CETL Blog

D2L Orientation videos for new students!

While I generally prefer not creating tutorial videos for our eLearning supported tools (mainly because they all change so quickly and I simply don’t have it in me to re-create videos every term), recently a small team of us in eLearning produced three Introduction to D2L videos for new Camosun students.

While these videos were created specifically to support English Language Development and International students, they can be viewed and used by any students who are new to Camosun and our D2L (Brightspace) learning management system.

So, have a look at our Introduction to D2L for Students Videos and if you like what you see, send me a note at schudele@camosun.ca!

Camosun Faculty Story #45: Bev

Bev is a faculty member in Psychology at Camosun.  She started our conversation by telling me she and her department colleagues had been using D2L to support their students before March 2020. “D2L is a big part of reinforcing what is taught in the classroom: posting news items and lecture notes, and encouraging students to monitor their grades, assignments, etc.”  Even with this familiarity, “When we transitioned, the biggest challenge was trying to keep student course engagement and connection, especially students who find questioning and talking freely in-person challenging and now their faced with working completely online.” Bev was thankful she already had developed a good rapport with her students. She emailed students of concern, encouraging them to meet in course collaborate, and offered flexible office times for them to do so.

May was fast approaching, and since Bev would be teaching in May and June, she needed to find a way to get ready. When students registered, for May/June courses, they were registering for face-to-face delivery. “I didn’t have a ton of time to get ready. Fortunately, I relied heavily upon our instructional assistant in Psych who is well-versed in online delivery.”

In April, Bev surveyed students about their online experience, access to technology, and what their living situations were like to help her think about how to set up her course.  “One of the things I had to be mindful of was their home environments. Many of them were sharing, for example, a one-bedroom apartment with four or five other students.”  Knowing the challenges her students would be facing, she worked hard to build in engagement, utilizing the breakout rooms in Collaborate, for student-student interaction and she set up discussion posts for supporting peer connections. A three-hour scheduled face to face class was now a three hour collaborate session, using break out rooms. “Collaborate and breakout rooms were as a new to them as they were to me, so I continually asked for feedback on what was working and what wasn’t working for them.”

Bev was using the synchronous environment for discussion and elaboration, and D2L as delivery of information; by the end of spring semester, she found herself flipping her teaching.  “I realized toward the end of June that my role as an instructor had changed. I was not delivering the content as much as I was elaborating on the content, meeting with students, addressing their questions, and building on the content in a number of different modalities, while students were more in control of navigating the course content on their own.”  What Bev found most valuable that spring was working with her two colleagues who were also teaching then.  “We would meet regularly and brainstorm what was working. It really helped when I was feeling overwhelmed or challenged, and this networking with colleagues became as important to me as networking with my students.”

Bev told me that by the time fall rolled around, “I was feeling less overwhelmed and really inspired because I realized all that this online environment could do.” She polled her students again in June around how the delivery methods worked for them and “was surprised with the results. Even though they said they thought it was intense, they liked the week-to-week engagement.”  Now, Bev faced a new challenge for her fall interpersonal communication course with a lab component. Her challenge was how to incorporate the experiential learning piece, “a lot of the skill development requires sitting together face to face and practicing the skills. Skill demonstration by me in a face-to-face class was replaced with videos downloaded in Kaltura from YouTube, uploaded in course media, and embedded throughout the lecture modules.

Additionally, Bev had about 11 students registered with the Centre for Accessible learning with a variety of accommodation needs.  “I was trying to get my head around how the online delivery can support students in meeting some of the course objectives, while at the same time address a few unique accommodations.”  To help her navigate the wide world of online accommodations and accessibility, Bev reached out to instructional designer. “She helped me not only design the course, but she also implemented BBAlly, which measures level of accessibility. This accessibility report includes a course percentile score and graphs areas for improvement. For example, I use a lot of images in my teaching, and I had to go back now and describe the images, put captions in the videos, etc.”  This work was eye-opening for Bev, because it “made me realize how much I assume that students understand given instruction, in classes face-to-face. I went back to what I had already set up in my D2L course and integrated more instructions. For example, I would put assignment instructions not only in the assignment itself, but also in a number of pertinent places throughout the D2L course.”

During the fall 2020 and winter 2021, Bev found very few students, in her asynchronous course, attended virtual office hour.  “I wondered if they were overwhelmed with everyone still facing isolation. Given their need for socialization, and the extent this process was lacking, links to various support services were incorporated into my course outline and flexible office times increase my availability to students.”

