Quick Course Checklist

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A checklist is a great way to make sure you haven’t omitted important features or elements in your class. Sometimes it is the obvious that we overlook.

Sometimes we don’t even realize that something important is missing until our students tell us, or we try to look back for a document or a link and realize that we never created it or uploaded it to Blackboard!

We created this quick checklist as a starting place for you to do a quick look at your course to make sure all essential elements are included. The Resources for further reading listed on at the bottom of the tip sheet highlight some other checklists that contain even more detailed course elements.

How does your course do against this quick list? Please let us know if you find this helpful.

Tech Tuesday – Google Search Tricks

How many hours a day or a week do you spend (or should we say waste) searching for something using Google? How often do you give up without finding the information that you were hoping to find? Check out the 13 tips below and see if your search results don’t hit the target with better accuracy and speed! And, if you have a search tip that you’d like to share with outhers, please comment below.

We’ve also posted this on the Tips for Student Success so you be sure to refer your students there to get this an other good tips for succeeding in college and work.

google search trick infographic

Finding the Time to Improve Your Courses

It takes time to implement change. It takes time to analyze your students’ performance so you can determine what worked well and what needs to be modified or improved, added or deleted. It takes time, and sometimes peer assistance to figure out how to make the changes that you know you want in your course(s).

iTeach 2015 might be the perfect solution for you! What makes iTeach so special?

  • Concentrated time to explore ideas and find solutions to your teaching needs with the help of instructional designers and peers.
  • Group and one-on-one assistance with building content for your course(s).
  • ln-depth, hands-on opportunities to try new technologies
  • NEW structure for week’s activities benefits newcomers as well as seasoned online instructors
  • Stipend AND time to work on your course(s)
  • iTeach 2015 is NEW–even if you’ve attended an iTeach in the past, you’ll find this week different from past experiences in both content and structure.

Come JOIN us for the new 2015 iTeach!!!

iTeach2015_v20

Fried Friday: How Do YOU See the World?

I came across this recently and it struck me that dogs really do “see” an entirely different world than we do and I wondered how many of us actually see different worlds too when we walk through our day-to-day worlds. And of course, that made me wonder if our students ever “see” the things that we hope they see in our courses.

Enjoy the TED Ed short video clip below by clicking on the image.

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You might also think about the way TED has structured this website. Click on each of their buttons Watch/Think/Dig Deeper and Discuss. An interesting way to create a course structure, don’t you think?

Enjoy your weekend!

Infographics – A Chance to Receive a Free Piktochart Account!

Last week’s Tech Tuesday’s topic was on infographics so when I came across this offer I had to share! If you haven’t tried creating an infographic yet, here’s an incentive for you. Piktochart is giving away $150,000 in Edu Pro accounts to classrooms for their 3rd year anniversary! Throughout March, Piktochart will be giving out free Edu Pro accounts to teachers. How can you enter for a chance to win? Simply submit a 1-minute video of you and your students on why you would like to receive a PRO subscription. For details visit Piktochart’s 3rd Anniversary Celebration. And to see how easy it is to create a Piktochart infographic, view the short video below.

 

Tech Tuesday: Google Hangouts On Air

Many of you use Google for sharing docs, for connecting to YouTube, and for their video Hangouts. There’s another very cool feature of the Hangout called Hangouts On Air. These are Hangouts that are live streaming broadcasts recorded and automatically saved to your YouTube channel. The cool thing about these broadcasts is that:

  • You can choose whether you alone are on the video or whether you’d like a panel of up to 9 others to join you
  • You can choose whether the recorded session is public or private (unlisted)
  • You can invite specific persons to view or leave the meeting open to the world, taking questions and answering the most important or popular questions that come in during your broadcast

To use a Hangout on Air you must have a Google+ account and you must authenticate that your account is connected to YouTube. That allows the hangout to stream to YouTube.

We’ve been testing these Hangouts On Air and have created a couple of tutorials if you are interested in trying Hangouts On Air. These tutorials can be found later linked to the FLC Quick Tiops and Tutorials.

Directions for the person creating the Hangout (the host)

Directions for the participant

Google LinkClick image for information from Google on Google Hangouts On Air.

We did a private Google Hangout On Air with faculty today on Providing Effective Learner Feedback. The link is unlisted, but if you are interested you can contact Kathi to view.

Tip Sheets

Need a quick reference or tip sheet on a particular topic? Just ask for it and we’ll try to create a useful document for you. Here are our two most recent tip sheets:

Faculty Feedback for a Deeper Learning Experience

When Gamification and Education Overlap

You can find these tip sheets on the Faculty Learning Corner website under Quick Tips and Tutorials. We’re happy to tackle just about any topic, so please go ahead and send us ideas for future tip sheets.

Click for more tip sheets

Fried Friday: Is Global Warming Causing the Recent Vermont Polar Bear Attacks?

I was going to show the Lie Witness News where Jimmy Kimmel asked what people thought of Judge Judy being appointed to the Supreme Court, but then I came across this and thought it more fitting since we’re having such a strange winter.

 

Click here for video

 

I hope that these interviews are staged. But I fear that they are not! It makes it imperative that we really teach our students not to believe everything that they read on the Internet. They need to question sources and not be so gullible that authority figures (even reporters with cameras and microphones) are trusted without questioning. You might want your students to look at Nicole’s recent post on Tips for Student Success: CRAP! which stands for Currency,Reliability, Authority, and Purpose.

Enjoy and have a great weekend everyone.

Tech Tuesday – Infographics

Last Friday we playfully mentioned infographics and said that they were a powerful way to display information. You may have noticed infographics being used more frequently on some of your favorite websites and blogs. They are easy to create and can incorporate graphics and colors to make them appealing and interesting. Critical Thinking Via Infographics states:

Here are some tools that you can use to create infographics quickly and easily listed on 10 Free tools for creating infographics. Nicole used Piktochart to create the infographic below as an example for iTeach last year. There are some things you might want to keep in mind when creating an infographic. Take a look at Jeff Bullas’ The 7 Key Elements to Creating Successful Infographics, the resources provided by Bianca Woods, and Top Tips From Experts on What Makes a Great Infographic.

And here is a link to a FREE course on creating infographics. How to Make and Promote Wildly Successfuly Infographics.

fishtechInfo

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Roundtable Discussion on Learner Feedback: Tuesday!!

Roundtable discussionDon’t miss out on tomorrow’s roundtable discussion on learner feedback. We are going to test out our new distance learning room, 230 and combine that with creating a Google On Air Hang-out so that whether you are at a distance or in Sitka, we can all experience being in the room together.

In order to participate in the recorded on-air session we need to have your Google email address so we can invite you as a participant. Help us try out this format (new to us)!!

Send us the information using the form found here and SIGN UP and JOIN US Tuesday, 1 PM to talk more about learner feedback.

  • What constitutes good learner feedback?
  • Are there strategies that you’ve used that you’ve found particularly successful?
  • Can learner feedback help students be more independent and self-reliant as learners?

Please join us tomorrow at 1 PM!

Image Credit: istockphoto: MachineHeadz