Blog - Educational Technology at Langara College

Using Pressbooks to create open course materials

December 6, 2016March 13, 2024 Ari Crossby

Pressbooks is free online publishing software derived from Wordpress that you can use to create open educational content. While primarily a tool for creating open textbooks Pressbooks can be used for other purposes such as authoring support documentation, course guides or supplementary course materials in D2L/Brightspace or iWeb.

One of the advantages of Pressbooks is that it is very easy to use and it can output accessible content in a wide range of file formats. These include ePub (iBooks, Nook, Kobo etc.), PDF (for print/digital distribution), Mobi (Kindle) and the Open Document format. This means that students can easily read content on their mobile devices and there is an option for a web version of every book for reading in a browser.

The process of creating the book is straightforward and Pressbooks includes a number of templates to give your finished content a professional look. You can import from Microsoft Word or WordPress and the wizard-like interface includes colour-coded placeholders for things like learning objectives, exercises and key take-aways. As well as text you can easily add images, audio and embed video from sites like YouTube.

Pressbooks makes it easy to collaboratively author your content with colleagues, although only one person can work on a book at any one time. You can release the book under different licenses ranging from all rights reserved to public domain. BCcampus recommend using a CC BY (attribution) license if you would like to support open and accessible content and enable others to adapt your book.

To get started using Pressbooks Langara Faculty can sign up for an account using their Langara email address (note: must be in the format @langara.bc.ca). BCcampus will be hosting a training webinar on using Pressbooks on Tuesday January 24, 10 am. For more information on using Pressbooks talk to Julian Prior (Ed Tech) or Lindsay Tripp (Copyright Librarian).

12 Apps of Christmas from BC campus

November 30, 2016February 24, 2023 Ari Crossby

On December 1st, ETUG will launch the first B.C. 12 Apps of Christmas for teaching and learning. Similar to the successful U.K. event, participants will explore a new app a day for 12 days. Each day will introduce you to an app, where to get it, how to use it, and provide some ideas of how it might be used for teaching and learning. A challenge activity will be highlighted and participants are encouraged to share their results and reflect on any additional ideas of how to use it in the future through their blogs and on social media, using the #12appsBC hashtag.

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More Professional Development Opportunities

November 7, 2016February 24, 2023 Ari Crossby

BCcampus Professional Learning has 2 more amazing opportunities coming up in February 2017. Please note that EARLY BIRD pricing ends Nov.15.

VizEd 2017 Going Visual in Post-Secondary Education

Registration is open – space is limited!

Have you ever noticed that moment when people are talking about something, then they whip out a pen and start sketching? Or when a conversation breaks open because someone goes to the whiteboard and draws something?

Join us for a hands-on, full-on day of exploring the opportunities and practices of bringing hand made visuals into our teaching and learning. (P.S. “handmade” can mean electronic too!)

Date: Feb. 21st, 2017

Location: SFU Harbour Centre, Vancouver, B.C.

Liberating Structures

Liberating Structures are a collection of powerful facilitation strategies that can be used in our classrooms, everyday meetings, strategic planning sessions, workshops, presentations, etc. They are seriously fun methods to engage and work together.

Date; Feb. 22-23, 2017 (Wed & Thu)

Location: SFU Harbour Centre, Vancouver, B.C.

Learn more about the Liberating Structures and VizEd workshops here:

Professional Development Opportunity: Team-based Learning Institute at VIU

November 4, 2016February 24, 2023 Ari Crossby

On December 7th and 9th, Vancouver Island University’s (VIU) Centre for Innovation and Excellence in Learning is hosting a team=based learning institute for their faculty and making some spaces available for non-VIU faculty guests. The institute’s program takes you through the complete design process for transforming a course using the Michaelsen Team-Based Learning Model. This offering is primarily for faculty members who will implement a team-based course beginning in January 2017.

A master list of 800 free classic eBooks

October 5, 2016February 24, 2023 Ari Crossby

Read A Master List of 800 Free Classic eBooks for iPad, Kindle & Other Devices from open culture

You can see their ebook full list of 800 offerings here. They may lack the sensory pleasure of print, but the ability to carry an entire library of classic literature in your pocket has its advantages, to say the least. And if your travels include long drives, you’ll also want to check out our master list of Free Audio Books.

