Reading Time: 3 minutesYou’ve survived the first couple days of teaching remotely because of COVID-19 – congratulations! We’re going to use this post to take a pause and review some of the methods that are most helpful for transitioning online. These are the things that will make your course functional. Your course will survive. And later in this transitioning online series, we’ll be covering items that will slowly take you from surviving to thriving. But for now, we’re starting small. If you haven’t checked out the Getting Started with Remote Learning course in Canvas, please do so. We walk through these tips plus best practices, FAQs, and ways to get…
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Using Google Forms for Proctor Registration
Reading Time: 3 minutesWith our sudden pivot to online learning, you may have an upcoming exam where you want to assign proctors. You’ll need to collect some information (e.g., email addresses so you can send proctoring information), and Google Forms is an easy and organized way to collect that data. Dr. McClain created a Google form for this purpose and shared it with the CTL. We’re going to look at how to create the form, add items, preview the form, share the form with your students, view responses, and send information to proctors. Creating the form and adding items This form is simple to create – it’s four short-answer questions…
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Canvas Fellow Interview: Megan Brown
Reading Time: 9 minutesToday we’re debuting the second installment in our Canvas Fellow interview series. We joined Dr. Megan Brown from the School of Education for this chat. Check out the recording or read the transcript below. Lauren Eissler: Today I’m talking with Megan Brown from the School of Education and one of our Canvas Fellows. Megan, thank you so much for chatting today. Megan Brown: Of course. Lauren: So to start off, can you please briefly describe your role here at Cedarville? Megan: So I’m an assistant professor of education, I specifically teach the literacy courses, children’s literature, the methods courses. I also teach some special education courses as…
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Canvas Fellow Interview: Aleda Chen
Reading Time: 7 minutesToday we’re introducing a new feature for Focus – interviews with our Canvas Fellows. We joined Dr. Aleda Chen from the School of Pharmacy for our first chat. Check out the recording or read the transcript below. Lauren Eissler: Today I’m talking with Aleda Chen from the School of Pharmacy and one of our Canvas Fellows. Aleda, thank you so much for chatting with me today. Aleda Chen: I’m happy to chat with you. Lauren: So first of all, can you please describe your role here at Cedarville. Aleda: Yes, so I am the assistant dean in the School of Pharmacy, and within the School of Pharmacy…
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How to Use Google Drive More Efficiently with Drive Priority
Reading Time: 3 minutesIf you’re anything like me, you use Google Drive pretty extensively to keep your work organized. Drive is so easy and convenient to use – it doesn’t matter where I am or what device I use. I can always access my files. The tricky part about using a system that extensively is it eventually can take more time to find the file you need. With Drive, the search feature does work well to help you find what you need. But Google has introduced two features that make using Drive even easier: Quick Access and Priority. Quick Access Google Drive now shows a banner of files at the…
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Three Tips to Improve Accessibility in Your Course
Reading Time: 2 minutesLet’s make sure we all start on the same page by defining our terms. When talking about “accessibility” related to the web or course materials, it’s easy to think about it in a context of screen readers and disability accommodations. But it’s more than that. According to the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative, accessibility means that products are not only designed in a way that people with disabilities can use them but also people who have “situational limitations” (being in a location where they cannot use their device as they typically would) or “temporary disabilities” (an injury that affects how they handle their devices). Today we’re going to…
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The Future of Education: Mobile Learning in Higher Ed
Reading Time: 2 minutesWhen I started working on this post, I downloaded a PDF to my MacBook. I read a bit of it in my office before heading over to an event. I AirDropped the PDF to my iPad to continue reading and start doing some annotating using GoodNotes. On my way home, I asked Siri to record some notes that I wanted to include in this post. The next morning, I AirDropped my notes to the MacBook, pulled up the annotated PDF on my iPad, and began typing. Then I stopped and thought: I did all of this without thinking. Like it was normal. I was so overwhelmed with…
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TurnItIn: Three Tips for Accurate Similarity Report Assessment
Reading Time: 2 minutesCedarville University (CU) provides all faculty and students access to TurnItIn to help improve writing and prevent plagiarism. TurnItIn accepts user documents and compares them to material located on the Internet and in TurnItIn’s document repository. After the documents are compared, TurnItIn produces the Similarity Report which shows the parts of a student’s paper that are similar to other sources. Here are three tips to help you read the Similarity Report. Tip 1: Familiarize yourself with what Canvas and TurnItIn can do Get up to speed with all of the functionality the Canvas and TurnItIn integration has to offer by viewing or downloading the Canvas Plagiarism Framework…
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Adding External Tools to Your Course
Reading Time: 3 minutesWe’ve previously talked about how to use Ensemble for screen capture and webcam recording. We’ve also talked about how to add annotations, edit, and upload your video. But once you’ve uploaded your video, how do you get it into Canvas? Ensemble is integrated with Canvas as an external tool, so it’s a simple process to add media to your course. We’re going to use Ensemble as an example here, but you’ll follow the same initial process to add any external tool to your course. Add an external tool to a module If you want your video or other item from an external tool to be available directly…
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Best Practices for Online Quizzes
Reading Time: 2 minutesMoving from paper-and-pencil quizzes to online quizzes brings many benefits to students, instructors, and the institution. However, instructors may be concerned about offering online exams for fears of test security, especially for high-stakes quizzes. Some fear a scenario in which students are no longer using the information provided by the instructor to enhance their learning but rather online sources, such as Quizlet, to achieve the high marks they desire. An Inside Higher Education article (McKenzie, 2018) quoted a student’s tweet, “Today I graduated and I couldn’t have done it without God and Quizlet.” In this post, we will talk about some strategies that can be used to…