Panel 2: Caleb, standing awkwardly, says "A fine time to enjoy some hot bean water!" Nick says "Indeed. And such tolerable weather, the Daystar is fully visible!
Panel 3: Julie asks, "Umm... Ben, are they alright?" Nick, in the background, says "The ambient temperature is lower than my body temperature, but higher than the freezing point of water."
Panel 4 & 5: Ben says, "I think they'll be fine, Julie... It's their first time on campus in almost two years, I think they forgot how to make small talk. They'll get better eventually. Caleb's right about the hot bean water, though!"
Congratulations, everyone, on making it through the first couple weeks of Fall quarter! While you're here, consider self-enrolling in this course for easy access to past newsletters and to our self-paced professional development modules.
New Instructional Designer at eLearning
Many of you have already met our new ID, but if you haven't, say hello to Nick Taylor. Nick says:
My name is Nick Taylor and I have been given the opportunity to be part of your instructional design team here at the Community Colleges of Spokane. I have held various positions in academia but most recently I was an educational technology specialist at WSU. I am excited to be transitioning into the CCS family and have already had such a great time meeting individuals from across the colleges. I have a strong admiration and respect for our instructors and am thrilled to support them as a new member of the eLearning team. I have personal interests in the support of active learning in online environments and hope I can share with you my personal passions for instructional design as we work together. Though I am not originally from Spokane, I have been able to call it my home for the past 8 years and have been happy to start my family in our great city. When not at work, I am often in my garden with my daughter of 17 months, Olive, and my partner Zoe.
2021 eLearning Academy
We really enjoyed seeing many of you at our 2021 eLearning Academy last month. If you missed some or all of the academy, good news! Recordings of most of our presentations are available in the 2021 Academy Canvas shell. Don't miss some incredible keynote and plenary sessions from Jesse Stommel, Angela Rasmussen, and Mitchell Colver.
FacDev Facelift
And speaking of Canvas shells, you may have noticed that our eLearning Faculty Development course has gotten a redesign! The course homepage has been updated for a sleeker, more user-friendly look. Our past professional development modules have been cleaned up and organized, so take a look and let us know what you think.
October Tech Talks and PD
We're excited to restart our weekly videocast, Tech Talks! This year we're going to try something a little different. Tech Talks will still be broadcast live on Zoom and YouTube, but we're also going to try hosting some of the sessions on-ground and in-person. We'll start by hosting two of the sessions from the SCC TLC, and in the future we hope be able to host sessions from the SFCC CETL. (Too many acronyms! The Center for Engaged Teaching & Learning at Spokane Falls Community College, and the Teaching and Learning Center at Spokane Community College.) Check out the Professional Development tab below for details.
We're also excited to be partnering with the SCC Teaching and Learning Center and the SFCC Center for Engaged Teaching and Learning to host a new Professional Learning Community focussed on the TILT (Transparency in Learning and Teaching) Framework! Check out the Professional Development tab below for details.
We will not have a new monthly training module for October, but we're working on a bigger, more in-depth Fall Quarter module, hopefully going live in November. Stay tuned!
Tuesdays at 1:00pm we host a short (15-20 minute) discussion of an eLearning technology or technique. We will be live-streaming on Zoom and YouTube. If you'd like to be part of the recording, join the Zoom session. If you'd like to view the presentation and interact on chat, visit the live YouTube broadcast. You'll also be able to watch the YouTube recordings at any time after the broadcast.
Oct. 5 @ 1pm: Google Jamboard
Are you teaching an online course and are looking for new ways to have students interact? Are you preparing for an online presentation and want a new way to engage with your audience? Jamboard is a digital whiteboard tool that can help you collaborate with your audience in real time with a free-form space to brainstorm, discuss, and interact. We'll be filming this session in the SCC eLearning/TLC offices, Building 1, Room 208. You can join us in-person if you like, or:
At our eLearning Academy this fall, we were pleased to have Angela Rasmussen as one of our keynote speakers, talking about TILT as a teaching and learning philosophy.
