Reading Time: < 1 minuteLet’s set the scene. It’s the early evening, and there was a concept in class today that your students need a little more help with. You decide to record a short webcam video using Ensemble Anthem for them. As you prepare to make this video, there are a few things to keep in mind to make the video a good experience for your students. Check out this video for examples! Video by Jared Pyles Want to never miss a post? Subscribe here!
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Canvas Transition: Canvas Tips Roundup
Reading Time: 2 minutesThe beginning of the semester is quickly approaching, so we’re all in the thick of learning Canvas and setting up courses. You may be excited to use this new tool and marveling at how some processes are easier to complete. You may be a little nervous to dive in, especially if you weren’t working in Moodle previously. Either way, let’s pause for a second and take a deep breath. Okay? Good. Now that we’re ready, let’s take a quick look at some of the Canvas tips and tricks that we’ve talked about over the summer, all gathered together here for a one-stop primer to get you jump…
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Canvas Transition: Intro to the Canvas Template
Reading Time: 4 minutesIf you’re getting comfortable working on your courses in Canvas and are ready to take a jump and add design and structure elements to your course, you’ll be thrilled to hear about the template the CTL has created in Canvas. Canvas created the base template, then the CTL modified it to fit our needs. We’re currently using it in all our online courses to provide consistent structure and visual design elements (see our post about the template icons for more details!), and you can use it also to accomplish those goals in your course. Of course, there are elements that you can use and trade out to…
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Calibrate: Interview with Rob McDole about InstructureCon
Reading Time: 2 minutesSo, Rob, you went to a conference a couple of weeks ago. Can you tell me what conference it was and a little bit about it? I went to InstructureCon in Long Beach, CA. Instructure is the parent company of Canvas, the new learning management system (LMS) that Cedarville University is using in the upcoming 2019/2020 school year. This conference is geared towards administrators, teachers, developers, instructional designers, and technical support professionals who work with Canvas. There were approximately 3,000 attendees representing various businesses and institutions that use Canvas to accomplish their educational goals. Sessions included Canvas tool usage, previews of new tools that are being released,…
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Canvas Transition: How Should I Use the Icons?
Reading Time: 4 minutesYou may remember that when designing a course in Moodle, there were limited options to affect the look and feel of a course. Canvas gives you more options and easier controls to use when designing the visuals in a course. When you use the course template provided by the CTL, you have access to an entire icon system Canvas designed. Why use icons? Icons provide visual interest on a page, and they can grab the reader’s attention. If icons are consistently used by a group, they create a common visual language – the user will recognize that items are tied together because the icon is used in…
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How to Write Learning Objectives
Reading Time: 2 minutesA learning objective is “a statement that tells what learners should be able to do when they have completed a segment of instruction” (Smith & Ragan, 2005, p. 96). A precise, concrete, and specific learning objective is valuable to the course designer, instructor, learners, and reviewers. In this post, we will focus on module-level or lesson-level learning objectives that are subordinate to the course level objectives. We will use the learning objectives generator to assist in the objective writing process, using the who+verb+goal+condition pattern. Who: Describe the Learner When you are working on module-level or lesson-level learning objectives, the target learner must be identified for the course.…
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Calibrate: Interview with Lauren Eissler about Confab
Reading Time: 4 minutesSo, Lauren, you went to a conference a couple months ago. Can you tell me what conference it was and a little bit about it? I attended Confab, a content strategy conference. This conference is hosted by Brain Traffic, a content strategy consultancy, and it’s really Kristina Halvorson’s brainchild. She co-wrote the book on content strategy, by the way (Content Strategy for the Web). It’s fabulous, and I highly recommend it. But you might be wondering, “What exactly is content strategy” and that’s an excellent question. Content strategy covers a wide variety of roles and tasks including the design, creation, management, and governance of content across any…
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A Midsummer Guide to Canvas Setup
Reading Time: 2 minutesDeep in thought and focused on my very important game of Sudoku, my wife broke my concentration with sudden alarm and proclaimed, “Oh my goodness, it‘s only 6 months until Christmas Eve!” While six months is still a little while, what is drawing closer is the start of the 2019-2020 school year. In less than two months, Cedarville University will welcome students back and embark on a journey of transformation for the Word of God and Testimony of Jesus Christ. Fall 2019 brings a change from Moodle to Canvas for the entire campus, and everyone will be adjusting to the new normal. For faculty, the challenge may…
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Calibrate: Interview with Jared Pyles about UBTech Conference
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…