In addition to these challenges around connection, Bev found many rewards through teaching online.  In particular, “I saw the lock down as an opportunity to focus on my own learning, and it was also a refresher from face to face – being able to look at what works in a face-to-face environment and try to incorporate that into the online environment.  An online environment offers so much more than I expected, beyond my expectations.”  In the end, Bev says that “there’s a fine line between being a learner and being a teacher. And for me, it’s a circular process.  I’m thankful to have had this opportunity, this challenge, and at this time in my career, to discover what technology can do. I’m thankful I feel more connected to students now than I did at the beginning of the pandemic.

As to what advice Bev has for new online instructors?  “Identify what’s important to you in your course, where your strengths lie as an instructor, then reach out to others when faced with challenges. Remember that you’re not alone: whatever challenge you think you’re facing, expertise is available, and you do not have to face the challenge alone.”

Moving forward, Bev says she is sold on online learning.  In fact, when she was back teaching in person last fall, Bev found herself, wondering: “can I do this again? Can I be in a face-to-face situation?  Can I be as strong as I felt on the online environment?” And she discovered the online and in-person teaching/learning works together to support students. “I keep things pretty much as they were in a completely online environment.  I use BBAlly to measure the accessibility piece, and I think supporting diverse learners in an online platform with this piece is what I’m really sold on.”

An example is the communication skills course taught, fall 2020, is kept fully online to reinforce the in-person delivery.  “I tell students that the course basically is in D2L. I will be demonstrating some skills in class, but everything’s in D2L. I outline the advantages of coming to class, and do not penalize them if they don’t show up – I’m not measuring them based on skill participation in class. In this way, the class environment enhances the online environment.  I no longer see me as the deliverer of content. I see myself as the manager of content, more importantly, the monitor of student progress and the supporter to students ‘academically.”

Bev ends by telling me that she thinks there will always be a place for in-person learning. “The human connection is the piece that we don’t get online, for that we need face-to-face. In terms of the instructional piece, I don’t think we can afford to only deliver content face-to-face. I think we’ll lose too many students. How we see learning ongoing needs to be outside the four walls of the classroom and outside a specific timeframe. Face-to-face to me is just one modality – it’s a very small piece.”

Please Stop Creating PDFs that Aren’t Accessible

Do you create your PDFs by photocopying the source material? Do your PDFs have any handwritten notes on the pages?

If you answered yes to either of these questions, you should know that many students can’t read these PDFs at all.

  • A photocopied PDF is just a picture of the page. It is 100% inaccessible for any student who uses text-to-speech tools to access course content.
  • Handwritten notes in PDFs present challenges for ALL students, and are also unreadable for text-to-speech tools.

Before you spend hours at a photocopier scanning your course readings into PDF files: STOP!

Take your clean (i.e. no handwritten notes) source materials to Printshop Services and ask them to scan your course readings as OCR’d* PDFs. (OCR is a scanning process that extracts the text from the source material; PDFs scanned for OCR are readable for most students.)

For more information about accessible print materials, see:

*OCR = Optical Character Recognition.

Open Education Week is NEXT Week!

From Open Education Global:

An annual celebration, Open Education Week (OE Week) is an opportunity for actively sharing and learning about the latest achievements in Open Education worldwide.

Open Education Week was launched in 2012 by Open Education Global as a collaborative, community-built open forum. Every year OE Week raises awareness and highlights innovative open education successes worldwide. OE Week provides practitioners, educators, and students with an opportunity to build a greater understanding of open educational practices and be inspired by the wonderful work being developed by the community around the world.

Next week is Open Education Week and there are many amazing events taking place online you can attend or register for and get the recording.  A large list is available at OEGlobal Open Education Week (see the 2022 Activity Schedule).  This is a great chance to hear what people from across Canada and the world are doing to support OE initiatives, and to connect yourselves with the wider community.  I will be attending a number of sessions myself and will try to note resources to share with everyone after.  If you go to any sessions and find some resources, or hear of something interesting you would like to explore or share, let me know!!

