description: Blackboard Collaborate Ultra is Camosun’s web conferencing tool. Whether you teach face-to-face, blended, or online, this tool can help you increase instructor-student and student-to-student engagement. Come find out more about how you can connect with learners synchronously. This session requires you bring a laptop to participate.

Managing Final Grades in D2L

Date & Time: Friday, December 13, 10-11:30
Location: LACC 251J, Interurban Campus
Description: It’s grading time again! This workshop is designed to provide a quick refresher on how to input and manage grades in D2L. An overview of how to apply grade schemes and release calculated and adjusted final grades will also be provided.

Our Flipping Out over the Flipped Classroom workshop is co-facilitated by members of eLearning and Faculty Development (both units in our Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning unit). It’s one of my favourite workshops to facilitate, partly because it’s a workshop about flipping, which is itself flipped!

One thing faculty quickly realize when they get our reminder email about the workshop (one week in advance of the face-to-face component), and the instructions for how to access the online component of the workshop (which they MUST complete before the face-to-face component…and yes, I have turned people away if they don’t complete it!), is how challenging it is to be self-directed enough to complete activities before coming to the face to face class. And this is what I love most about this workshop – it puts the faculty in the shoes of their students, making them think about why they would flip their classes, and how to encourage students to engage outside of the classroom.

While this time we didn’t have to turn anyone away, several of the attendees noted that they had put off completing the activities until the last minute. It was a good first discussion as we did our initial check-in around the online component. It was great that  everyone ‘fessed up!

After checking in around the online experience, we engaged the participants around the readings they were to have completed, compiling a list of pros/benefits and cons/challenges of flipping the classroom, as well as some ideas for mitigating some of the challenges. This time around, here is what participants came up with:

Pros/Benefits of Flipping the Classroom

• Active learning
• Less boredom
• Controlled pacing
• Relevance: learning comes to life
• Addresses multiple learning styles
• Moving up Bloom’s, can get multiple perspectives to unpack in safe environment
• Encourages critical thinking
• Students are more likely to come prepared
• More engagement with content – “it sticks”

Cons/Challenges of Flipping the Classroom

• The time it takes an instructor to distill content to the basics, and develop material
• Need to create small marking rewards (clerical)
• Accountability (for students)
• Students resist – they have ideas about the roles of the student and the instructor
• Students have busy lives, and may lack a good study environment and access (to technology)
• Interest in topic – how to “hook” the students in

Ideas for Mitigating the Cons/Challenges

• Collaboration (between instructors)
• Institutional support
• Sharing resources between/among faculty to mitigate workload
• Scaffolding to mitigate student accountability and resistance (e.g., teaching them how to watch videos)
• Transparency (re: expectations) – why are we doing this?
• Check-in with students re: their resources, (safe) space, etc.
• Create more learning commons on campus
• Find out what’s available to students and let them know
• Advocate for more resource and support access (evenings, weekends) – writing and learning skills, etc.
• Scalability – do one thing
• Create guides for new/term/sessional faculty – shared resources
• Use flipped activities as formative feedback

We integrate a bit of a lecture into the workshop, discussing how flipping can maximize effectiveness of teaching using Bloom’s taxonomy as a guide. But the real fun in the workshop comes with the Troika Consulting (one of my favourite Liberating Structures activities) where participants work in small groups to get advice on ideas for flipping components of their classes, or for challenges they have faces when flipping. We always mix the groups so they are working with people NOT in their School or discipline, so they can have the joy of discovering new ideas and suggestions.

Main takeaways

• Networking and sharing and collaborating as a flipped activity and to create flipped activities
• Don’t need to flip a whole class – can flip a topic or an activity
• I am not alone – can pull on resources around the college (colleagues, etc.)
• Need more opportunities for multi-disciplinary things – hear different kinds of creativity when not too silo’ed
• Don’t always have to be f2f – web lunch meetings – Community of Practice and sharing what they’ve tried and make suggestions – ongoing opportunities?
• Finding help when you need it is a challenge sometimes – when trying something – need ongoing connection and conversation
• Is there research that shows flipping works better with certain audiences, topics, etc.?
• Doesn’t have to be everything, and it’s not just about technology
• You need to be prepared!
• It takes courage and preparation
• Flipping as a Program approach – built into all courses with support for all faculty, collaboratively created activities/resources, build it in gradually so students understand its value

What I was happy to see this time was an emphasis on the collaborative and programmatic approach to flipping, so it is not just one instructor in isolation. When all instructors in a program are flipping, students get used to it, they potentially will engage more, and see the benefits. Something to think about in the grand scheme of things at our institution!

If you are interested, I am including links to the resources participants were required to read/view during the online component of the workshop. If you have questions or comments, please post them here!

• Video #1: The flipped classroom model: (3 min) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojiebVw8O0g
• Video #2: Showing the Differences between a Traditional and a Flipped Classroom (7 min) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojiebVw8O0g
• Video #3: The Flipped Classroom Podcast: What is the flipped classroom?(4.5 min) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUUaC-gyDpY
• Video #4: What is a flipped classroom? (1 min) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2b7GeuqkPc
• Flipping the Classroom (Center for Teaching, Vanderbilt University): https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/flipping-the-classroom/
• In-class activities and assessment for the flipped classroom: https://uwaterloo.ca/centre-for-teaching-excellence/teaching-resources/teaching-tips/lecturing-and-presenting/delivery/class-activities-and-assessment-flipped-classroom
• Benefits of Flipped Classrooms, at http://guides.library.utoronto.ca/c.php?g=448614&p=3552449
• Making Our Teaching Efficient: Flipping the Classroom: https://tomprof.stanford.edu/posting/1463
• Incorporating Active Learning by Flipping the Classroom: https://www.stthomas.edu/media/lyris/facultydevelopment/IncorporatingActiveLearningByFlippingClassroom.pdf

And now, here is a list of the workshops we are offering next week.  You can register for these, and all our workshops, at https://www.surveymonkey.ca/r/B7KYD8P  If you have any questions, email me, Emily, at schudele@camosun.ca.

