Uncategorised – Page 5 – Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning

February eLearning Workshops Reminder

Happy Monday! I just wanted to take a moment to remind you of what is upcoming for eLearning workshops in February – register now to save your spot!

ReadSpeaker in D2L (hands-on)

Friday, February 8^th, 2:00-4:00 pm, Ewing 112

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.

Top 10 Digital Learning Skills Strategies for Your Students

Tuesday, February 19^th, 2:00-4:00 pm, LLC151

Are you looking for strategies to support your students who are learning using digital resources? Whether you are using D2L to support your face-to-face teaching, teaching blended, or completely online, we have some tips and resources for you!

Liberating Structures

Wednesday, February 20^th, 1:00-4:00 pm, LLC151

Liberating Structures are “serious fun” activities and facilitation strategies to support engagement, collaboration, creative thinking, and learning. Liberating Structures introduce small design shifts that move us gently away from more constraining “conventional structures” (e.g., lectures, open discussions, round robin updates, brainstorms) and toward sessions that quickly foster lively participation in groups of any size, making it possible to unleash and include everyone.

In this three hour workshop, you will experience the most-popular and easy-to-adopt structures used in teaching and learning contexts, and consider how you might use them in your own teaching practice. If you have been looking for new ideas and approaches to add to your teaching toolkit, this will deliver!

Continuous Upgrade Post – Catch up from September through December

I have been sadly remiss in posting information about all the changes that have been happening in D2L with our monthly upgrades. So, what has been happening in D2L since September that you might want to know about? Here are some of the highlights:

September Updates

Students can now print or download content added to the Overview area in the Content tool.
You can now attach a Group to existing discussion topic while creating the group. You’ve always been able to create a Discussion Topic while creating a group, but now you can also select an existing Topic to attach a group to. You will find this option when you click Set up discussion areas, when creating a New Group. Select Attach to existing topic, and choose the Topic you want to attach your group to.

October Updates

There are some new assignment types you can choose from in Dropbox, which means that students don’t have to necessarily upload a file for Dropbox to work properly. This will open all kinds of options for accepting embedded videos or audios (rather than students having to upload them and you having to download them – you will be able to play them right in D2L!), or setting up a Dropbox for assignments students hand in in class. I will post about this change separately so I can give you a closer look at how these new changes work! Stay tuned…
You may have noticed (or your students may have noticed, and may or may not have pointed out to you) that quiz questions now auto save. This means that students no longer have to click Save for each question (the Save button is in fact gone) – but their answers will be saved automatically once they answer the questions. Student do still need to Submit the quiz when they have finished it though!!

December

In the new Question Creation Interface for Written Response questions, the option to add Initial Text for students has been added back! See below for how this will now work:
All graded rubrics, whether they are in Dropbox or Discussions, now will appear in a student’s Gradebook (if the Dropbox/Discussion is linked to a Grade Item). Below is a Preview of a student’s gradebook – the View Graded Rubric links are links to the rubrics as graded in Dropbox!

Next week I’ll let you know what is coming later this month for the first updates of 2019!

Planning for SD? Consider eLearning Workshops this Spring!

If you are thinking ahead to what you might want to do on your Scheduled Development in May/June (2019…crazy!), consider what eLearning will have to offer.

Here is a list of workshops we will be offering in between May 3 and June 21, 2019. The final schedule will not be available until February (and dates will be subject to change due to the fact that we can’t book all our spaces until April), but this list will hopefully inspire you!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Top 10 Digital Learning Skills Strategies for Your Students

Are you looking for strategies to support your students who are learning using digital resources? Whether you are using D2L to support your face-to-face teaching, teaching blended, or completely online, we have some tips and resources for you!

Making Your D2L Course Accessible: 7 Things You Can ALWAYS Do!

Do you know if the digital course materials you’re providing for your students are accessible? Would every student in your class be able to access required readings or videos or audio content? In this workshop we will cover 7 key things you can – and should! – always do to support equitable access to your course materials.

Ethical Dimensions of Educational Technology

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.