Feel free to share these sessions with others – they are open to all.  Here are a few more:

UBC

University of Alberta Open Education Week events:

BCcampus

Sask Polytechnic

Athabasca

Creative Comments: An Introductory Discussion of Open Licensing

On March 7th from 12-1pm MT, Athabasca University will be hosting a lunch-and-learn discussion panel on open licensing. Join Dan Cockcroft (OER Librarian), Rachel Conroy (Copyright Officer) and Mark McCutcheon (Chair of the Centre for Humanities and Professor of Literary Studies) to discuss common questions and misconceptions surrounding open licensing. While the discussion will be oriented to instructors who are curious about open licensing, we invite everyone from the education community to participate. See you there! Grab your free ticket here: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/266969201067

Evaluating Excellence: A Conversation About OER Quality

On March 9th from 12-1pm MT, Athabasca University will be hosting a lunch-and-learn discussion on the quality of Open Educational Resources (OER). Join Dan Cockcroft (OER librarian), Dr. Connie Blomgren (Assistant Professor, Distance Education), Michael Dabrowski (Academic Coordinator, Spanish), Dr. David Annand (Professor, Accounting), and Dr. Dietmar Kennepohl (Professor, Chemistry) to discuss common questions and misconceptions surrounding the quality of open resources. While the panel discussion will be oriented to instructors who are curious about OER, we invite everyone from the education community to participate. Grab your free ticket here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/267142579647

SAIT

I’m excited to share SAIT’s Open Education Week activities.  We are still online for our classes and events, so two very talented students have developed the following online asynchronous activities that anyone can access:

Feel free to link to these resources. Our general calendar of events is available at https://libguides.sait.ca/OEWeek

Camosun Open Sustainability Project: Project Story #7

And now for the seventh and final story in our ongoing series related to Camosun’s Open Education Sustainability Project:  Liz Morch.

Liz teaches in the Dental Hygiene program at Camosun, and her project was “to develop five modules covering basic topics in nutrition that could be used by anybody teaching foundational nutritional courses.  Using open technology, we have the opportunity to share learning materials rather than having to (re)create information that should be readily available, leaving more time for instructors to focus on student needs and student interaction.”  The five modules Liz created were around the topics of Carbohydrates, Proteins, Lipids, Vitamins, and Minerals.  “I think we created five solid modules on those components containing foundational information that anyone could use for their own courses, or adapt for use in their own context, whatever discipline they might be in.”

Using and creating open resources fits well into Liz’s philosophy of teaching.  “I think we need to understand today’s student. When I went to university, I didn’t have to work because I was fortunate to have family support and scholarships, so all I did was focus on school. Today, many of our students are balancing work, family commitments, financial constraints and learning challenges, as  well as navigating huge volumes of information that they encounter in school and on the Internet. As an instructor, it is important to consider the challenges students face when learning, however every time I push myself to do something different to address this, I’m always amazed at how well students respond!”

Liz believes in sharing the wealth through using open resources as well.  “One of the challenges we face as faculty is staying current in our discipline. Every basic nutrition course, no matter what program it is part of, has content focused on proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, vitamins, and minerals.  So, instead of creating and taking class time to deliver this common content every time you offer a course, students could complete these existing online modules on their own, and then classroom exercises can focus on  amazing discussions because they’ve had the flexibility to learn the content at their own pace and their own time.”

While creating and using open content is a priority for Liz, finding, adapting, or creating OER comes with challenges.  “During the semester, it’s very hard to find dedicated time for this kind of work.  Even when you dedicate focussed time, it’s amazing how many distractions come your way.”  While fortunately for this project Liz was given release time as a result of the grant funding, one other challenge Liz mentioned was the question of how much is enough?  “I want it to be extraordinary, so defining the breadth and scope for this project was a bit challenging. I wanted to make sure that it was not solely dental focused, and I also wanted it to be much more interactive, but I ran out of time.”

Despite these challenges, Liz still believes that working with open educational resources is the right thing to do.  One of the benefits she sees with her open project is the flexibility her nutrition site can afford students who have a very heavy course load.  “For my course within the heavy course load of our dental hygiene program, the end of their final semester students have many large comprehensive projects to complete. So, what I began to consider was how to organize my course to include these nutrition modules so that their work for the course was front loaded. In January, students have quite a bit of time, whereas in April, they are going to be stressed out and maxed out with projects that require considerable time and effort. If I create modules for them to work through on their own, then they can choose to finish 80 or 90 percent of this course in January so they have more time at the end of the term to devote to their final projects.”

