eLearning Newsletter for March, 2022
Comic Transcript
Panel 1: Earlier this month, University of Nevada Las Vegas unveiled an interactive, digital recreation of its campus president that students can chat with. Project cost: $125,000. This inspired eLearning to create our own AI instructional designer, introducing Robo-ID!Panel 2: A digitized, Max Headroom-style version of Caleb appears. "Welcome to Robo-ID!" An off-screen person says "Hi, I'd like some help redesigning some of my assignments to be more flexible." Robo-ID: "Have you tried clearning your browser cache?"
Panel 3: "No... it's not a technical problem, I just want to give my students more choice in..." Robo-ID: "Sorry, eLearning is not part of the IT Department!"
Panel 4: "What? I know that, I just want to talk to someone about assessment design!" Robo-ID: "Say 'One' to talk about ungrading, 'two" to talk about universal design, or 'three to talk about Tilt!"
Panel 5: Robo-ID is starting to get glitchy, flickering in and out. "Ugh, never mind!" Robo-ID: "Flower Darby! Canvas Commons! Bloom's Taxonomy!" Robo-ID coming to a campus near you!
Last chance (for now, at least) for Action Research Grant Opportunity
Still thinking about pursuing some Action Research for your teaching practice? There's still time to submit a proposal! You have through Friday, March 11 to complete the training module for the $75 stipend, and to submit an action research mini-grant proposal worth $600. Check out the Professional Development tab below for more details.
Updated Student Canvas Training course now available!
eLearning's Nick Taylor has recently finished renovating the Canvas Training for CCS Students course! It looks great, includes up-to-date information and screenshots, and is fully accessible and mobile-friendly. Students see a global announcement when they first log into Canvas encouraging them to visit the training course. We also recommend either directly linking to the training course in your Start Here module or putting a link in your syllabus. This will be our long-term place for student-facing Canvas materials and guides. A course pack is also available in Canvas Commons, if you'd prefer to embed the content directly in your course.
Adding Course Evaluations link to your Canvas Course
CCS has started using a new course evaluation tool, which has a different student-facing workflow from our previous evaluation software. If you have a course selected for evaluation, you may want to add a direct link to your course navigation. Jerry Troupe made a quick video showing you how to do that!
Tech Talks
March 8 @ 1pm: Calendly
View the March 8 conversation on YouTube Links to an external site.
Download a March 8 calendar event Download Download a March 8 calendar event
March 15 @ 1pm: Building Better Homepages, Part 2!
Last month we looked at the fundamentals of building an effective Canvas homepage. In this session we'll dive into some more advanced design tools and techniques, including a live demo of the HTML editor in Canvas. No coding experience needed, we'll share some tips, tricks, and sample code to help take your homepage to the next level!
Join the March 15 conversation on Zoom Links to an external site.
View the March 15 conversation on YouTube Links to an external site.
Download a March 15 calendar event Download Download a March 15 calendar event
March 22 @ 1pm: Contract Cheating: How it works, what you can do about it
Contract cheating sites like Chegg and Course Hero have been cashing in on student performance and time management anxiety for years. The pandemic created the perfect storm for these sites to thrive, and pushed contract cheating into the mainstream conversation. In this session we'll navigate through the student experience on a contract cheating site. We'll talk about what we can do as instructors to protect our intellectual property, as well as design materials that weaken the power of predatory cheating sites.
Join the March 22 conversation on Zoom
Links to an external site.
View the March 22 conversation on YouTube
Links to an external site.
Download a March 22 Calendar event
Download Download a March 22 Calendar event
RESCHEDULED Jeopardy Labs
Jeopardy-style games are an easily accessible, engaging, and fun way to prep for tests, reinforce learning, and give students formative feedback. There are a variety of ways to create Jeopardy boards for in-person, live online, and asynchronous classrooms. In this session we'll look at a free tool called Jeopardy Labs. Join us to learn how to use the tool, as well as how to run a Jeopardy session virtually. We'll reschedule this session in April!
Winter Focus: Action Research Projects
As we continue our work as a college to build a better normal, we are trying to think of ways to be stay open to new ideas. At eLearning, we were inspired by that spirit to collaborate with District Institutional Research to create a really exciting opportunity. That being said, this months module is a little unique.
The focus of our module is the Action Research framework. It is both a research style and a faculty development opportunity. It allows for you take a deep dive into problems you see in your classroom, and test out potential solutions. Our goal as Action Researchers is to learn what works best in our classrooms. Our module will discuss the ins of outs of this process and leads to an exciting opportunity for you to conduct your own research with IR!
Since the module is unique and leads to a larger grant opportunity it has its very own Canvas shell. Click here to view the module and become eligible for a $75 stipend for completion. After you complete the module there is an additional opportunity to apply for one of fifteen $600 grants for completing a research project. Further details can be found in the module.