• Fall Learning Technology Orientation Webinars for Students

    Fall Learning Technology Orientation Webinars for Students

    This Fall, 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 these webinar…

  • Changes to VIULearn Login and Email, July 2020

    Changes to VIULearn Login and Email, July 2020

    The way that students and employees log in to VIULearn is changing July 23,2020. In addition, there is an upcoming change to improve the email experience within VIULearn.

  • Postponed: VIULearn Course Cleanup 2020

    Postponed: VIULearn Course Cleanup 2020

    To help support instructors, CIEL has decided to not perform the VIULearn Course Cleanup in 2020. The following semesters will be permanently removed from VIULearn in July 2021: Fall 2017, 2018; Year 2017, 2018; Continuous Intake 2017, 2018; Spring 2018, 2019; Intersession 2018, 2019; Summer (May and June) 2018, 2019

  • Zoom Security Updates, June 2020

    Zoom Security Updates, June 2020

    Read this post to learn more about updates to Zoom security for VIU including the move to Canadian data centers only, a new Report Users feature, and upcoming requirements for meeting passwords.

  • Staying successful in online classes: Tips for instructors and students

    Staying successful in online classes: Tips for instructors and students

    We’ve had a number of faculty ask us about how to help students be successful in online environments. The good news is that being a successful student in an online class is not that different than being a successful student in a face to face (F2F) class. The bad news is that the world has…

  • Technology for Remote Teaching: Create a Document Camera at Home

    Technology for Remote Teaching: Create a Document Camera at Home

    Last week we explored some of the technology options for improving your video and audio on videos and web calls. Today, we want to take a look at options for replicating the use of a document camera or whiteboard over Zoom.  Dr. Todd Barsby, Associate Dean of Science and Technology at VIU, has captured his…

  • Course Outlines and Syllabi

    Course Outlines and Syllabi

    We’ve had lots of conversations with faculty members about what their teaching in the Fall semester will look like, and course outlines have come up regularly. Students need access to the basic information about the courses in which they are enrolled. This is true in the best of times, and is even more important as…

  • Synchronous vs Asynchronous: What is the best blend?

    Synchronous vs Asynchronous: What is the best blend?

    As we continue to live in the world of Alternative Delivery, we are often asked “how much of my online course should be synchronous and how much should be asynchronous?”. There is no magic ratio that will work for every course and every instructor. The approach that we recommend is to think about what your…

  • Technology for Remote Teaching

    Technology for Remote Teaching

    Being seen and heard clearly online is extremely important in this time. Whether you are creating videos or just spending hours on video calls, many of us are finding our current equipment isn’t quite meeting our new needs. But how do you know what equipment you do need? To help answer this question, members of…

  • The Big Pivot: Podcast Bites from VIU Faculty Shifting to Alternate Delivery

    The Big Pivot: Podcast Bites from VIU Faculty Shifting to Alternate Delivery

    In this series of podcasts, I wanted to collect and share stories from VIU faculty who have pivoted, or who are pivoting, to an alternate delivery method. Which is all of us. I wanted to capture at this moment in time what’s happening, and how we’re all getting through this as best we can. And…

  • The Podcast that Wasn’t: Capturing Amber Hieb’s Pivot to Alternate Delivery

    The Podcast that Wasn’t: Capturing Amber Hieb’s Pivot to Alternate Delivery

    As someone who is supporting a small army of faculty transitioning to alternate delivery, I’m a bit shy (mortified?) to share my own cringe worthy tech fail. But I will. In that selfless sort of way that leaves one thinking, “Well, at least I didn’t do that!” After recording an excellent (seriously, it was amazing)…

  • More Options for Improving Zoom Security

    More Options for Improving Zoom Security

    Zoom is continuing to add features and make setting changes to improve the security of their platform. In this post, we look at the new Security button, password protected meetings, data centre location settings, and keeping Zoom up to date on your device.