When I asked Liz what advice she would have for other faculty wanting to work with open educational resources, she told me “We need to challenge tradition and consider not only a course’s learning objectives, but how to deliver the content in an inspiring flexible manner.  We have a responsibility in today’s world, where the volume of information and the speed of change is so great, to consider flexible ways for students to engage with course content so that it becomes more meaningful for them.”  Liz says she doesn’t see her role as being “a gatekeeper to knowledge, but rather as someone to bring course content to life.”

What’s next for Liz in the world of Open Education?  Well, she tells me she is close to retirement, but “if I could do anything, it would be to mentor new faculty and encourage them to not be afraid to think outside of the box.  I have tried many creative approaches over my career most of which have been wonderful with some that helped me learn tools to create the next opportunity.  I would love to support other faculty to figure that out, “that would be what I would really enjoy.”

Camosun Faculty Story #44: Kari

Kari is a faculty member in the English Department at Camosun College.  When the pandemic moved everyone online back in March 2020, Kari, who was teaching four in-person courses, says “at the beginning it was all panic and we just did what we could. But there one thing that happened despite that panic: we, in the English department, started supporting each other in amazing ways.” 

Finally, the winter term was over, and the summer term arrived.  While several English faculty members, including Kari, had scheduled development (SD) leave, there were three or four others who had to teach online with no prep time at all.  But they were not left to flounder on their own and their colleagues on SD stepped up to support them.  Kari related one example of that support: “Michael Stewart was teaching English 163, so I and two other members of the English department read and watched all the material in his class. Then Michael and the three of us created videos of us analyzing and discussing the course material, which Michael then posted on his D2L site for his students.” 

At one point as well, one of Kari’s colleagues sent out a cry for help asking for someone to co-create a lesson with her.  “So, three of us got together and created a lesson which I’m also using now because it is on a topic covered in multiple courses.”   But this co-creation of materials was not just a boon for faculty, but also useful from the student’s perspective.  “Because I’m still using some of those videos in my in-person class, using them as extension materials, students have the opportunity to watch experienced readers engaging in dialogue, building on each other’s ideas, disagreeing, and then finding understanding. We modelled discourse and disagreement, and how you can move through that to come to understanding, I think, from the student’s perspective, was really rich in building their understanding of these concepts.”  Another interesting outcome of this collaboration was that faculty members were essentially coming into each other’s classes reading each other’s course materials and discussing them, and Kari says she is grateful to have been a receiver as well as a giver within this context.  “On one hand, it’s important to have the academic freedom to do the things we want to do in our classes, but on the other hand, we don’t normally ever go into each other’s classes. We don’t ever see what other instructors are doing and seeing each other in action is a great way to learn.  This opportunity has helped us get a better sense of what other instructors do in their classes and how other they approach topics in our field.” 

One of the challenges Kari faced preparing for teaching online back in 2020 was that there is “a difference between taking an in-person class and throwing it online, and actually designing an online class, because it takes a long time to put together a well-conceived, well-supported online course.” And in addition to trying to create good online courses without adequate time, Kari told me that “the biggest challenge for me was not being able to put a face and personality to the students.”  To try and build some community, she set up online co-writing sessions with her students. “I said, I’m going to be online and I’m just going to do my thing, so you can come do your thing. Some of the students did come to those sessions which I think was valuable for all of us because I was able to interact with them directly.  It really brought home how much, for me, teaching is about interactions with people and watching them build community amongst themselves.” 

One lesson Kari has learned from moving courses online and working with students struggling during COVID-related stress and absences is that flexibility is important for both teaching and learning. As a result, she is now flipping her classes to leverage the best of both the online and in-person worlds.  “I’m saying to the students, all materials are online, and when you come to class, we’ll discuss the material and do writing exercises. Then when they do come to class, we are having great conversations, and doing in-class writing exercises and a lot of peer work because those are the things that you can’t do as effectively online.”  What Kari is also excited about is that flipping the class “gives students more autonomy. They can decide how much further they want to go with the material, if they want to learn more.”  And in addition, it opens the door for them to learn from others, including Kari’s colleagues.  “Often when students come into your classroom the only person they learn from is you, but this way they learn not only from you, but also from each other and from other instructors.” 

