Our current help hours:
These hours sometimes change, so please check this page often. Click the Continue Reading link below.
Click here for our Spring 2021 Final Exam Extended Support Hours.
These hours sometimes change, so please check this page often. Click the Continue Reading link below.
Click here for our Spring 2021 Final Exam Extended Support Hours.
“Arguing that teaching and learning goals should drive instructors’ technology use, not the other way around, Intentional Tech explores seven research-based principles for matching technology to pedagogy. Through stories of instructors who creatively and effectively use educational technology, author Derek Bruff approaches technology not by asking ‘How to?’ but by posing a more fundamental question: ‘Why?’ “
The EdTech Book Club is a supportive environment in which to share ideas, pose questions, and learn about effective online teaching practices, EdTech theory, and hands-on online tools.
Date: Tuesday, May 11th – Tuesday, June 29th
Time: 4:30 – 5:45 pm
Location: Online
Register here.
Are you preparing to teach in the summer semester? Or are you going into your non-instructional duty period?
An instructor recently asked EdTech advisors what our top three underrated Brightspace Tools are to maximize your time and effort. Here is our list…
What are your favourites?
Please click on the infographic below to access links to samples of the tools above, register for Sandbox Sessions, and view the EdTech/TCDC Calendar.
Infographic: Top 3 Underrated Brightspace Tools
What are you favourite Brightspace Tools? Please feel free to post a comment below.
A recently released study out of Stanford warns that synchronous Zoom lectures and meetings are making us tired. In this short article, Vignesh Ramachandran notes Stanford researchers identify four causes for ‘Zoom fatigue’ and their simple fixes.
Asynchronous videos offer an effective alternative to synchronous Zoom lectures. These articles outline the benefits of synchronous video and offer advice for effectively incorporating them into courses.
Unbounded by Time: Understanding How Asynchronous Video Can Be Critical to Learning Success
Improving Problem-Based Learning with Asynchronous Video
Five Ways to Increase the Effectiveness of Instructional Videos
Engaging Students Through Asynchronous Video-Based Discussions in Online Courses
Image CC by Johannes Ahlmann
Did you know that approximately 1 in 12 men is colour blind? Colour blindness — or more accurately, poor or deficient colour vision — can affect a person’s ability to distinguish between certain colors, usually greens and reds, and occasionally blues. Because colour vision deficiency reduces the number of color dimensions, it can be difficult for colour blind individuals to distinguish between certain colors. To improve colour accessibility of course content, it is important to ensure adequate colour contrast and not rely on colour alone as a means of conveying information.
Effective contrast can make the text easier to read and images easier to see for all students. To ensure text is readable it should pass accessibility guidelines based on the combination of text colour, background colour, and text size. Test contrast using the WebAIM colour contrast checker.
Colours used to convey information on diagrams, maps, and other types of images must also be distinguishable from the background. To ensure adequate contrast use a combination of light and dark background and foreground colours.
Color combinations to avoid for people with color blindness include:
If you absolutely must use one of these combinations, adjust the contrast, making adjusting the shades so one is extremely dark, and the other extremely light.
Image source Smashing Magazine
Do not rely on colour alone to communicate meaning. Different patterns and textures can help colour-blind people further distinguish between different elements in charts and infographics.
Use color plus another element to emphasize a point or visually distinguish information differences. Emphasis elements include:
For more information on improving the accessibility and data visualization, visit Penn State’s Charts & Accessibility web page.
Are you facilitating an online course this semester or next and still feel a bit overwhelmed about using technology? Join the Ed Tech Sandbox Sessions to try out your tools and synchronous teaching in a safe and supportive space.
To give all participants a chance to practice, registration is limited to 10.
Sessions will be held from 11:00 until 12:30 on January 29th, February 26th, March 26th, and April 30th.
The January session will be dedicated to using Zoom. The rest of the sessions will be open to whatever tools and technologies participants want to try out.
Registration is open and space is still available.
The Educational Technology department wants to hear about the mobile apps that have made online teaching and learning better for you and your students.
Tell us about your app and be entered to win a gift card.
Closed captions are a transcription of dialogue that is added to a video or digital presentation and, when turned on, appears as text on the bottom of the screen. The primary purpose of captions is to support people who are deaf or hard-of-hearing. However, captions have also been shown to support the learning of students who speak English as an additional language, students with learning disabilities, and students who are new to a discipline and may be unfamiliar with the jargon and unique terminology.
Before you can add closed captions to a video you will need to upload it to your MediaSpace library. If you are unfamiliar with uploading videos, click through the steps below. If you have experience with MediaSpace, skip ahead to find out how to add closed captions.
The following video will walk you through the steps of ordering and editing machine-generated closed captions in MediaSpace.
Direct video link: Kaltura MediaSpace: Adding closed captions
Newly uploaded media is set to Private by default so after adding closed captions, you will need to publish your video.
Setting a video to Unlisted allows you to share your video with students but makes it unsearchable. Setting a video to Published allows you to share your video or make it available in a Channel or playlist.
Save the changes, and then Click Go To Media to view the video, or Go To My Media to see the video in your MyMedia library.
You are now ready to share your closed-captioned video with students. In Brightspace, you can insert Kaltura videos anywhere you find the HTML Editor.
Many thanks to Mirabelle Tinio for this Infographic summarising some of our statistics for the Fall 2020 semester.
Pivoting to remote online teaching has been a learning journey that has felt more like a roller coaster ride than a road trip at times. Let’s continue on this adventure together.
Join the online book club as we read selected parts of Tony Bates’s Teaching in a Digital Age and continue evolving and improving our teaching practices through reading, discussion, and self-reflection.
“Through 12 informative chapters, Teaching in a Digital Age: Guidelines for Teaching and Learning answers your questions and provides helpful guidance and suggestions on a host of topics including:
While understanding and respecting the individual nature of teaching, Tony talks theory, options, best practices, point-by-point strategies – offering clear, practical, and actionable advice and guidance based on research and best practices.”
As a group, we will decide on which chapters to focus and set goals together. The book club is a supportive environment in which to share ideas, questions, and learn about effective online teaching practices, EdTech theory, and hands-on online tools.
Date: Tuesday, January 12 – Tuesday, March 23, no meeting on Feb. 16
Time: 4:30 – 5:45 pm
Location: Online
Link to e-book: https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/teachinginadigitalagev2/