Over the last year, the Learning Technology Center has been hard at work refining our mission.  The full mission statement can be found on our website: http://www.uww.edu/icit/ltc/ltc-mission-statement

WE BELIEVE in integrating pedagogy and technology to assist instructors in developing effective learning experiences.

WE SUPPORT instructors in their pursuit of excellence in teaching and student learning.

WE INNOVATE with instructors by initiating emerging technology exploration projects that investigate learning technology trends in higher education.

WE CONNECT people on campus and beyond who have the same interests and are doing the same things to create community among instructors.

WE PARTNER collaborate, and communicate with colleges, programs, departments, instructors, and tech-liaisons to understand and meet university instructional needs.

WE LEAD learning technology initiatives and extend expertise to campus wide initiatives.

The UW-Whitewater Learning Technology Center (LTC) is here and ready to help you! Our team of experts have a wide range of skills to tackle all of your instructional course related needs.

New LTC Website

Along with the updated mission statement, we also revamped our website to better align with the new mission.

The LTC Team. Do you want to know who makes up the LTC and some fun facts about them?  Put a face to that name and check out our new LTC Team page.

Quality Services. The list of service offerings on campus may be overwhelming at times.  We put together a simple list of our supported services all in one place, with links to easily view more information about them.

Timely Assistance.  We may not be here 24/7, but we do have resources that are available at all hours of the night.

Emerging Technology Exploration Projects.  We are always looking for the next best thing, and watching trends to see what’s on the horizon.  See what we are up to this semester!

Creating Community.  No one likes to sit around alone, in the dark, struggling on their own.  Our goal is to create communities and enable users to work together to collaborate on new approaches and ideas.

Cutting Edge Programming.  Things change every day, so we do our best to offer workshops and events to keep everyone up to speed on the current education technology and trends.

Head on over to the site ( http://ltc.uww.edu ) and check it out.  Feedback is always welcome!

LTC Staffing

We are happy to welcome Shane Degen into the LTC family.  Shane was hired back in October of 2016 in the role of Learning Management System Admin and Student Advocate (aka D2L Admin).  Shane is a UW-Whitewater Alum and has extensive experience with online education and D2L.  Welcome Shane!

The LTC is actively recruiting for a new Learning Technology Specialist Position.  This position will allow us to further our exploration of emerging technology and also provide additional support related to pedagogy and instructional technology.  More information on the position is available at: https://my.uww.edu/employment/jobs/LTC12782.html

The LTC is also hiring for the Technology Promotion and Adoption Specialist Position.  This position will work with departments to understand technology needs and promote technology adoption to meet those needs. More information on this position is available at: https://my.uww.edu/employment/jobs/12680.html

Weekly Email Updates

Did you know that you can get a weekly email update about what’s going on in the LTC? Every Monday morning, you’ll get an email that contains a summary of the latest items from our blog. To sign up for these updates, just fill out the form below!

Spring Book Group

The LTC will be holding a book group this spring.  Motivating and Retaining Online Students is a research-based book which provides effective online strategies that help minimize student dropout, increase student retention, and support student learning.  This group will include an opportunity to interact with one of the authors, allowing participants the chance to learn from her experience.

Meeting Time: Tuesdays 12:30pm – 1:30pm
Meeting Dates: January 31, February 14, February 28, March 24, March 28 & April 11

Register at: https://my.uww.edu/signup/Registration/Details/14953

Upcoming Events

Check your calendars and save the date!  We have a number of events coming up this semester that you won’t want to miss!

• Celebrating Teaching and Learning: Strategies that Transform Educational Experiences and Enhance Student Success. Save the date:  Thursday, May 18 from 8:30am-4:30pm. This special forum is meant to showcase the wide variety of ways we are all transforming the lives of our students through teaching and learning.  It will include break-out presentations, discussions, and a keynote address.
• Summer 2017 Institute for Online/Blended. This highly interactive workshop demonstrates teaching best practices using a variety of teaching methods and technology tools.  The structure of this course not only allows you to explore new teaching and course design methods, but it also enables you to participate in activities that provide you with experience in being an online “student.” Applications will be available in early February.
• Discussion Basics. This LEARN/LTC workshop series is focused on how instructors might most effectively utilize discussion in our courses (both face-to-face and online).  The first session (2/16) is on discussion basics – core principles and purpose of discussions as well as sharing strategies and tips for more effective discussions.  The next sessions will focus on difficult discussions (3/8) and discussions conducted in D2L (4/13).- a collaboration with the Learn Center.