Kari has some advice for faculty moving to online teaching.  “First of all, ask for help. There is a lot of help available both institutionally, and within the department. And second, if you’re teaching online, keep it simple. Ask yourself what are the key things the students need? How can they achieve them? And finally, make sure to communicate with the students in whatever way you find most helpful.  What I do with my online students is I send a note on Fridays telling them what’s coming up the next week. And then on Monday I say, hey, welcome to this week.” 

Moving forward, Kari tells me “I feel like I would like to get better at figuring out what’s best online and what’s best in-person and taking advantage of both.” In addition, now that courses have moved back to a mostly pre-pandemic teaching mode, Kari and her colleagues are looking forward to building on the kind of collaboration that evolved over the past two years, creating course materials that can be used by many instructors. I know I am excited to see that, while the English department already had a strong culture of collaboration prior to COVID, it was further strengthened through the common goal of designing and sharing good online activities.   

Open Conversation Cafe, Survey, and Workshops at Camosun

Are you a Camosun faculty or staff member?  Do you want to know more about Open Education or share your experiences with Open Educational Resources or Open Pedagogy with others?  The Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning has some opportunities for you!  Don’t see what you are looking for or have questions?  Email Emily at schudele@camosun.ca.

Open Education Conversation Cafe

Open Education Conversation Café March 30, 3-4:30pm ONLINE REGISTER HERE

Have you heard of Open Education, but are not sure what it is? Have you been using, or wanting to use Open Educational Resources or Open Pedagogy?  Let’s explore ways to integrate these into your courses.

Open Education Survey for Camosun Faculty

CETL and the Camosun Library need your help!

We are investigating faculty members’ perceptions and use of Open Educational Resources (OER), such as freely available online textbooks and other course materials. Whether or not you are using OER, we would like to hear from you to provide valuable insight for us on how we can better support initiatives related to OER going forward.

This short survey will take about 5–10 minutes to complete and will remain open until February 28th. If you have any questions about this or want to talk more about how OER can support you and your students, email Emily Schudel at schudele@camosun.caThanks for your time. Click here to fill out the survey

Definition of Open Educational Resources (UNESCO, 2016): Open Educational Resources (OER) are any type of educational materials that are in the public domain or that are openly licensed (for example, with a Creative Commons license). The nature of open materials means that anyone can legally and freely copy, use, adapt and re-share them. OER range from textbooks to curricula, syllabi, lecture notes, assignments, tests, projects, audio, video, and animations.  In addition, OER can help improve the learning experience for students while mitigating financial barriers which may prevent them from achieving their academic goals.

Spring Open Education Workshops

Introduction to Open Ed & Open Ed Resources May 10, 10-11:30am ONLINE REGISTER HERE

Learn how to help students achieve course learning outcomes in a more efficient way while balancing your workload as an instructor. Bring relevant information, such as program outcomes, course outline, activities, assignments, and tests/exams to the workshop.

Introduction to Open Pedagogy May 13, 10-11:30am ONLINE REGISTER HERE

Open pedagogy allows the full potential of education to be realized. It invites students in as co-creators, creating rich opportunities for deep and active learning and empowers faculty to make education more diverse and inclusive.  Together, we will begin to explore the full potential of open pedagogy.

Introduction to H5P for interactive learning May 17, 1-2:30pm ONLINE REGISTER HERE

H5P technology makes it possible to integrate interactive learning elements into HTML pages in D2L, WordPress, or Pressbooks. H5P applications include formative quizzes (with immediate feedback), flash cards, slide decks, images with clickable hotspots, and interactive videos; see: https://h5p.org/content-types-and-applications for more information. This workshop will introduce you to a range of H5P applications that are commonly used to support teaching and learning. During the workshop you will build some H5P content that you can reuse to support your own courses.

Redesign Your Course to be More Open May 31, 1:30-3:30pm ONLINE REGISTER HERE

Wondering how to get started integrating Open Educational Resources (OER) into your courses? This workshop will help you get started.

Open Education Week: March 7-11

From Open Education Global:

An annual celebration, Open Education Week (OE Week) is an opportunity for actively sharing and learning about the latest achievements in Open Education worldwide.

Open Education Week was launched in 2012 by Open Education Global as a collaborative, community-built open forum. Every year OE Week raises awareness and highlights innovative open education successes worldwide. OE Week provides practitioners, educators, and students with an opportunity to build a greater understanding of open educational practices and be inspired by the wonderful work being developed by the community around the world.

