Using Creative Course Design to Increase Student Engagement
Keeping your learners engaged is a key to success in online learning. This webinar focuses on the tools and strategies that can be used to create an engaging learner experience and increase student success. We’ll share the components of course design that will help you to improve your courses and provide examples of what an engaging course looks like. Conestoga College will be joining us to share their recent experience using the Creative Services team at D2L to improve their online courses, and the benefits that they’ve seen.
Time 2:00pm ET
Audience: All
Presenter(s): Sandra Memmolo eLearning Developer, Kim Regehr Course Instructor, Christa Johnston Instructional Designer, Courseware Development
Zaghab, R. W., & Beckenholdt, P. (2014, June). Textbook-Free Learning: A Framework for Critical Analysis. In Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on e-Learning: ICEL 2014 (p. 190). Academic Conferences Limited.
Textbooks are losing relevance in the higher education classrooms partially due to the high costs and slow speed of textbook publication in the midst of the growing supply of open electronic resources. With trends toward online course delivery, more colleges are considered online resources as a matter of policy without an adequate framework for decision making during times of rapid transformation. The purpose of this paper is to improve the balance and deliberateness of university decision making in considering Textbook-free approaches. The proposed line of inquiry responds to a critical and timely question: Under what conditions might Textbook-free online course resources offer the best approach to a quality higher education learning experience? A three-part analytical framework is proposed to consider resource quality, institutional commitments, and external trends. By distilling the literature, the authors propose: 1) universal quality indicators for online and open education resource selection for a course or classroom; 2) institutional factors and resources that impact the quality of the Textbook-free approach; and 3) the selection of instructional resources based on environmental factors and transformational change influencing fields of study. Punctuated equilibrium theory helps to inform the framework. With the assumption that classrooms prepare students for the world of work, the proposed framework identifies challenges to the identification of educational resources for fields undergoing disruptive change.
According to IDC: “One of the biggest reasons why detachables are growing so fast is because end users are seeing those devices as PC replacements,” said Jean Philippe Bouchard, Research Director, Tablets at IDC.
You may be thinking your kids are downloading apps because they are just a simple way for them to keep in contact with their friends. This is certainly true for most kids, but unfortunately, even innocent use of most of these apps can land a kid in a situation he/she never intended to be in. Here are some potentially dangerous apps that are popular among kids:
1. Tinder
2. Snapchat: This app allows a user to send photos and videos to anyone on his/her friend list.
3. Blendr: A flirting app used to meet new people through GPS location services. 4. Kik Messenger: An instant messaging app with over 100 million users that allows users to exchange videos, pics and sketches.
5. Whisper: Whisper is an anonymous confession app. It allows users to superimpose text over a picture in order to share their thoughts and feelings anonymously. 6. Ask.fm: Ask.fm is one of the most popular social networking sites that is almost exclusively used by kids.
7. Yik Yak: An app that allows users to post text-only “Yaks” of up to 200 characters.
8. Poof
9. Omegle: This app is primarily used for video chatting. When you use Omegle, you do not identify yourself through the service.
10. Down: This app, which used to be called Bang With Friends, is connected to Facebook
http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2016/02/7-tools-for-hosting-online.html#.VrlFHEZa2zB Simple Surface is a browser-based tool for collaboratively creating outlines and mind maps.To get started with Simple Surface just click on “use for free now,” double click on the surface, and then start typing. To create an additional thought box just double click anywhere on your board. To make sibling and child thought boxes use the enter and tab keys. You can edit the color and size of fonts. Your boxes can be linked to URLs too. Right-click on your surface to open the full menu of editing options.
NoteBookCast is a free whiteboard tool that will work in the web browser on a laptop, iPad, Android tablet, and Windows tablet. NoteBookCast is a collaborative whiteboard tool. You can invite others to join your whiteboard by entering the code assigned to your whiteboard. You can chat while drawing on NoteBookCast whiteboards. While you can create an account on NoteBookCast, it is not a requirement for using the service. You can create a whiteboard by simply clicking “create a whiteboard” then entering a nickname for yourself to use on the whiteboard. If you do create a NoteBookCast account you can save your whiteboards and create whiteboard templates to re-use.
iBrainstorm is a free brainstorming application for the iPad and the iPhone. The app allows you to record brainstorming sessions using a combination of free hand drawings and sticky notes. You can share and collaborate with other users of iBrainstorm. Sharing notes and drawings between users in a local setting is a simple matter of “flicking” an item to another user.
Realtime Board is a platform for hosting online, collaborative brainstorming sessions. Realtime Board is built with HTML5 which means that it works equally well on your laptop and on your iPad or Android tablet. Realtime Board provides a blank canvas on which you can type, draw, and post pictures. You can connect elements on your boards through a simple linking tool. The boards that you create on Realtime Board can be shared publicly or privately. To help you communicate with your collaborators Realtime Board has a chat function built into every board. Realtime Board grants teachers and students access to all premium features for free. In order to get the premium features for free you do need to complete the form here.
Stoodle is an online whiteboard service supported in part by the CK-12 Foundation. Through Stoodle you can quickly create a collaborative whiteboard space. On your whiteboard you can type, draw, and upload images. You can connect Stoodle to your computer’s microphone and talk your collaborators while drawing, typing, or sharing images. Stoodle does not require you to create an account. Stoodle will work in the web browser on your iPad or Android tablet.
think about what has been your traditional way of having the students create something. Do you feel, when you look at their final product, that they are mostly all the same? If so, then using one of the digital tools available is your answer.
Keep the same requirements but give the students some choices by offering a variety a presentation tools and let them teach you some new things about technology. Also, let them drive their learning, become more engaged and as a result inspire others to do the same.
Digital storytelling encourages creativity; having that choice inspires curiosity and will help to diminish the fear of trying something new.
Pitting two of the most important entities of our schools — curriculum and IT — against each other is the ultimate power struggle. What are we really trying to achieve when we address this battle using the phrase “bridging the gap?”
If the technology and the infrastructure supporting it doesn’t work, then why have the technology at all? Likewise, if professional development and training are not a priority, then the technology will become nothing more than a glorified paperweight.
both curriculum and IT leaders need to come together to discuss the decisions that can make or break a learning environment.
