Category: General
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LearnSupport Phone Line is Back in Service!
The Centre for Innovation and Excellence in Learning is happy to announce that the LearnSupport phone line is back in service! Faculty and students can now either reach out for support by sending us an email to learnsupport@viu.ca or by phoning our support line at 250.740.6179. Our phone line and email is monitored Monday-Friday 9:00am-4:00pm…
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UnMarking Institute 2021 at VIU
Liberate Learning: How to Untangle the Web of Feedback and Grading May 12 and 13, 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM This two-day workshop includes a series of Zoom interactions, independent faculty work on their chosen course, and consultations with facilitators. Participants will also be invited to participate in follow-up conversations before and during course implementation…
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Creating Purpose by Letting Students Frame the Questions
For our final blog post on Purposeful Assignments, we spoke with Sandra Johnstone from VIU’s Earth Science Department. Sandra Johnstone’s fourth year Earth Science class was about climate change, and the first thing she did was to have the whole class brainstorm an inquiry question to focus learning for the duration of the semester. After…
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The Share Drive Episode 13: Shannon Bence: The Ultimate Online Learning Survival Guide
After witnessing the fear many of her students were experiencing in the transition to online learning, Shannon asked herself the question, “How can I help?” And the answer that came to her was, “I know! I’ll get up before my toddlers and make some videos about how to be a successful online learner!” In this…
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Enduring and Public: Blogs as Purposeful Assignments
In today’s post, we’re going to look at two instructors who have used VIUBlogs to facilitate purposeful assignments that both give students meaningful choices and have lasting, public relevance beyond the length of the course.
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New Way to Set Up Quiz Accommodations in VIULearn
There is a new way to set up quiz accommodations in VIULearn. Previously, student accommodations had to be set for each quiz individually using the Special Access feature. While Special Access isn’t going anywhere, a new Accommodations option allows you to set quiz timing and right-click behaviour for a student at the course level eliminating…
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The Pandemic Broke Our Teaching: Now what?
A Zoomside Chat, hosted by CIEL on Thursday, February 25 @ 3pm A lot has changed in the world of teaching and learning over the past few months. Some of us have been energized by this new reality. Others can’t wait to get back to how things were before. One critical question is, “CAN we…
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New Assignment Create/Edit Experience Available for Opt-In
Starting December 8, 2020, instructors in VIULearn can opt in to using the new Assignment creation interface. This new version of the Assignment tool will replace the current Assignment creation workflow in Summer 2021. In this blog post we will look at the new Assignment Creation screen in detail so you can see what is…
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Watch the Student Technology Orientation anytime!
This year, we are running live webinars to introduce students to the learning technologies available at VIU while protecting the health and safety of everyone involved. Are you unable to attend one of our live Student Technology Orientation webinars this spring but still want to see what tools are available & how to get support?…
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Spring Learning Technology Orientation Webinars for Students
This Spring, to continue to better support the busy lives of students and employees at VIU while maintaining safe social distance, the Centre for Innovation and Excellence in Learning (CIEL) will be offering fully online orientations for VIULearn and other teaching and learning technologies that are supported by CIEL. Students and employees can self-register for…
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Taking a peek: How do other instructors design their VIULearn courses? (Ravi Mohabeer and Stephanie Boychuk)
Would you like to take a peek into your colleagues’ VIULearn course shells? Do you have questions about how best to arrange material in VIULearn, or how to format the course material clearly and accessibly? In this recorded Show N Share session, two VIU teaching faculty, Ravi Mohabeer (Media Studies) and Stephanie Boychuk (Adult Basic Education) each share and discuss their…
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The Share Drive Episode 11: Evandra Panych: Instructional Design for Dinner
Evandra Panych, an alumni of the CIEL’s course redesign “sailing,” shares her process in designing and teaching an online course in the interior design program. Evandra acknowledges how challenging it was for her to redesign a practical, lab-based course for the online world. In this episode, Evandra honestly describes what didn’t work well, and what…