In this post I wanted to share some Open Education Week events hosted by a variety of institutions that anyone is welcome to access.  As I hear about more events, I will update this Blog post.

UBC

University of Alberta Open Education Week events:

BCcampus

So, that’s a start!  I hope to have more to list here soon.

Camosun Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning February Bulletin

In this bulletin from the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning you will find information and opportunities that we hope are of interest to you. To get in touch with us go to: CETL Contact InformationNote that registration and survey links are for Camosun faculty and staff only.

NEW: Teacher Recognition Initiatives

These initiatives are brought to you by Camosun’s Teaching and Learning Council – a collaborative, peer-based, interdisciplinary group of faculty from across the college with a passion for advancing quality teaching and learning at Camosun, including advocacy, supports and strategies.

  1. Teaching Excellence Shout Out! Recognize a great teacher by sharing a Shout Out. This is an opportunity to acknowledge big and small contributions to teaching and learning at Camosun.  Submit your accolades here and we will post them in the Bulletin each month.
  2. Four Instructors will be recognized each year at Camosun’s annual Walls Optional Conference. Nominations can come from peers or students, and need to be submitted to CETL by March 15Click here for more details and to access the nomination form.

SHOUT OUT!

… To Anastasia Butcher of the Early Learning and Care (ELC) Program, who brings much energy, time, and thought to enhancing curriculum for students through experiential learning.  From Kristin Ross Submit your SHOUT OUT here

Hold the Date for Camosun’s annual Walls Optional conference, April 28

The Walls Optional committee invites proposals for the Thursday, April 28 conference. We are planning for an in-person conference if we can, but there will also be some virtual options.

Over the past two years, our teaching and learning communities have been disrupted in fundamental ways. Walls Optional 2022 provides an opportunity for us to regroundreconnect, and reflect as a college community.  Theme: Regrounding and Reconnecting 

  • How did the reconnection to campus this fall impact your teaching and learning? 
  • What keeps you grounded and connected in your work and practice? 
  • What aspirations do have for our teaching and learning communities going forward? 

Call for Proposals will remain open until Friday, March 4.   Click here to submit your proposal

Open Education Survey for Camosun Faculty

CETL and the Camosun Library need your help!

We are investigating faculty members’ perceptions and use of Open Educational Resources (OER), such as freely available online textbooks and other course materials. Whether or not you are using OER, we would like to hear from you to provide valuable insight for us on how we can better support initiatives related to OER going forward.

This short survey will take about 5–10 minutes to complete and will remain open until February 28th. If you have any questions about this or want to talk more about how OER can support you and your students, email Emily Schudel at schudele@camosun.ca.  Thanks for your time. Click here to fill out the survey

Definition of Open Educational Resources (UNESCO, 2016): Open Educational Resources (OER) are any type of educational materials that are in the public domain or that are openly licensed (for example, with a Creative Commons license). The nature of open materials means that anyone can legally and freely copy, use, adapt and re-share them. OER range from textbooks to curricula, syllabi, lecture notes, assignments, tests, projects, audio, video, and animations.  In addition, OER can help improve the learning experience for students while mitigating financial barriers which may prevent them from achieving their academic goals.

CETL Learning Opportunities – February through April

Copyright Q&A February 8, 11am-12pm ONLINE REGISTER HERE

Course packs are due on March 15th for the spring/summer term. Now is a great time to get your questions answered about copyright, fair dealing, and using copyrighted materials in your class.

Lunch and Learn Article Discussion Series February 16, March 16, April 20, 12-1pm ONLINE

Read an article and then meet with faculty colleagues for some lively conversation on various topics related to teaching and learning.

  1. Grading as Instruction February 16, 12-1pm REGISTER HERE
  2. In-the-moment Responses for Addressing Classroom Aggression March 16, 12-1pm  REGISTER HERE
  3. Designing Self-care Practices for this Academic Year  April 20, 12-1pm  REGISTER HERE

Open Education Conversation Café March 30, 3-4:30pm ONLINE REGISTER HERE

Have you heard of Open Education, but are not sure what it is? Have you been using, or wanting to use Open Educational Resources or Open Pedagogy?  Let’s explore ways to integrate these into your courses.

How to Export Your Final Marks from D2L to myCamosun

This workshop will walk you through the process of how to export your final grades from D2L to myCamosun. Have your final grades ready to publish in D2L and follow along with the steps provided. We will help troubleshoot the process.

