North Island College Teaching & Learning Supports
 
Faculty Update July 24, 2020

Faculty Update July 24, 2020

Teaching and Learning Update for Faculty

New Website Content, Some Worthy Reads and 10 Essential Instructor Blackboard Learn Actions

July 24, 2020

 

*NEW* NIC Learn Anywhere Website for Students

URL: https://learnanywhere.opened.ca/ is a new website for students. An email went out today (Friday, July 24) to all new and returning students sharing this site and the links below. This site includes:

Built this site (with content from DALS and Student Services) to provide students with a one-stop resource to help them learn about learning digitally. It was also built to help you, the instructor, in having a single spot to point to for students to access a host of resources. Many of you asked for this and so I hope you can include in your course outlines and Blackboard Learn courses!

New sections on Academic Integrity, Learning Strategies for Digital Formats, and more videos and resources for our core learning platforms are coming by end of August.

 

 

*UPDATED* NIC Teach Anywhere Website for Instructors

URL: https://teachanywhere.opened.ca/ – website I built for NIC instructors – has more content on it.

    • More is coming on Course Design, Teaching Digitally and Practices + Pedagogies Sections
    • NEW CONTENT – August Workshops and Sessions – registration will be after August 12th via special email
    • NEW CONTENT – Teaching Digitally Symposium  – Thursday August 27th (sessions on readiness for teaching digitally this Fall – open to all instructors) – registration after August 12th – handouts and highlight recordings will be available for all
    • Reminder: Lots of Videos and Instructions on using Learning Technologies: BlueJeans, Blackboard Learn, Kaltura and WordPress

 

 

*NEW*   Some Recent Worthy Reads

Digitally Inclusive Teaching Practices, Accessibility and Exams: Who are We Leaving Out?, Pros/Cons of Asking Students to Turn on Cameras in BlueJeans, Online Teaching Toolkit

    • Magna Teaching Professor Newsletter (See attached email I sent in June with log in instructions if you don’t have account yet) has some new articles such as:
  1. Performance Personae: Finding Vulnerability via the Virtual, Authenticity after the Augmented – one instructor saw her role as a teacher very differently in the digital classroom and forced her to rethink what being vulnerable meant
  2. Writing for Wikipedia – how to structure an assignment where students contribute to Wikipedia as an authentic experience and transition from student to contributor
  3. Student Engagement: Trade-Offs and Payoffs – when you forgo correctness, coverage, consistency and control you can often get more engagement from students
    • Five Things I’ve Learned this Summer: (Cate Denial) – Cate shares how her experiences teaching online this summer will shape her as a better online educator this fall
    • Six Quick Ways to Be more Inclusive in a Virtual Classroom (Flower Darby) – an experienced online educator shows quick ways to build an ethos of inclusion and equity in digital courses
    • Inclusive Teaching Practices Toolkit (Associate of College and University Educators) – one page of 10 inclusive practices with practical tips and suggestions shared via couple of minute video clips
    • Exams: Who are We Leaving Out? (Mary Burgess + colleagues, BCcampus) – Mary is Executive Director of BCcampus and called on expert educators to look at some of the problems created by using proctoring software, as well as problems of using exams as an assessment method – and wrote this summary document for BC post-secondary educators
    • Best Way to Stop Cheating in Online Courses? ‘Teach Better’ (Inside Higher Ed article) about how to move beyond the detection tools and consider assessment and student engagement
    • Should you Require your Students to Turn on their (Zoom) Cameras? – from the Oregon State University teaching and learning centre – some pros and cons and advice if you are going to ask students to turn on their cameras – basically a one pager with links to research and insights from others
    • Online Teaching Toolkit (Association of College and University Educators) – with excellent resources and quick videos on topics such as “welcoming your students to the online environment”, “managing your online presence”, “organizing your online course”, “planning and facilitating quality discussions”, “recording effective micro-lectures

 

 

*NEW* Blackboard Learn: 10 Essential Instructor Actions

We have built a collection of good practices to undertake as you ready your Blackboard Learn course for Fall from making back up copies to sharing course content with colleagues.