Social Media use in Education

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

Creating Community in the Online Classroom

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.

Flipping the Classroom

Wonder what all the hype is around the “flipped” classroom? Come experience one way to flip a classroom in our 2-hour workshop.

WordPress for Teaching and Learning using Camosun’s WordPress

WordPress is a blogging and website creation tool now available at Camosun College. In this workshop you will learn the basics of how to set up a WordPress site on Camosun’s WordPress instance. Prior to attending the session, you will be set up with a WordPress account so you have a place to work during the session!

Getting Started with Kaltura: Streaming Media at Camosun!

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 Media Capture: Creating Multimedia Magic!

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.

Best practices around integrating media into D2L

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.

Open Education Resources: What, Why and How

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.

BlackBoard Collaborate Ultra: Information sessions

- 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

WordPress for Students

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.

Getting Started with ePortfolio in D2L (Tentative pending pilot)

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!

Getting Started with Readspeaker/TextAid in D2L

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.

Interurban D2L Workshops

Getting Started with D2L (New Instructors)

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 who have previous teaching experience using D2L)

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.

Course Spring Cleaning

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

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.

Designing for Engagement: Moving beyond Text and Images

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.

Setting up Your Gradebook

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

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

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

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

Conditional Release + Intelligent Agents

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

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.

Introduction to Kaltura (Streaming Media at Camosun): Information Session

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.

Introduction to Blackboard Collaborate Ultra: Information Session

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.

Using WordPress for Student Blogs: Information Session

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.

eLearning Workshops Winter 2019

Register now for eLearning Winter 2019 Workshops!

The eLearning Workshop Series is designed to assist faculty (beginner to advanced) with incorporating educational technologies (including Desire2Learn (D2L), WordPress, Blackboard Collaborate Ultra, Kaltura, and multimedia) into their teaching. Note: This schedule is subject to change. Make sure to register for the session(s) you would like to attend so that we can notify you if there is a room change or cancellation. Don’t see what you’re looking for or not sure where to begin? Contact eLearning Support (desupport@camosun.ca) to book a consult with an Instructional Designer.

We also have drop-ins (no registration required)!

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.

Lansdowne Workshops

Title: ReadSpeaker in D2L
Date & Time: Friday, February 8, from 2:00-4:00pm
Location: Ewing 112, Lansdowne Campus
Description: 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.

Title: Top 10 Digital Learning Skills Strategies for Your Students
Date & Time: Tuesday, February 19 from 2:00-4:00pm
Location: LLC151, Lansdowne Campus
Description: Are you looking for strategies to support your students who are learning using digital resources? Whether you are using D2L to support your face-to-face teaching, teaching blended, or completely online, we have some tips and resources for you!

Title: Introduction to Kaltura (Streaming Media at Camosun): Information Session
Date & Time: Monday, March 4 from 3:00-4:00pm
Location: LLC151, Lansdowne Campus
Description: 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, and how you can use it for your courses, as well as when it will be available at this information session!

Title: Introduction to ePortfolio in D2L (info session)
Date & Time: Friday, March 8 from 12:30-1:30pm
Location: LLC151, Lansdowne Campus
Description: 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.

Title: Introduction to Blackboard Collaborate Ultra: Information Session
Date & Time: Monday, March 11 from 3:00-4:00pm
Location: LLC151, Lansdowne Campus
Description: 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.

Title: Using WordPress for Student Blogs: Information Session
Date & Time: Thursday, March 14 from 3:00-4:00pm
Location: LLC151, Lansdowne Campus
Description: 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.

Interurban Workshops

Title: Getting Started with D2L (New Instructors)
Date & Time: Thursday, Jan 3 from 10:00am-11:30am
Location: LACC 235, Interurban Campus
Description: 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!

Title: What’s New in D2L (for instructors who have previous teaching experience using D2L)
Date & Time: Friday, Jan 4 from 10:00am-11:30am
Location: LACC 235, Interurban Campus
Description: 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.