Getting Started with D2L

This workshop will provide you with an overview of the essential teaching tools available in our learning management system, and D2L Brightspace.

  • Focus on Supporting Face-to-Face Delivery April 26, 10-11:30am ONLINE REGISTER HERE
  • Focus on Supporting Online and Blended Delivery April 26, 1-2:30pm ONLINE REGISTER HERE

Getting Started with Blackboard Collaborate Ultra Web Conferencing April 27, 1-2:30 ONLINE REGISTER HERE

Collaborate is a web-conferencing tool that integrates with D2L. This session will provide you with a basic overview of the tools and functions within Collaborate as well as provide instructors with tips on how to use this tool to connect with students and facilitate effective learning experiences.

CETL Learning Opportunities – May through June

Workshops:

Streamlining Your Course May 3, 10-11:30am IN-PERSON REGISTER HERE

Learn how to help students achieve course learning outcomes in a more efficient way while balancing your workload as an instructor. Bring relevant information, such as program outcomes, course outline, activities, assignments, and tests/exams to the workshop.

Streamlining Your Assessment

This two-part workshop will provide you with strategies for streamlining your assessment practices to make them more effective and efficient. Part 1 will focus on assessment design and Part 2 will focus on how D2L can provide administrative efficiencies.

Streamlining Your Marking with Rubrics

This two-part workshop will give you with strategies for designing and using rubrics to provide effective and efficient feedback to students. Part 1 will focus on the pedagogical advantages of rubrics as a means of providing feedback to students, as well ask key design considerations. Part 2 will focus on how to create a rubric in D2L, attach it to various assessment items, and mark student work using the rubric.

  • Part 1: Rubric Design May 24, 10-11:30am ONLINE REGISTER HERE
  • Part 2: Rubric Tool in D2L May 31, 10:00-11:30 ONLINE REGISTER HERE

Open Education workshops

  • Introduction to Open Ed & Open Ed Resources May 10, 10-11:30am ONLINE REGISTER HERE 

    Learn how to help students achieve course learning outcomes in a more efficient way while balancing your workload as an instructor. Bring relevant information, such as program outcomes, course outline, activities, assignments, and tests/exams to the workshop.

  • Introduction to Open Pedagogy May 13, 10-11:30am ONLINE REGISTER HEREOpen pedagogy allows the full potential of education to be realized. It invites students in as co-creators, creating rich opportunities for deep and active learning and empowers faculty to make education more diverse and inclusive.  Together, we will begin to explore the full potential of open pedagogy.
  • Redesign Your Course to be More Open May 31, 1:30-3:30pm ONLINE REGISTER HEREWondering how to get started integrating Open Educational Resources (OER) into your courses? This workshop will help you get started.

New Student Onboarding: A Faculty Perspective May 30, 10-11:30am ONLINE REGISTER HERE

This session will explore how we as faculty can support our ‘new to Camosun’ or ‘new to D2L’ students to be successful in our own courses and in D2L in general. We will discuss how using D2L to facilitate this process can foster confidence in the students and provide them with the information they need to be able to fully participate in their in-class, blended and online courses. Please bring your ideas with you as there will be an opportunity to share with the group.

Deterring Plagiarism June 1, 10-11:30am HYBRID REGISTER HERE

Learn strategies and tools for deterring plagiarism and encouraging academic honesty in your courses. Participants will be invited to share their own ideas and to discuss how best to promote a culture of academic integrity at the college. This workshop will be offered in hybrid format. Participants can join in person or via MS Teams.

eLearning workshops (focus on online tools):

All these eLearning workshops take place online in Blackboard Collaborate.  Click on the links for a description and to register.

Beginner

Intermediate

Advanced

D2L

Content management in D2L

May 2, 1-2:30pm

Setting up your gradebook

May 5, 10-11:30am

Advanced quizzing

May 11, 10-11:30am

Introduction to quizzes in D2L  May 4, 10-11:30am

Facilitating creative online discussions

May 16, 10-11:30am

Working with master courses

May 12, 1-2:30pm

 

Spring Cleaning

May 19, 10-11:30am

Advanced content creation using templates and accessible design  

May 25, 10-11:30am

Accessibility

Text-to-Speech support for students: An orientation to the ReadSpeaker tools in Your D2L course  May 5, 1-2:30pm

Introduction to ALLY tool in D2L

May 12, 10am-12:30pm

Using the accessibility reports in D2L: What do I need to do?