Socrative: A Free Alternative to iClicker and Top Hat

September 28, 2016February 24, 2023 Ari Crossby

The following is a guest post from Fulton Tom and Bryan Breguet, Economics Department:

Many instructors are now using audience response systems such as iClicker or Top Hat to engage students in their classrooms. These user-friendly systems allow instructors to administer interactive activities such as quizzes and receive immediate student feedback. The caveat, however, is that they are far from being free. Both iClicker and Top Hat charge students a subscription fee. While the fee is not a big expense, it adds to the already rising cost of post-secondary educat Open Education Resources - CC Licensed ion. Should we really expect students to pay tuition fees and buy textbooks and then to pay a subscription fee so that they can take the quizzes? We believe that more instructors should be aware of Socrative.

Classroom Technology Selection

September 13, 2016February 24, 2023 Ari Crossby

Are you interested in helping to investigate and recommend new classroom technology? IT has asked EdTech to work with instructors to determine needs, compile use cases and recommend technologies for our classrooms. ELMO - CC Licensed

To start, we will look at document cameras (currently Elmo) and device mirroring. Mirroring allows you—and your students—to wirelessly project the screen on a mobile device (i.e. a phone, tablet or laptop) for the entire class to view.

If you would like to join our working group, please let me know: sbowers@langara.ca

Sarah

D2L Updates

September 12, 2016February 24, 2023 Ari Crossby

Welcome back to a new semester. D2L has made some changes to the names of tools and added a My Media tool, as well as new features for the Grades, Groups, Quizzes and Discussions tools.

Tool name changes:

Former Name	Updated Name
Dropbox	Assignments
News	Announcements
Pager	Instant Messages
Edit Course	Course Admin
In Content, New	Upload/Create
In Content, Add Existing Activities	Existing Activities

If you refer to any of the tools within your course materials, you will need to update the language.

For example, if you have instructions in your course outline for students to submit assignments to “Dropbox,” you will need to edit it to read “Assignments tool.”

Online teaching workshop

August 30, 2016February 24, 2023 Ari Crossby

Are you looking for an interesting PD opportunity? Registration is open for the fall Facilitating Learning Online (FLO) workshops. These workshops provide an authentic environment for faculty to learn about and practice skills related to facilitating learning online. image of a tablet with the words "distance education" and "online learning" This five-week course -formerly known as Instructional Skills Workshop Online (ISWO)- stresses the importance of mini-facilitation sessions to give instructors an opportunity to practice online facilitation techniques and receive feedback geared towards growth and improvement.

Learn more about the course at https://secure.royalroads.ca/cscourses/facilitating-learning-online
26 September – 28 October, 2016
31 October – 2 December, 2016

Do more with video: Four great features of the new Kaltura

June 8, 2016March 13, 2024 Ari Crossby

Kaltura (Langara’s multimedia streaming platform) is about to be upgraded. As well as continuing to provide an easily accessible way for instructors and students to upload video and audio content to D2L courses, Kaltura is introducing a number of new features. Here we highlight four that we are excited about – and we hope you will be too.

1. Kaltura MediaSpace

It has always been possible to upload videos to Kaltura in D2L. However, instructors have been asking us for a while whether there is a more user-friendly and visually appealing way to search, watch, upload and share their videos. Kaltura MediaSpace will bring a YouTube-like video portal to Langara with granular user controls over the management of videos, screencasts, audio and other content, including student content. All data is stored in Canada on UBC’s servers and all content uploaded to MediaSpace is private by default.

2. Closed Captioning

The Canadian Association of the Deaf have long advocated for the high quality captioning of all video for accessibility purposes. Closed captions in Kaltura are not a new feature – they have been available for a while. The upgraded version enables all users to upload SRT and other closed caption files rather than have Ed Tech do this for you. We are also currently evaluating the use of external video captioning services that integrate with Kaltura.

3. CaptureSpace

At Langara ‘Video Screen Capture’ (i.e Screencasting) is very popular with instructors who use it for a variety of purposes – whether that be providing audio and visual feedback on papers to students in the LEAP program, assisting a flipped classroom model or creating software walk-throughs. Up to now we have recommended and supported instructors in the use of a tool called Screencast-o-matic that we subscribe to for creating video screen captures. The upgraded version of Kaltura brings a new application called CaptureSpace that will be available to download for Windows and Mac computers. CaptureSpace allows you to capture your screen, screen and webcam, webcam only or voice. It also integrates nicely with Microsoft Powerpoint so allows instructors (and students) to easily create slides with narration.

4. Interactive Video Quizzing

Have we saved the best until last? The interactive video quizzing feature in the new Kaltura enables the embedding of multi-choice questions at any point in a video. This is a great way to improve engagement, interactivity and assess understanding. This feature will be available later in the year.

For more information on the Kaltura upgrade please contact Julian, Heidi or Ari in Ed Tech (edtech@langara.ca).