Title: Course Set-up
Date & Time: Friday, Jan 4 from 2:00pm-3:30pm
Location: LACC 235, Interurban Campus
Description: 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 and how to manage release dates associated with your course from one central location in D2L (saving you time!).

Title: Incorporating eLearning Projects into Your Scheduled Development (SD) Plans
Date & Time: Friday, January 11 from 10:00am-11:00am
Location: LACC 235, Interurban Campus
Description: This workshop will focus on the key planning considerations to think about when estimating the amount of time required to complete eLearning projects during SD.

Title: Setting up Your Gradebook
Date & Time: Friday, January 25 from 10:00am-11:30am
Location: LACC 235, Interurban Campus
Description: 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.

Title: Managing Final Grades in D2L
Date & Time: Friday, April 12 from 10:00am-11:30am
Location: LACC 235, 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.

3 CETL workshops you don’t want to miss!!

Well, you don’t want to miss any of our workshops, so in addition to the ones I will tell you about below, you can find out more about other exciting Camosun eLearning workshops, and register too, at: https://decamosun.wordpress.com/2018/02/02/elearning-spring-2018-workshops-open-for-registration/.

But there are three in particular I want to mention today.

First, Ethical Dimensions of Educational Technology

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 (first part online, second part face-to-face) 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.

Who: Brian Lamb, Thomson Rivers University and Emily Schudel, Camosun College
When: Mon., May 14, 1:00-4:00 pm
Where: Lansdowne, Library and Learning Commons, Room 151
Register at: https://www.surveymonkey.ca/r/DYZ3KFS

Second, Creating Community in the Online Classroom

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.

Who: Emily Schudel and Martha McAlister, CETL
When: Online: Wed., May 16-May 23; Face-to-Face: May Wed., May 23, 11:30am-1:00pm
Where: Lansdowne, Library and Learning Commons, Room 151
Register at: https://www.surveymonkey.ca/r/D2LFHQ2

And finally, Flipping Out over the Flipped Classroom

Wonder what all the hype is around the “flipped” classroom? Come experience one way to flip a classroom in our 2-hour workshop. In this flip, the first hour will be online in D2L and will start on Friday, May 5 and run until May 12, and the second hour will be in the “classroom” on May 12. In this workshop, you will: Learn about what it means to flip a classroom; Discuss your own ideas for flipped classroom activities with Camosun colleagues; Learn about the pros and cons of flipping the classroom

Who: Martha McAlister and Emily Schudel, CETL
When: Online: Wed., May 9-May 16; Face-to-Face: May Wed., May 16, 11:00am-12:30pm
Where: Lansdowne, Library and Learning Commons, Room 151
Register at: https://www.surveymonkey.ca/r/D2LP2XF

Have questions? Want to know more? Email Emily Schudel at schudele@camosun.ca.

Introduction to Daylight, Post 1: The Course Homepage

As we move closer to our upgrade of D2L to what is called The Daylight Experience, I wanted to publish a series of posts showing you what the various tools will look like come May.

Today, we will be looking at the D2L default course homepage. If you have a customized homepage, you may see more widgets, more columns, etc. on your own homepage than you will see here, but be aware that there are some design features associated with our current version of D2L that you won’t be able to customize in Daylight. Let’s have a look.

When a new course shell is created in Daylight, this is what you will see:

Compare this to the current version:

To detail some of the changes you can see above:

As you can see in the images below, the “minibar” at the top of the Daylight page (which is a black bar at the top of the current version of D2L) has changed the My Home link to an icon that looks like a house, and changed the Select a course drop-down menu to a checkerboard-like icon (next to the email notification icon). The minibar will still appear on the Camosun D2L homepage, as well as on every page of your own course sites.
Current version:

Daylight – note the change of My Home and the Select a course menu to icons:
As you can see below, the default placement of links on the course NavBar has moved to the left-hand side. In Daylight, you cannot move the links to the right-hand side, but you can still add or delete items from the NavBar.
Current version – links on the right side:

