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What does AI mean in your classroom?
As the new semester approaches, you may be considering if Generative AI (AI) and Large Language Models (LLM) are suitable in your teaching and learning context. Many students might already be using AI tools and that presents both opportunities and challenges in our classrooms. AI can be a beneficial learning tool. However, without careful consideration…
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VIU Learning Technologies Orientation for Students
We offer live webinars to introduce students to the learning technologies available at VIU, especially our online course platform VIULearn. Go to our Events Calendar to view the schedule and register for a live orientation webinar! Otherwise, Not to worry – we recorded the orientation for you! You can watch it whenever is convenient &…
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Is Artificial Intelligence on your mind?
It is certainly on ours! As we head into a new semester, we can’t help but think about the rapid growth of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, such as ChatGPT, and consider the impact these tools are having on teaching and learning.
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Welcome Jessica!
The Centre for Innovation and Excellence in Learning is excited to welcome Jessica Gemella to a two-year (August 1, 2023 – July 31, 2025) term as a Curriculum, Teaching and Learning Specialist. Jessica is a Vancouver Island University (VIU) faculty member in Trades and Applied Technology, where she has been an Instructor and Chair in…
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VIULearn Quiz Time Settings Are Changing
There are some exciting changes coming to the VIULearn Quiz tool this summer. Starting July 20, 2023, the following changes will take effect for all users in the VIULearn Quiz tool: Read on to learn how this will affect existing and newly created quizzes going forward. Changes to Existing Quizzes All quizzes that are currently…
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“Everybody’s got a story worth sharing”: Uncle Randy and the power of story telling
In this podcast, recorded at the end of 2022, Kathleen and Anwen sit down with VIU Elder in Residence, Uncle Randy Fred and discover their shared respect and joy for story-telling. Uncle Randy tells parts of his story including his earliest days on the west coast of Vancouver Island and up until he successfully gets…
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Increase Student Engagement and Persistence with Team-Based Course Design
Welcome to the Vancouver Island Team-Based Learning Institute, August 15-16-17, 2023 at Vancouver Island University! Early registration is now closed. If you would like to be added to the waitlist in case a participant withdraws, please contact Tine Reimers at tine.reimers@viu.ca Student engagement and persistence depend on many factors, but a bonding experience with other students…
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The Share Drive (Ep. 22): Trust in the Process
This podcast was recorded in Fall 2022 when Vicki Nygaard was teaching Sociology of Gender Relations (SOCI 322). We talked about a project her class was working on at the time – the creation of a book on gender. That book, Gender: Reflections and Intersections, has now been published online and is also available for…
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End of Year Cleanup
As we get to the end of the spring semester we want to remind you about the cleanup processes for VIULearn, VIUTube and VIUBlogs.
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Blended Learning
There are many ways to describe blended learning. One of my favourites describes blended learning as a “pedagogical approach that combines the effectiveness and socialization opportunities of the classroom with the technologically enhanced active learning possibilities of the online environment.” The Handbook of Blended Learning : Global Perspectives, Local Designs I like this one because…
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Backward Design
How do you approach the design of your course? Teachers often discuss the broad topics and content we teach in our courses. A standard curriculum and instructional design method is to plan by units or lessons, chunking content into topics, sequencing lessons, and creating assessments to measure learning. However, topic-driven planning may lead to poor…
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The Share Drive (Ep.21): How Much Water Do We Have?
It is Sustainable Development Week at VIU, so we wanted to share an example of how the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can be integrated into your course design. In this podcast I spoke with Dr. Jerome Lesemann from VIU’s Earth Science Faculty about how he incorporated the SDGs into a recent course using a…