Have a Google Hangout Instead of a Discussion

Online faculty are using Google Hangouts to augment their discussions and students love the experience! In our MFA Program, students hangout regularly with professors to discuss weekly topics. 

Google Hangouts can be used for discussions, office hours, or meetings with small groups of students or other faculty. One of the perks of a Hangout is that it can be recorded and archived for viewing or reviewing. 

Every student and faculty member has the ability to create a Google Hangout via their University Google accounts. 

You could be using this dynamic tool in your online course! The Center for Online and Digital Learning would be happy to work with you on creating and using a Google Hangout with your students.

Contact Mary Wiseman, Online Course Builder, at 413.565.6808 or mwiseman@baypath.edu to schedule an appointment!

Creating Assignment Groups and Weighting Assignments

In this video, you'll learn how to create and weigh assignment groups within your Canvas classroom.
The creation of assignment groups will help you organize the assignments in your Canvas course.

For more information on assignment groups, check out this Canvas Guide!

If you have questions, contact Mary Wiseman, Online Course Builder at 413.565.6808.

You can also contact the Center for Online and Digital Learning at 413.565.6880 or online@baypath.edu!

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Whose history? Your history!

myHistro is an app that gives students the ability to create interactive, embeddable timelines for use in Canvas or as projects on their own. Users can incorporate text, audio and video alongside a Google Map that can play at a designated pace or that the user can click-through on their own.

myHistro gives students the ability to demonstrate their understanding of historical events and offers an incredibly rich use case scenario for a lot of classrooms. Check out this example of a myHistro project - the 2012 Olympic Torch Relay.

Happy creating!

O-E-R and Y-O-U

What is OER anyway? According to the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, “OER are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others. Open educational resources include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge.” ("Open Educational Resources").

Simply put, OERs could be defined as educational content created by you or your colleagues that other educators can use freely in their own courses. You can use OERs in your courses, too!

According to Inside Higher Ed, “The OER movement has sprung up in response to the rising cost of higher education, and aims to curb one of the additional fees that sometimes take students by surprise once they make it to campus -- namely textbook prices” (Straumsheim, 2014).” Indeed, as we begin to understand OER, we will be empowered to help make higher education more affordable for our students.

So, what can you do now?

There are a few simple things you can do now if you are curious about OERs:

• Learn more about OERs 
• Browse for OERs that relate to your own field on popular sites like oercommons.org, merlot.org or openstax.org
• Contact a member of the Center for Online & Digital Learning or the Hatch Library if you are interested in exploring ways to incorporate OERs into your own courses 

For now…

Check out an example of an “OER” that discusses the world's population:

Sources:

Open Educational Resources. (n.d.). Retrieved February 13, 2015, from http://www.hewlett.org/programs/education/open-educational-resources
Straumsheim, C. (2014, November 4). Open educational resources perceived as high quality, even though faculty awareness lags @insidehighered. Retrieved February 13, 2015, from https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/11/04/open-educational-resources-perceived-high-quality-even-though-faculty-awareness-lags