Reading Time: 2 minutesSo, Jared, you just got back from a conference recently. Can you tell me what conference it was and a little bit about it? It was called UBTech, put on by the LRP media group which has their hand in a bunch of different professions, including education and educational technology. This conference had several tracks, including Audio/Visual integration and Instructional Technology all tailored toward Higher Education. How did you initially find this conference? What drew you toward it? Google, of course! I was drawn initially to UBTech because it was a higher ed conference for audio/visual professionals. Since I was new to the audio/visual higher ed game,…
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Calibrate: UBTech Conference Initial Takeaways
Reading Time: 2 minutesWelcome to FOCUS’ new “Calibrate” series. As you calibrate a lens to fine-tune its focus, this series will highlight how Cedarville’s faculty and CTL staff are fine-tuning their skills, and they’ll share what they’re learning along the way. In the first installment of the series, CTL’s New Media Developer, Jared Pyles is on location at the UBTech Conference and sent back this reflection on what he’s learned from the conference thus far. What are the characteristics that define the current generation of learners? How are higher education campuses effectively meeting the needs of those students? How can we best utilize existing space to include all learners? These…
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How to Get Help with Your Course
Reading Time: < 1 minuteThroughout the semester you’ll most likely discover questions that you need to get answered. They may be about how to tweak the settings on a particular assignment for a student. Or, you may have discovered what appears to be an error in the setup for your online course. Who do you call when those things happen? Hint: Not Ghostbusters. They can’t help. If you’re teaching in Canvas… …and it’s a face-to-face course Contact Canvas support. They’ll be able to help you with any questions you have about system settings, troubleshoot issues, and ensure your course is running smoothly. You can access chat support through the “help”…
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Canvas Transition: Adding Teaching Assistants to Your Course
Reading Time: < 1 minuteAs you’re getting your courses off the ground for the semester, you’re probably going through your standard course prep. For some instructors that means making sure your teaching assistants are added to your sections. Thankfully, Canvas makes it easy for you to accomplish this task yourself. Check out Canvas’ information on how to add users to a course. When assigning a role, you’ll want to give your assistants the “TA” role defined in our system. As you’re working through this process, remember that you have Canvas Support available to answer your questions and help you if you get stuck! You can access chat support through the…
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Canvas Transition: Do All Your Links Work in Your Course?
Reading Time: 2 minutesYou’ve brought your course over to Canvas from Moodle, and you’ve finished preparing it for the upcoming semester. In previous semesters, you’ve either had to check each link in your course manually to ensure it works or wait until a student finds a broken link. But you don’t have to do that anymore with Canvas. Canvas’ built-in link validation feature will search the content in your course for invalid or unreachable links and images. The link validator has some limitations and can turn up results that Canvas can’t view but students still can. For example, in our online courses, we embed each syllabus into the course using…
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Canvas Transition: Top 3 Tips to Prep for the Semester
Reading Time: 2 minutesAs this semester ends, we’re going to start looking toward setting up courses for future terms. You’re probably familiar with past Moodle tasks and idiosyncrasies. Canvas takes these tasks and makes them easier for you to accomplish. Instead of submitting requests to combine sections of your courses, you now have the ability to create a combined section without assistance from IT or the CTL. In addition, we’re also going to review how to add your syllabus and assignments to a Canvas course. 1. Combine multiple Canvas sections into one In previous semesters, the process to combine sections of your course was more complicated. You would submit a…
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Project Feature: Research Article Illustrations
Reading Time: 2 minutesYou’ve probably heard of projects where the CTL works with instructors to create or improve their courses. But did you know that the CTL also works with instructors on non-course projects? Dr. David Peterson, Assistant Professor of Kinesiology, approached the CTL for some help creating diagrams for a research project he was proposing. This research centered around whether certain people have an advantage in doing sit-ups based on having different bone length. Peterson wanted to create some diagrams that would articulate the exact landmarks used for measurement. The CTL went through some trial and error in the process of designing the diagrams, starting with wheeling a skeleton…