Daylight – links on the left side:
Due to the responsive re-design of D2L (meaning that the Daylight interface will adjust to any size device now), there is no longer an option to customize the colour scheme on the homepage (in other words, no coloured swoosh in the background).
Current version – beautiful swoosh that can be colour-customized:

Daylight – white background only:
Similarly, there is no longer an option to customize the design of the widgets (e.g., you can’t change the title bar of the widgets, or add a border to them).
Current version, showing possible design options for widgets on the homepage:

Daylight – no options for customizing the widget design:
On the good news side of things, you no longer have to worry about accidentally collapsing the News widget! In the current version, if you click on the widget title bar, the widget collapses (closes), which makes it easy for students to collapse it without realizing they have done so. But now you have to work harder to collapse those widget by clicking on the drop-down menu to collapse widgets.
Current version – as you can see it’s easy to close that widget and not notice:

Daylight – you definitely have to work harder now!

In my next post, I will give you a tour of what the main tools in D2L will look like in Daylight.

eLearning Spring 2018 Workshops Open for Registration

Planning your May/June SD? Register now for eLearning Spring 2018 Workshops!

The eLearning Workshop Series is designed to assist faculty (beginner to advanced) with incorporating educational technologies into their teaching, as well as with blended and online course/program planning and development. This May/June we have an exciting array of workshops covering everything from D2L, WordPress, flipping the classroom, online learning strategies, and more!

Make sure to register for the session(s) you would like to attend so that we can notify you if there is a room change or cancellation.

Visit our website at http://camosun.ca/about/teaching-learning/events/#alpha to register!

Click to download a PDF of our eLearning Spring 2018 Workshop Calendars.

UDL SLAM 2016 Stories | SLAM Story #3: School of Nursing

In October 2016, the eLearning unit in CETL hosted Camosun’s first “UDL Slam.” Faculty and staff were invited to share stories about practical applications of UDL (Universal Design for Learning) Principles they have implemented in their courses or programs. The “Slam” format required that these stories include the following details and be told in 5 minutes or less:

The specific barrier to learning;
The solution applied to address this barrier;
Some assessment of the solution to date.

In this third in a special series of posts, we give you a resourceful example of UDL in practice at a program level. This initiative out of the School of Nursing was spear-headed by Darlaine Jantzen (Program Chair), implemented with the assistance of Karen Foxall (Program Assistant), and was presented at UDL Slam 2016 by Joan Humphries (Associate Program Chair).

At the bottom of this post, we have included our own mini-analysis of which UDL Principles & Guidelines underpin the School of Nursing’s solution to a barrier that presented risks to accessing applied learning opportunities throughout the program.

Barrier: Intuitive, Consistent & Sustainable Orientation for New Students

Each fall, the BSN Program welcomes around 160 new students, all of whom need to become immediately oriented to not only the program itself but also to some fundamental expectations of professional Nursing practice. Those expectations include 13 different documents (certifications, credentials, etc.) that each student is required to complete and submit in order to be eligible for the practicum placements that are the cornerstone of the program; students who do not provide the required documentation cannot work in practicum locations.

In the past, the faculty teaching first-term courses were made the point-people for collecting the hundreds of pieces of required documentation from their students and tracking outstanding pieces – while also managing responsibilities inherent to delivering first-term curriculum. The communication about these requirements also largely fell to the 1^st-term teaching-faculty to manage, so attendant issues included inconsistencies between each faculty member’s approach to messaging and managing the process. Finally, the previous process did not allow students to access and submit all documentation electronically, creating additional challenges for the tracking of these required documents and presenting constant concerns about lost forms and repercussions for student learning opportunities.

In sum: the previous process made it difficult for students to get consistent information about fundamental program requirements, lacked a central point of contact for them to get clarification and support, was entirely paper-based, and added an enormous administrative workload on top of the teaching responsibilities of 1^st-term faculty.

Solution

In an effort to minimize student confusion about expectations and goals, avoid losing essential documents, and relieve 1^st-term faculty of administrative responsibilities on top of their existing teaching load, the BSN Program decided to centralize the program orientation (now known as the “BSN Primer”) into a dedicated module in all first-term course D2L sites. Program Assistant, Karen Foxall, was made the primary point-person for the BSN Primer; she became the consistent point of contact for questions students had about the orientation and also took over tracking their successful completion of the BSN Primer requirements.

