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D2L 10.2 Upgrade
The Centre for Innovation and Excellence in Learning is very excited about the June 27, 2013 D2L upgrade to the latest version 10.2! Version 10.2 offers a more streamlined navigation for two of the system’s most used tools – Content and Discussions – as well as other improvements. Please be assured this is not a…
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Pros and Cons of Technology Embedded within Teaching and Learning Centres – and Not in IT
At a recent Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Conference (STLHE), I was part of a round table discussion about the pros and cons of including educational technology departments (serving learning management systems, blogging, video streaming, mobile devices, online course instructional design) within higher education teaching and learning centres. In Canadian colleges and…
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Deploying Kaltura at VIU – ETUG 2013 Presentation
I presented at the ETUG conference this year about our experience deploying Kaltura on campus over the past year. There was lots of interest from the community about Kaltura with the shared service being hosted by UBC coming early next year. I appreciated some really tough questions from the community about: ownership of content after…
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ETUG Spring Workshop 2013
This years’ spring Educational Technology User Group (ETUG) conference was held at Simon Fraser University with the theme “Tell it on the mountain: Teaching, Engaging, Learning and Leading ”. I came to the ETUG conference for the first time last year and was really happy to see the collegiality and knowledge sharing which happens within…
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Photo editing online – free!
Last month I facilitated a 1.5 hour workshop on photo editing. Although I use Adobe Photoshop CS6 for my own photo editing, I knew that not all VIU faculty/staff would have Adobe Photoshop available to them. So, after a bit of research and experimentation online, I recommend the following, totally free to use, online photo…
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Adopting Open Textbooks Workshop
On May 27th I attended a workshop organized by BC Campus titled Adopting Open Textbooks held at Camosun College in Victoria. BC Campus has been running a series of these workshops starting off at Thompson Rivers University, University of Northern British Columbia, Simon Fraser University, Kwantlen Polytechnic and now Camosun College. The event was predominately attended by…
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Gamification – Article and Infographic
I came across a couple of interesting (and short) articles on gamification in education today. Although the language makes it seem like gamification is something only the K-12 sector is working on it is becoming a trend in post-secondary as well as job training. In fact, there are over five different seminars on gamification of…
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Guide on the Side: Flipping the Classroom
A teacher’s value is not in the information stored in their head, but rather their ability to pull together the best learning resources to produce a desired outcome. The modern teacher is (or should be) more an aggregator of resources than a producer of information, at least in the classroom. Why are thousands of teachers…
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Group Restricted Content
Are you interested in using the Groups tool in to create project discussion areas for students? Perhaps you have readings that only certain students should have access to, or what to release additional information for specific learners needing more support. The Groups tool in D2L will help you organize your course and personalize student learning.…
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Have you tried a “week zero” in your D2L course?
When teaching an online or web-enhanced course, how do you make essential course information stand out from all the rest of the course content? The first week in an online environment can be overwhelming. In addition to encountering Desire2Learn, students are provided with a course tour that reviews the syllabus, explains how to participate in…
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Social Media – Part 2 (Digital Footprint: Professionalism Online)
The Centre for Innovation and Excellence in Learning held the second session in the Learning Series in May entitled: Social Media – Part 2 (Digital Footprint: Professionalism Online) Topics included: i. Social Media’s footprint – lasting comments, images and words ii. Protecting your image and footprint, how to manage it for professionalism iii. Student/Family use…
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Bill Gates on giving Instructors Real Feedback
In this TED Talk Microsoft founder Bill Gates proposes a method for getting teachers real feedback on their practice. A recent initiative from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the Measures Of Effective Teaching Project which aims to close the gap between institutional expectations for effective teaching and what is actually happening within classrooms. The initiative seeks to identify…