It's that time of year again...

As we approach the start of a new academic year, I'm sure you're all thinking about your upcoming classes and possibly new ways to reach your students using technology.  Whether you're teaching online or on campus, there are many ways you can use technology to reach your students.  Here are some cool suggestions from an article from THE Journal.

Create a short video - The COL has consistently recommended that faculty record a welcome video for their online courses. Welcome videos can easily be recorded directly within Canvas or uploaded into Canvas if you use other software to create them.  These videos help students get to know you and what to expect from class.  But have you thought about having students create videos for class projects? Students can easily upload videos into Canvas, too, so it's very easy for them to submit their work. This is fun project that keeps students engaged in learning.

Podcasting - Creating podcasts is another way you can engage your students with multimedia technology. You can use them in your teaching, and you can have students produce their own podcasts.  If you're using iPads in your classroom, there are many apps to use for recording audio.

Creating Infographics - You've probably seen infographics online - we've shared a few here on this blog before...  Infographics are a great way to visually display information, often statistical data.  They can also be fun to create.  I created one for a recent conference presentation on orientations for online students using Piktochart, a site that provides limited free access and more sophisticated features for a fee.  Creating an infographic can be a great assignment for students - it's a fun way for them to be creative and display the results of their research.

Using screencasts to explain things - Screencasting is the term for recording what is on the screen of your computer and narrating it to make a video.  These videos are a great way to demonstrate how to do something on a computer.  Screencasts can be made with many free and low cost software applications.  I use Snagit for recording quick screencasts.  Snagit is inexpensive with educator pricing, and the company that makes it also has a free version with reduced functionality, Jing.  You can also record screencasts using Tegrity, a software solution supported by the ITS department. Contact them to get information about training and access to Tegrity.  Want to do screencasts on your iPad? EdTechTeacher has a great list of recommended screencasting apps. You can make screencasts to provide instructional content to your students, or you can ask your students to create and share their own screencasts.

As the new academic year approaches, remember that the COL is available to support online faculty and students in the use of Canvas and other instructional technologies for online education. Did you know that the Center for Online Learning is now part of Academic Affairs? This summer our team became part of the Division of Research and Academic Resources and we're looking forward to working with our new team to provide more exciting professional development opportunities and support services for all our online faculty! We are still located in the lower level of Deepwood Hall with the ITS department to allow us to work closely with the Tech Support Center team to ensure the best technology-related support for online faculty and students.  The new COL office space is amazing - if you haven't seen the newly renovated Technology Suite in the lower level of Deepwood, please stop by and visit us sometime! We look forward to seeing many of you back on campus soon!

Canvas Brings Back Chat (plus new Profiles)!

EXTRA, EXTRA: Exciting Canvas News!

Effective immediately, the “Chat” function has returned to your Canvas classrooms.  As you may recall, the chat feature was disabled a few months back while Canvas worked on a more appropriate and effective tool... and they have delivered!

The Chat tool in Canvas allows students and teachers to interact in real time. Chat makes it easy to communicate with your students live and all in one place.  Instructors can use chat to:

• Give students an opportunity to immediately contact them when they are online
• Conduct virtual office hours
• Conduct group discussion
• Conduct study sessions
• Regularly contact students who are challenged by course content and need encouragement

To enable “Chat” in your classroom, be sure that you’ve enabled the feature in the left-hand navigation menu of your course.  When you click on “Chat”, you immediately enter the chatroom!

BONUS!:  Check out the Canvas Guides to learn how you can view Chat history!

A new and improved “Profile” tool has also just been released.  Until today, we’ve been able to add a picture, contact information and connect services like Google Docs and Facebook.  Now, by popular demand, we can also add a “Bio”, custom web links, and more!  The Canvas Guides detail each new feature; if you’re curious to learn more, check them out!  To get started with editing your new profile, log into Canvas, click on your name in the upper-right corner, then click the “Edit Profile” button.  It’s as simple as that!

The details for these new features have been sourced from Canvas’ User Guides and Product Release Notes.  Please feel free to contact me (ptestori@baypath.edu) for any questions you may have about using Canvas for your Bay Path class.