May 18, 10-11:30am

Creating accessible content for your online classroom: 7 things you can do right now! 

May 10, 1-2:30pm

Introduction to H5P for interactive learning

May 17, 1-2:30pm

Kaltura

Enhancing your courses with video (Introduction to Kaltura) May 19, 1-2:30pm

Going deeper with videos and Kaltura  May 26, 2-3:30pm

Creating great accessible Kaltura capture videos  June 2, 1-2:30pm

Courses:

Instructional Skills Workshop May 2-5, IN-PERSON, Lansdowne Campus REGISTER HERE

The 3½ day peer-based workshop is an excellent opportunity to learn in a fun, safe environment with colleagues from across the college, and improve your teaching practice. (More info)

Great Teachers Seminar May 9-12, IN-PERSON, Honeymoon Bay Retreat Centre REGISTER HERE

Venture beyond the limits of your usual environment and deepen your connection with colleagues. Engage in a learning process of shared information and experiences, self-reflection, and action planning. Explore a variety of teaching strategies, innovations, challenges and solutions.

Working Together: Indigenizing your Course May 13, 20, 27, June 3 IN-PERSON 9:30am-12pm. REGISTER HERE

Enhance and integrate your course with Indigenous ways of being and doing in this practical and hands on workshop series. We will work together using the Circle of Courage model as a teaching and learning framework with instructors implementing their changes into their course in the Fall.

FLO Blended Learning May 16-June 3, ONLINE AND IN-PERSON at both campuses REGISTER HERE

Learn research-based concepts, principles, and strategies that will make facilitating a course with both online and face-to-face components effective and engaging. This course will help you create seamless lesson plans that utilize the most applicable elements of both the online and face-to-face environments.

Camosun Communities of Practice (ONLINE)

Check out these new Camosun resources

Healthy Together!

Employee wellness program

CAL faculty support

Supports for instructors

Applied Learning

Introducing  CamSTAR

Office of Student Support

Resources for faculty

Library workshops

For students

HR – OPD

Employee learning opportunities

Other learning opportunities

The Teaching Professor Conference June 3-5, Atlanta Georgie

BC Campus learning opportunities:

 

 

 

 

Grading Assignment Submissions using Anonymous Marking – D2L Tutorial

This tutorial is for faculty who have previous experience using the Assignments tool in D2L and will cover the steps involved when you wish to grade student submissions for an Assignment using Anonymous Marking.  For further information or assistance, go to our Team Dynamix Support portal and click the appropriate Category to submit a ticket. 

Steps for enabling Anonymous marking 

  1. Go to the Assignments tool in your course.
  2. Either create a new Assignment, or click on the drop-down menu (down arrow) next to the title of the Assignment you want to set for Anonymous Marking and select Edit Folder.

    Click Edit Folder

  3. Give your Assignment a Name if needed, then click Evaluation & Feedback on the right.

    Click Evaluation & Feedback

  4. Under Anonymous Marking, select Hide student names during assessment.  Finish editing the Assignment and click Save and Close.

    Select Hide student names during assessment

  5. You will now see a symbol next to your Assignment title indicating that it has Anonymous Marking enabled.

    Anonymous marking enabled symbol

 Steps for grading using Anonymous marking 

  1. Go to the Submission area for the assignment and click the Evaluate link for an assignment.  Note that student names are anonymized.

    Click Evaluate

  2. You will not see student names in the Submission areas, nor in the names of the submitted files if you choose to download them for offline marking.  Add your feedback, and/or upload your feedback files, and click Save DraftYou will NOT be able to Publish individual student grades – you will need to Publish All at the same time.

    Add feedback and click Save Draft

  3. Once you have finished saving all Draft feedback, return to the main submission area, select all students and click Publish All Feedback.  In the Confirmation pop-up box, click Yes.  You may need to refresh your browser window to see that the submissions have been published.

    Click Publish All Feedback

Things to Remember 

You can enable and disable Anonymous Marking as you need to, but once it is enabled and you have a submission, you will NOT be able to disable it. 

If you publish some assignments, and not all (for example if you are grading assignments before all students have submitted), after publishing you will be able to see all student names (so you will not be able to grade any new submissions anonymously).