By integrating the BSN Primer into D2L course sites, new students have the additional benefit of becoming familiar on Day 1 with common D2L functions that they will encounter throughout the program (e.g. Dropboxes, Quizzes, Content, etc.)

And finally: the old paper-based process that was both clunky and risky, was replaced by a fully digital process. All forms were converted into electronic format and students now submit their materials online via task-specific Dropboxes in D2L. This allows the Program Assistant to easily retrieve all completed documents and confirm student completion at a glance.

Example Sections from the New BSN Primer

The BSN Primer is organized around 4 primary themes that orient students to both the expectations of the program and their professional practice:

Presenting & Preparing Yourself for Classes
Preparing Yourself for Registered Nursing Practices
Consent Forms
Confidentiality: Yours and Others.

Below are screen-shots of two of these sections. These sections include: instructions for students, electronic copies of required forms, Dropboxes for form submissions, and short “quizzes” or checklists used to confirm that students have completed all of the requirements for that section.

Benefits

Primary benefits:

Consistent messaging and support; accountability. With Program Assistant, Karen, as the central manager of this process and with all of the forms being submitted online and in a centralized location, the process of tracking outstanding documentation is much easier and follow-up is timelier. Students who have not completed all of the required documentation or whose documentation includes errors are less likely to fall into an administrative gap and find themselves ineligible for practicum placements.
Intuitive and user-friendly. The BSN Primer introduces students to program goals, expectations and schedules on Day 1 of their program. By Karen’s estimation, in the Fall 2016 trial run of the BSN Primer, approximately 75% of the new student intake had no difficulty completing the requirements and/or read all of the instructions and completed all of their requirements by the deadlines.
Orientation to LMS (D2L) prior to formal course work. By integrating the BSN Primer orientation into the same LMS used to deliver course curriculum, students are given immediate familiarity to D2L functions and navigation.
Timeliness. Based on the program’s experience in previous years, the digitization and centralization of the orientation moved the typical schedule for collecting students’ documentation up by about 10 weeks.

Additional benefits:

More sustainable practice for Faculty. Instructors who teach the first-term courses expressed appreciation for having the administrative responsibility for collecting and tracking all of the required forms taken out of their hands.
More environmentally sustainable too! By moving this orientation online into D2L, the sheer volume of paper used collected by the program has gone down tremendously.

UDL Breakdown & Analysis

We think this story positively illustrates the practical application of two UDL Principles:

First:

UDL Principle #1: Provide Multiple Methods of Representation

By digitizing the documentation component of the Nursing Orientation and incorporating the same LMS (D2L) students will use throughout their program, the BSN Primer supports at least two of Principle #1’s guidelines (“Perception” and “Comprehension”). Through the BSN Primer, the program is:

Offering learners ways to customize their display of information: the BSN Primer provides digital formats of all the required documentation that give students options for accessing and viewing materials.
Providing background knowledge. The BSN Primer centralizes essential program and professional expectations of the students that they need to know and practice throughout the program; students access the BSN Primer on Day 1 of their program.
Supporting transfer of learning across the program; the BSN Primer incorporates explicit opportunities for students to review program expectations and requirements & practice navigating through D2L functions

There isn’t one means of representation that will be optimal for ALL learners; providing options for representation is essential

And second:

UDL Principle #2: Provide Multiple Methods of Action & Expressions

By providing new students with an essential orientation to program and professional expectations with consistent and centralized support, the School of Nursing’s BSN Primer illustrates Principle #2’s Guideline 6: Executive Functions*.

*“Executive functions” allow us to set long-term goals and plan effective strategies for reaching those goals. CAST

The BSN Primer underpins this guideline as it:

Guides appropriate goal-setting by posting goals, objectives & schedules in an obvious place, and providing cues to help learners identify resources required – including time.
Supports planning and strategy development by providing checklists and setting up prioritization and sequences of tasks for students;
Facilitates managing information and resources by providing templates for data collection & organizing information;

Learners differ in the ways that they navigate a learning environment and express what they know. There isn’t one means of action and expression that will be optimal for ALL learners; providing options is essential.

