Category Archives: For Instructors

What is Cisco Jabber? Why should I use it?

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Cisco Jabber (or Jabber) is an instant messenger service used by and available for UW-Whitewater employees.Jabber-logo-2014

Jabber is synced with your work phone, which means you can make and receive calls, view your call history, and manage your voicemails all from your computer, or mobile device (by downloading the app).

Jabber also has the ability to be synced with your campus Outlook Calendar. If you are in a meeting, the instant messenger will automatically set your status as “Away” so others will know not to disturb you or expect an immediate reply to a message.

Jabber is already downloaded on all campus-owned computers. Which means, every employee on campus has the ability to instantly connect to each other.

Have a quick question about something? You can send a message without worrying about your important message being lost in someone’s inbox. Jabber also has the capability to take and send an image from your computer screen instantly, eliminating the need to upload an attachment.Jabber Home

Want to know more about Jabber?

The LTC will be hosting workshops this semester so you can get to know Cisco Jabber with hands on experience. You do not need to attend a workshop to learn more about Jabber. For those of you who are a little more adventurous, you can check out our Quick Start Guides, by clicking here, to get started on your computer or mobile device.

For questions about Cisco Jabber please contact the LTC at ltc@uww.edu. To sign up for a training session, go to https://my.uww.edu/signup/Registration/Details/15365 (and log in with your Net-ID and password).

Canvas Course Design Feedback – November 28th

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PrintAs part of the Canvas migration project, there has been a UW-System team working on developing different course template options.  This team will be visiting UW-Whitewater on Tuesday, November 28th between 1pm and 5pm.  During this time, the team will be giving you a chance to have some hands on interaction with the course templates and will be seeking your feedback.  This feedback will be used to guide the development of the final versions that will be implemented for courses inside of the Canvas platform.  Laptops will be provided in these sessions.  Please bring along any mobile devices (phones, tablets, etc) that you would also like to use for testing.

We are seeking feedback from ALL audiences that plan to interface with Canvas on campus.  Please register for one of the appropriate sessions below!

Teacher (Instructor) Audience – sessions held in McGraw 19a:

Learner (Student) Audience – sessions held in McGraw 19c:

If you have any questions please contact the UW-W Learning Technology Center.

Innovating with Instructors

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In my first blog post, I shared the LTC’s mission with you, and in my last blog post I talked about how the LTC supports instructors through cutting edge programming with partners (like the LEARN Center). Today, I want to talk about the next hexagon–how we innovate. LTC-mission-statement-v5

According to our mission, “we innovate with instructors by initiative emerging technology exploration projects that investigate learning technology trends in higher education and how they may be used here at UWW.” Every year instructors receive a survey from the LTC asking about satisfaction with our services, and challenges they may be having in the classroom. We analyze this data to understand the key challenges instructors are having and merge that with other data from the literature (e.g., key new pieces of research, the ELI Key Issues for Teaching and Learning, the NMC Horizon Report, etc.). Together, these data points drive the tool we investigate. From there, the LTC recruits instructors who would like to use the tool in their classes through an open call and then works with them to learn the tool, implement it into their course, and evaluate its ability to solve the pedagogical challenge that it was selected to solve.

From our last instructor support survey we knew that instructors were concerned with student engagement. This semester (Fall 2017), as part of an emerging technology exploration project, we have ten instructors who are busy at work using Cisco Spark in their classes to engage students in different ways. Cisco Spark is a two-part system that features an interactive board and virtual space to increase student engagement through collaboration, communication, and interaction inside and outside of class.

sparkboardThe Interactive Spark Board simplifies collaboration, sharing, and bringing in guest speakers by combining three common teaching tools in one:

  • Wireless Presentation that enables instructors and students to share content and collaborative work.
  • Electronic Whiteboard that allows instructors and students to illustrate course concepts and return to them later for review, editing, and further conversation.
  • Web Conferencing that creates a 4K video calling experience with intelligent tracking. Perfect for bringing in guest speakers!

Interaction does not stop with the Interactive Spark Board. Instructors and students can leverage the virtual Spark Space to interact and continue class activities. Access to the Spark Space can be gained from mobile devices (such as tablets), laptop or desktop computers, and through web browsers. Instructors can create a class space for course questions and further divide their  space for specific discussion, group project work, or activities started on the Spark Board.

 

Look for findings related to this project in Spring 2018! If you have any questions, please contact the UW-W Learning Technology Center.

Winterim 2018 and Spring 2018 D2L Course Requests

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Winterim 2018 and Spring 2018 D2L course requests will soon be available in the D2L Course Request Application.