LTDC Virtual Showcase – Save the Date

Save the Date! The UW System Learning Technology Development Council (LTDC) Showcase 2017 will be held virtually April 4-5, 2017.  This year’s theme is Humanizing Learning.

This virtual conference offers an opportunity for sharing your successes and challenges in teaching with technology. This conference will provide you with the opportunity to virtually connect with other practitioners and requires neither travel expense nor a significant time commitment.

Watch our blog for updates once the showcase schedule is released!

Course Repository

Starting with the Spring 2017 semester, we launched a new storage offering called Course Repository – aka Course Repo.  Course Repo is designed to offer classwork specific storage on a per semester basis.  Specialty course storage by request is also available.

The idea behind this storage offering is to offer an easy way for a course to collaborate that has unique file storage needs which cannot be met by other existing storage solutions.

Course Repo is a replacement for some old storage offerings which some of you may have known as student storage or class storage.

Documentation and training materials are available on the website: Course Repo.

If you are interested in having a repo setup for your spring 2017 courses, contact the Learning Technology Center to schedule a consultation and we’ll make sure it’s the right solution for you!

Turnitin Dropbox Dates

Since the D2L Upgrade last summer, we have been made aware of an ongoing issue that is impacting how Turnitin works inside of the Dropbox.

Some users may be receiving a message reading “Error communicating with Turnitin.  Try to resubmit the file.  If this issue persists, contact your administrator”.

If you are seeing this error message, please make sure that you have both a start date AND end date set on your Dropbox in Desire2Learn.  Once you have set the start and end date, the issue should be resolved and you can resubmit the file.

Desire2Learn is working on a solution to this problem, however at this time we don’t have any information on when it will be released.  Until then, hang tight and remember to set a start and end date on your dropbox!

More information on this issue is available at: Turnitin Date Management within D2L.

Respondus Lockdown Browser Update

We have deployed an additional enhancement to the Respondus Lockdown Browser for the Spring semester.  In previous versions, students needed to open the Lockdown Browser separately, login, and browse to the quiz.  Now, there is an easy way!

In any browser, the students will see a “Launch LockDown Browser” button on configured quizzes.  When they click the button, the Lockdown Browser will launch, and students will automatically be logged in and taken directly to the quiz in D2L.  This helps improve the user experience for the student.  If LockDown Browser is not installed, a message will be displayed telling them to download it from the above link.

Student facing documentation has been updated to reflect the change.  These documents can be found at: LockDown Browser: Getting Started (Students).

Exploration: New Technologies

We have been exploring a number of cool technologies and have some new things for you to try out!

• Pattern. A few UW-Whitewater classes are testing a tool called Pattern in the spring semester of 2017.  Pattern is a tool to help students track and measure your learning patterns, providing analytics and insights to become better learners.  The tool allows users to track how they spend time in and out of the classroom, and provides a personalized visualization of their data.
• Desire2Learn Intelligent Agents. The Intelligent Agents tool allows instructors to have D2L email students who meet Release Conditions in their course.
• Desire2Learn Awards Tool. The Awards tool allows instructors to provide students with non-grade incentive to meet short term goals through the creation and distribution of awards.

Need Desire2Learn Help?

We are here to help you with all your Desire2Learn (D2L) course needs! The best way to request support is by using our online support form which is located at http://d2l.uww.edu/contact

We do our best to respond to all support requests within 1 business day of receiving them. We do monitor the box on evenings and weekends for critical issues on a best effort basis.

Don’t forget to request for spring semester courses! Course creation must be completed every semester, and it is a manual process on our end. Courses created by 3pm on business days are typically available the next day. Request for your courses at http://my.uww.edu/d2lrequest

Don’t forget to Visit Us

Are you still with us? If so – great, you made it to the end!  Did you know the LTC employs a former kids train conductor, a guitarist, a first time college grad in the family, an Eagle Scout, a former EMT and a brewmaster?  If you didn’t then you haven’t explored the website enough.  Go look at it now! http://ltc.uww.edu Be sure to stop by the LTC throughout the semester to visit. As a reminder, we are located in McGraw Hall, Suite 120 and are around between 8:00 AM and 4:30 PM weekdays. We can also be reached at ltc@uww.edu or 262.472.1004. We’ll always be willing to help, and have plenty of treats on hand for your sweet tooth. Have a great semester!