For those of you interested in taking the next step and learning more about TILT, we'd like to invite you to the TILT Professional Learning Community. Brought to you by SCC’s Teaching and Learning Center and SFCC’s Center for Engaged Teaching and Learning, this learning community will offer the opportunity to work with TILT mentors to develop two TILTED assignments. We think there’s a great value in learning as a community. From sharing ideas to having someone hold us accountable for what we wish to achieve.
This learning community will meet twice throughout fall quarter for an opportunity to learn more about TILT and for sessions dedicated to developing TILED assignments. Faculty who participate and who agree to share a version of their work as OER, will receive a $200 stipend. Experienced TILTers who would like to join the community as mentors, will also receive a $200 stipend.
To join the TILT Professional Learning Community, or to find out more, reach out to either Jared Anthony if you work at SFCC or Angela Rasmussen if you work at SCC.
Winter 2022 Canvas Shells
Winter 2022 Canvas shells will be available in Canvas on October 29, 2021. Course rosters will begin updating on November 5, 2021.
Contact Nick, Caleb or Ben if you'd like any assistance copying or updating course content, adding teaching assistants, or anything else that we can do to help get ready for Winter quarter.
Respondus LockDown Browser
eLearning has created a Respondus student training module that can be download from Canvas Commons. It provides general information to students about how Respondus works and how to install and use it, and includes two practice tests the students can take to test their devices. Once you install the module in your course, make sure you place the LockDown Browser button on your active course navigation and open it one time, so Respondus can catalog your course quizzes.
More and more students are using Chromebooks as their primary computer. While Respondus does now support Chromebooks, there are a couple of extra things that Chromebook users should be aware of:
After a you install the Respondus LockDown Browser extension, you need to log out of Canvas; close your web browser; and restart your device. Despite the installation instructions, you will not be able to use Respondus until you've restarted your computer.
You should not install the Android Canvas app on your Chromebook. Although there is a setting that allows users to install Android apps on their Chromebooks, this will cause conflicts with the LockDown browser and prevent it from working correctly.
The toolbar has been moved to the top of the discussion and announcement thread.
Newest replies display at the top of the first page instead of the bottom of the last page.
Users can sort replies from newest to oldest, or oldest to newest.
Users can also quickly move to the top of the discussion or announcement at any time.
Role labels have been added to identify the role of the individual that made the submission (Teacher, TA, Student) and identifies the individual as the author or the submission.
Replies to another student’s submission are now visible on a side-bar rather than displaying on the main page.
Users can mention others in their discussion by using the “@” symbol which will display a drop-down list of the other users in the course.
A user can quote other replies in their own response.
Here are instruction on how to turn on the new Discussion/Announcement interface if you would like to use it in your course:
Navigate to your course Settings page;
Click on the Feature Previews tab at the top of the page;
Scroll down until you find the “Discussions/Announcements Redesign” feature;
Click on the red “X” to the right of the option, select Enable from the option list and the red “X” will become a green checkmark.
Once you do that, all of your existing Discussions and Announcements in that course will use the new interface, along with any you create moving forward.
Here are links to the student and instructor help guides:
eLearning will be talking more about the new Discussion redesign in the future, as new features become available.
Canvas Quizzes Redesign
In 2017 Instructure announced that they were initiating an overhaul of Canvas quizzes. Since that time, after considerable effort, they have developed the New Quizzes quiz engine. New Quizzes will replace the current quiz engine in July of 2022 and over the next months we will transition CCS in time for the deadline. You can begin your journey by reviewing the comparison documentLinks to an external site. that shows the differences and similarities between the two quiz tools, and once you have done that, review some short videosLinks to an external site. that explain the migration process and let you look at the new interface.
eLearning will offer more details and training opportunities as the New Quizzes gets closer to going live.
eLearning Department Contacts
Instructional Technology Support
Rick Suhr Instructional Media Specialist I can help you create video and other media for your courses and projects Rick.Suhr@ccs.spokane.edu 509-533-3443
Jerry Troupe LMS Administrator I can help with eLearning technical support and software training Jerry.Troupe@ccs.spokane.edu 509-723-6241
Instructional Design Support We can help faculty with course design and instructional strategies