Lansdowne Workshops

Getting Started with Readspeaker/TextAid in D2L: Thursday, May 30, 2:00-4:00pm, Lansdowne, 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, Lansdowne, 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!

Interurban Workshops

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.

 

So, we are now in our second week of spring workshops. Workshops are one of my favourite things, giving faculty a place to come and talk about their practice, to find out what others are doing, and to trouble-shoot issues they may be having. I also learn a lot from them, and this term I am trying to take the time to follow up with all participants in the workshops I run with resources, answers to questions, and confirmation of anything I have committed to doing or finding out about for them.

Following-up sounds like a no-brainer, but it’s something I have not done very well over the years. So a new mantra for me is to follow-up now, and again in the fall with faculty who have taken the time to come to my workshops.

This also means I can share some of my following-up with you, so in the post, I will give you a bit of a glimpse into what came up in the workshops I have run so far, and what I have already followed-up on.

Last Monday was What’s New in D2L. In this session, I covered some of the upgrade highlights from the past year, including:

• The new Dropbox Feedback notification options for students (thanks D2L – this was a huge request by faculty last year!)
• Quizzes
  • New question creation interfaces for True/False, Multiple Choice, Short Answer, and Written Response question types
  • How to put Initial Text into Written Response questions within the new interface
  • Question Pools which have replaced Random Sections in a quiz
  • The new Dynamic Preview for Question Pools (when you set up a Question Pool in a quiz, you can now see what it will look like to students)
  • How to do static text and image information (for example, when you want a case study text to appear above a set of questions) now using Sections
  • Question Auto Save when students complete a quiz
• Rubrics
  • The new Rubric Creation interface
  • How they now work in Dropbox, Discussions, and Grades – students can now see them before grading AND after
  • If you put Rubrics in Dropbox and Discussions, they will appear in the Grades tool (if Dropbox/Discussion is linked to the Grades)
• Assignments
  • Assignment table language changes
  • Assignment submission types (that allow for submissions other than uploads!)
• Discussions
  • Group threads now available
• I also did some quick introductions to ReadSpeaker, ePortfolio, Kaltura, and Blackboard Collaborate Ultra which are all now available in D2L.

Lots has changed in D2L, and everyone seemed quite excited by the improvements!

Then Tuesday was Introducing D2L to your Students. Last year, the workshop discussion was around the actual introduction piece, but this year the discussion turned more towards keeping students engaged throughout the term, as well as finding ways to engage them in ethical considerations when working in an online environment. As for my commitments, I confirmed that I will:

• Continue to build out and organize the D2L Student Guide, especially around the Camosun-related resources, and taking the group’s feedback and suggestions forward as I do so
• Work on creating some scavenger hunt materials/suggestions, and work on an information site for tips to protect your privacy, etc. while using online tools for students (to support faculty in having those initial conversations with them).
• Continue to bring up to leadership challenged with access to D2L for waitlisted students, and for students waiting for funding for registration into courses, so that these issues can be escalated as an issue of inclusivity.

Finally, yesterday was D2L Quizzes – How, Why, and the Daylight Experience, covering everything from creating questions in the Question Library, through creating Quizzes, previewing them, and grading them. There are some new features in the Quizzes tool, mainly around the creation interface for some of the question types, importing questions into the quiz from the Question Library, and using Question Pools versus shuffling questions.

My commitment was to find out from D2L when the rest of the questions creation interfaces will change, and to let the group know if (when) I hear something.  And also, I committed to exploring the exemption option in the Quizzes tool and let them know how that works.  Finally, I shared with them a Multiple Choice D2L question converter I showed them during the workshop, which can be found at:  https://ivanhernandez.com/software/d2lconvert.html.

So, off to a good start for workshops and follow-ups. Looking forward to the next!

I have some updates for you about our spring workshops – some new workshops, and a few cancellations.  If you were registered in a workshop that has now been cancelled, you will have been sent a notification.  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

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.

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.

Fun with Rubrics: Friday, May 24, 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.

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.

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

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.

Getting Started with Kaltura, Thursday, May 16, 1:30-3:30pm, LACC235

• 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 hands-on session to find out more about what Kaltura is, what it can do, and learn how you can use it for your courses.

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. 

Kaltura 2: Creating Media Magic using Kaltura Capture, Thursday, June 6, 1:30-3:30pm, LACC235

• Are you interested in creating engaging media pieces for your courses in D2L? Not sure where to begin? Join Bob Preston for this hands-on workshop on Kaltura Capture. Learn the basics of creating and chaptering basic screencasts, PowerPoint presentations with voiceover, as well as creating video quizzes that you can link to the gradebook.

Editing Closed Captions in Kaltura, Tuesday, June 11, 9:30-11:30am, LACC235

• In order to ensure your videos are accessible to a wide range of students, it is important to have accurate closed captioning. If you are planning to create and stream videos through Kaltura, the built in captioning software is only 70% accurate. This hands-on workshop will walk you through how to edit the captioning to ensure 100% accuracy. This workshop will also explore some best practices in video creation to support effective learning for students.

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.