    • See all 10 Essential Instructor Actions here: https://teachanywhere.opened.ca/learning-technologies/blackboard-learn/
    • All of these practices and actions can be done by you without putting in a helpdesk ticket or needing IT support.
    • We are doing this to give you quicker and faster changes to your Blackboard Learn course, while allowing time for our staff to manage more challenging requests and high volumes we anticipate in the Fall.
    • MAKE COURSE BACK UPS: The one practice we hope you do for good measure is back up (export a copy) of your Blackboard Learn course every week/couple of weeks. IT still backs up the platform on a regular basis, but it is a common activity for instructors to also do a backup that is much easier/faster to import and rebuild a course if you have made a mistake, deleted something by accident etc. For good safe keeping and peace of mind! Export your course and put the zipped file on your P/personal network drive.
    • Instructions For Exporting/Making a Course Back Up – See items # 1 and 2 on the Essential Instructor Actions on the website link above.

 

 

*NEW*  Video Recording Studio Ready – for Instructional Videos (ITV Rooms Repurposed)

The fully-functional ITV rooms (1 at each campus) can be used as decent recording studios for instructors who want to capture lessons with the whiteboard, document camera and video-facing lecture delivery (‘instructional in-classroom videos’).

    • Since we don’t have any ITV classes this year, the ITV rooms have been blocked off by scheduling and will be available for use from August 5th onwards and throughout the Fall and Winter.
    • This process is all managed and organized by Harry Tewinkel in IT as he oversees the recording and assists faculty in the process. He also is in charge of the booking calendar for the ITV rooms.
    • We’ve done a test recording and it is quite good quality – with the video having the ability to toggle between viewing the instructor and the slide/screen/whiteboard.
    • INSTRUCTIONS TO BOOK A RECORDING SESSION WITH HARRY
  1. Email: After August 5th onwards directly email Harry Tewinkel (IT)
  2. Schedule: Harry will check the ITV room schedule for CV (or CR, PA or PH campuses) and be in touch with what works for him and his time (he has other duties), as well as the availability of IT techs at other campuses.
  3. Set Up: Harry can manage the recording of all campuses from his office in CV. He will have to engage an IT person at the other campuses to turn on equipment, get Facilities to open the rooms etc. – so please be patient with this new process.
  4. Cleaning: Before Starting Recording you will have to wipe down the equipment you will be using with the provided cleaning supplies and wipe again after use – to stick with cleaning protocols. At end of day, the room will need the door hanger switched to “Room Needs Cleaning”.
  5. Video: Harry will provision you with your video recording (s) in a share drive folder to pick up (best done from on-campus computer).
  6. Upload: All you have to do is upload them to NIC MediaSpace and do your edits or enhancements and grab the link to share with students.
  7. Remember: small video segments (5-7 minutes) are better for students to view than doing longer recordings!
    • Lighting: I’ve ordered one professional lighting kit per each campus to have more lighting on your face/body (as ITV rooms vary with lighting depending on time of day).
      • Those kits will have to be signed out by the instructor and picked up/taken back after the session if you wish to use a lighting kit. The lighting kits are also for those signing out cameras (as per below) so do not stay in the ITV room.
      • These lighting kits will be available soon (more details coming after August 5th) once we finish cataloging and shipping to campuses – and getting people in place to manage the sign out.

 

*NEW*  Camera Kits for Instructional Videos

If the Recording Studio (ITV Room) isn’t going to work for those who want to do instructional videos with specialized equipment found in NIC studios, labs or shops, we are almost done creating camera kits for sign out. These are GoPro cameras with a connection adapter and tripod (and separate lighting kits mentioned above) – both for sign out for making instructional videos.

  • Two camera kits per CV, CR and PA and 1 kit to PH campuses.
  • One lighting kit per each campus.
  • We are still waiting for GoPro adapters (to connect to tripod) to arrive next week to finish off the camera kit. Then we need to ship the cameras and lighting kits to the campuses and get sign out processes and locations all teed up. We need another week or two on this process.
  • I’ll email you again with details as to who and where you can sign them out. Likely after August 5th.

 

From the Trenches: Stories of Teaching Digitally

I am looking to find ways to share and celebrate the successes of NIC instructors teaching digitally. If you taught this past Spring/Intersession and have some tips and suggestions for colleagues – please get in touch with me. I am hearing some excellent ideas for engaging learners, doing digital assessments and working with diverse classes. I want to share your suggestions and stories with others via the Teach Anywhere website. I’ll have a short chat with you, write up some key points and possibly even record our little chat and put online for others to learn from. Whatever you are comfortable with is the gist of things.

 

Need Help? Check out the learning technologies Section of Teach Anywhere website or email the helpdesk@nic.bc.ca. Someone will reply to your ticket between Monday and Thursday and help you out!