January 23, 2018 CTC Ed Tech News

Dear Colleagues,

The work of faculty and staff at the university continues to evolve with the demands of 21^st century life… including ongoing technology changes. A faculty colleague mentioned just this week that she thought faculty were adapting to the ongoing technology changes in the tools we use. I know that part of my weekly routine is updates: to my operating system, to Office 365, to browsers… It's necessary to keep my computer safe and working well.  And it takes time.  I often set updates to go when I'm planning to do something that doesn't involve the computer. This is the world and work environment that we live in. We can fight it or make it work for us. 

Add/Drop Deadline

The add/drop deadline for full semester classes is this Friday, January 26 at 5 pm.  You have the option to drop students from your class who have not shown up or participated in a course and they will get a full refund on tuition and fees. I hope that you have attempted to contact the no-shows and encouraged them to participate or drop the class.  I hope that you have given 0's for assignments that are already due. 

Yes, you have the choice to drop the no-shows by 5 pm on Friday January 26 and give them a tuition refund.  I encourage you to drop them. If they registered for the course by mistake and forgot to drop, they will appreciate not having the bill.  

Lectures Aren't Just Boring…

Lectures aren't just boring, they're ineffective according this 2014 article from Science Magazine.  My take away:  break up the lecture every 10-20 minutes with an activity in which the students have to process and engage with the material you just lectured on.  The "mini lecture" combined with active engagement with the content provides an opportunity for the students to process the material better. 

Accessibility - Styles in Word 

Accessibility is a university-wide issue that we will all be addressing this year. We have a moral and legal authority to provide materials that are accessible to diverse learners. One way to start is with Word. Using styles to format sections is one essential component and it makes it easier to create documents with a consistent look. The headings must nest in order.  Heading 2 follows heading1, no skipping to heading 3 or 4.  Styles create the structure for the Table of Contents and for the Outline view.  So, take a stab at styles.  Here are a couple resources: Formatting With Styles in Word 13 from University of Edinburgh and Customize or Create New Styles in Word.

Warmly,

Lee

Lee Maria Henrikson
Instructional Designer
907-786-4903
http://ak-lee.blogspot.com
UAA Community and Technical College
Building Alaska's Workforce

Blackboard update and more!

Dear Colleagues,

It's finals week. Yeah! Almost done. Reminder: grades are due in UAOnline on Wednesday, December 20.  I'll be out on sick leave for shoulder surgery starting December 15 and may or may not answer your emails – I am not sure how I'll feel.

Blackboard Learn update on December 22

There is a planned update of Blackboard Learn scheduled on December 22.  There are not big changes in Blackboard itself – mostly bug fixes.  However, some of the add-ons are changing.  Blackboard will be unavailable from 5 am to 3 pm on Friday December 22. 

Online grading in Blackboard is changing

I have loved the online assignment grading option in Blackboard and shared it with many faculty.  It's called Crocodoc and it has been replaced by Box.  There is a tradeoff: less functionality in the annotations on the document (bad), but more file types are now viewable online (good).  There's a bit more to it than that, but you get the idea.

Two versions of Blackboard Collaborate this spring

Blackboard's new version of Collaborate, Collaborate Ultra, will be available in the updated version of Blackboard Learn, along with our current version. They are very different.  I plan to use Ultra in the Tech 490 class. 

Here are some Collaborate Ultra resources:

• Start Here with  the Basics!
• Help for Moderators
• Help for Participants 

End of semester reflection

It's always good at the end of the semester to make a few notes to yourself about how your classes went.  Note what worked really well and what you might want to revise next time. 

Learn to teach online

I will be teaching Tech 490 The Design and Delivery of Online Classes this spring.  Register in UAOnline and use your tuition waiver.

 

Best wishes for the holidays,

Lee

CTC Ed Tech News November 27, 2017

Dear Colleagues,

The semester is winding down… Here are a few tidbits for you:

Tech A490- The Design and Delivery of Online Classes

Are you getting ready to teach online for the first time?

Do you want to improve your online course?  

Do you want to utilize more online resources in your face-to-face class?

Do you want to streamline course management via online tools?

If you answer, "yes," to any of these questions, check out Designing and Teaching an Online Course - 36821- TECH A490 - 202 in UAOnline. Community and Technical College is offering this 3-credit, 400-level course on designing, developing, and delivering an online course.  The course will, of course, be taught online - with Collaborate meetings every other Monday night.

Coursework will be geared toward learning and applying good online instructional practices. Participants will use a variety of tools in Blackboard and will revise or develop several modules for their course.

The course will run spring semester from January 16 - May 5.

All participants must have a course to work on.  You can obtain a Blackboard dev shell for your course if necessary.

Register for Tech 490 in UAOnline and use your tuition waiver – pay only the university fees.

CTC Instructional Designer Lee Henrikson developed the course for UAA CTC faculty (including adjunct faculty), however all UA faculty are welcome.  The course will be co-taught by Lee Henrikson from CTC and Debbi Canavan from Kodiak College

Course Description

Provides practical and theoretical advice and support for the design, development, and delivery of an accessible online course. Models current best practices, facilitates online peer sharing, and demonstrates tools and strategies available in Blackboard. All required work relates to an online course that the class member is developing or revising.   

Blackboard inline grading changing in January

There is a planned upgrade of Blackboard scheduled on December 22.  The biggest change will be the inline grading.  Blackboard currently implements inline grading through "Crocodoc" which will no longer be available as of January 15, 2018. "New Box View" will replace Crocodoc with the upgrade on December 22. The good news is that it supports many more file types.  I can say more about the pros and cons of the new software after I have a chance to play with it - New Box View should be on our testing server any day now. 

IDEA Surveys

IDEA surveys opened to students today in courses with more than 10 students. Students access the survey through the Course Evaluation link in the Blackboard course menu.

Please remind your students about the importance of completing the IDEA surveys to increase your response rates.  Here are more information and additional resources for using IDEA.

Why students procrastinate  

This article on procrastination is worth the read.  Let me whet your appetite with this quote (bold in the original):

[N]ot surprising, students procrastinated less when they thought the assignment was interesting. Think authentic assignments—ones that give students a chance to do work like that done in the discipline. Assignments that involved using a variety of skills also made students procrastinate less as did clearly understanding the assignment requirements. Incentives get students to start working as does having assignments connected to each other, or broken into units, so that the second part cannot be completed until the first part is done. And norms are influential. If everyone else is at work on the assignment, that engenders enough guilt to get others started.

Best regards,

Lee

Lee Maria Henrikson
Instructional Designer
907-786-4903
http://ak-lee.blogspot.com
UAA Community and Technical College
Building Alaska's Workforce

CTC Ed Tech News, Nov. 3, 2017: Distance Ed Week

Colleagues, 

It's Distance Ed Week November 6-10! Check out Academic Innovations & eLearning's National Distance Learning Week webpage.  It is full of learning opportunities. NDLW is November 6 - 10, 2017.

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Give yourself a FREE professional development boost!  Let your mind wander into other creative areas for a health break from the classroom demands.  Check out some of these offerings and schedule one or more as a "recharge" break for yourself.  Free PD doesn't come around very often!    Take advantage! 

Thank you,

Lee

Lee Maria Henrikson

Instructional Designer

907-786-4903

http://ak-lee.blogspot.com

UAA Community and Technical College

Building Alaska's Workforce