D2L Tool Tip of the Week: Creating a News Item

This tutorial is designed for faculty who have previous experience using the News tool or the HTML editor in D2L and will cover the steps involved when you wish to publish all student feedback for a Dropbox activity at one time. For further information, please contact desupport@camosun.ca for assistance.

Steps

Go to the Homepage of your course.

Things to remember

Each new News Items will appear at the top of the News widget feed. If you want to reorder your News Items, select Reorder News Items from the News context menu.

Also remember that students can dismiss News Items from their view of the News widget. If you want to make sure that students see your News Item again (if you are worried they have dismissed it), you need to Edit the News Item and select Major edit – send a notification and restore it for those who dismissed it.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) “Slam”

You are Invited to eLearning’s Inaugural “UDL Slam”!

Do you often ask yourself questions like: “Does anyone else at Camosun encounter this same barrier or challenge for students in their classes?” and “What are my fellow instructors trying out in their classes to address these barriers that might work for me too?” Or maybe you have come up with a solution to a barrier and would love to have 5 minutes or less to share your idea with colleagues. Yes? This event could be for you!

In the spirit of bringing members of our teaching & learning community together to share creative ideas to address barriers and challenges to student learning, we are excited to invite you to participate in Camosun’s first ever UDL Slam!

Need a little background on what UDL or Slams are before you decide?

UDL

At its core, UDL (Universal Design for Learning) is about proactively designing “barrier free” learning opportunities for students. UDL recognizes that we cannot design learning experiences for a singular type of student. UDL is therefore based on three key principles for providing a diverse community of students with Multiple Means of:

REPRESENTATION.
This is the “what” of learning and learners differ in how they perceive & comprehend information given to them.
ACTION & EXPRESSION.
This is the “how” of learning and learners differ in how they navigate a learning environment & express what they know.
ENGAGEMENT.
This is the “why” of learning and learners differ markedly in the ways in which they can be engaged or motivated to learn.

Slams

“Slams” have long been popular, competitive events in poetry circles where participants recite original works no longer than three minutes long. The idea has been adopted by tech giant, Google, which regularly hosts Demo Slams at its education workshops to encourage members of the public to present short and user-friendly tutorials about the innovative uses they have come up with for a technology. These ideas might be obvious to you but can be amazing and inspiring to others.

Whether or not they are competitive events, in any Slam event participants are required to present a concept to an audience within a tight and enforced timeframe before giving the floor to the next participant in line.

Format for UDL Slam 2016

Are you intrigued? Excited to share your ideas and hear creative solutions from around the College? Here’s what you need to know to participate.

There is no need to prepare formal presentations for a Slam – this is about rapid-fire sharing of ideas and hearing from as many participants in the space of one hour as possible. There are lots of faculty around Camosun who are using UDL in their teaching practices and our key goal for this event is to collect as many exciting ideas as we can about UDL principles-in-action.

You will have a maximum of 5 minutes to share your UDL Slam story. Your story needs to include:

Your name & the course/s you are talking about;
The barrier to learning you identified in the course (and who it affected);
The solution you designed to address the barrier;
Your assessment of this solution (if you have already implemented and tried it out: Any lessons you learned? Adjustments you’d make?).

Bare-bones format for a UDL Slam story:

“My name is ### and I teach ###. I have decided to do ### project in my course in lieu of a final exam because I found the barriers to success were ####. I hope that the results will be ###.”

Slam! (On to the next participant)

We will not be taking questions in between each Slam story, but will hold 15 minutes at the end of the event for discussion.( Participants can also follow-up with each other as needed, and eLearning will include details about UDL stories in subsequent blog posts.)

For more information about how to participate, visit to our website at http://web.camosun.ca/cetl/content/universal-design-learning-udl-slam.