  • Winterim 2018 requests can be placed starting Monday November 6th.
  • Spring 2018 requests can be placed starting Monday November 13th.

As a reminder, course requests for a semester become available on the first day of priority registration for students.  D2L courses need to be requested every semester.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact UW-W D2L Support.

Non-Timetable D2L Course Cleanup Process

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clutter-360058_1920In preparation for the upcoming Canvas migration, we will be reviewing all ONGOING/OTHER semester courses that exist in Desire2Learn.  This is an OPT-IN purge, and we will not be automatically removing any courses.  Impacted users will receive an email on Monday, October 30th.  Please review the message and let us know by Friday, November 10th if we can remove any of the courses listed.

The D2L Course Cleanup resources site is available with more information on the Cleanup process and instructions on how to export course materials and student data.

If you have any questions or concerns about the D2L Course Cleanup process or need assistance, please contact UW-W D2L Support.

Fall 2017 Student Engagement Series: Technologies and Techniques Workshop

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This Fall semester, the UW-Whitewater LEARN Center and the Learning Technology Center (LTC) have been co-sponsoring a series of workshops on student engagement.

Chalkboard and cell phone

 

The first in the series of workshops provided an overview of challenges and approaches to student engagement. The second in the series of workshops featured a faculty panel discussing different approaches to student engagement. The third, and final, session will provide information on a few different instructional technologies that can be used as a means to help facilitate student engagement. Participants in the third, and final, workshop will also have the opportunity to test out these tools/technologies.

The last session of the Fall 2017 student engagement workshops series is Monday, November 6th. The session runs from Noon to 1:30 pm, and begins in UC 259B. Lunch is provided.

Please sign-up for the final workshop before Monday, October 30th by visiting the UW-Whitewater Event Signup Tool (you will need log in with your Net-ID and password), and look for the LEARN Center section.

UW Office of Professional & Instructional Development – Spring 2018 Conference on Teaching & Learning

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The 2018 Spring Conference on Teaching & Learning presented by the UW System Office of Professional & Instructional Development (OPID) is taking place Thursday, April 12 and Friday, April 13, 2018 in the Memorial Union at UW-Madison.

uws-logo-white

The theme for the conference is The Joy of Teaching in an Age of Digital Learning. The keynote speaker for the conference will be Dr. Michael Wesch, Ph.D, who is a Cultural Anthropologist at Kansas State University, and a winner of the Carnegie Foundation’s U. S. Professor of the Year Award.

Faculty and instructional staff from all fields are welcome, and encouraged, to submit proposals for the conference. The deadline for submitting proposals is Monday, November 27, 2017. Those with accepted proposals will be informed by December 20, 2017. Proposals are submitted online at this website.

For more information, please visit the website for the 2018 OPID Spring Conference on Teaching & Learning.

Saturday LTC Instructional Development Event

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The Learning Technology Center (LTC) is offering an all day Saturday event on December 9th, focusing on instructional development! This event is a great opportunity for instructors who are not able to contact the LTC during our standard operating hours to receive D2L assistance.

LTC Computers

Join us at the LTC office, in McGraw 120, as early as 8:00am for D2L one-on-one support that is focused on your specific D2L needs. We are also offering two sessions of D2L basics, which may include information such as how to lock a browser, upload test questions, upload grades to WINS, and much more!

If you are not able to make it to campus, no problem! You can schedule a one-on-one WebEx meeting during the 1:1 appointment times listed below. To schedule a 1:1 appointment, contact the LTC after you register.

Please stop by to get your questions answered, stay until your problems are solved, and close out the semester successfully!

Saturday Event Schedule

*sessions subject to change based on instructor needs.

8:00 – 10:00am    Staff available for 1:1 appointments with instructors

10:00 – Noon         D2L basics help

1:00 – 2:00pm         Staff available for 1:1 appointments with instructors

2:00 – 3:00pm         D2L basics help

3:00 – 4:00pm        Staff available for 1:1 appointments with instructors

For further questions about the Saturday LTC Instructional Development Event please contact the LTC at ltc@uww.edu. To sign up, go to https://my.uww.edu/signup/Registration/Details/15325 (and log in with your Net-ID and password).

Instructure Canvas contract signed by UW-System Board of Regents

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PrintUW-Whitewater has received word that the UW System Board of Regents has signed the contract with Instructure for their Canvas product.

Now that the contract is signed, here is what you need to know:

  • The Director of Learning Technology is serving as the UW-Whitewater Institution Project Manager.  Please continue to use the Learning Technology Center (ltc@uww.edu) as your primary contact for questions and concerns.  Each UW-System Institution has a dedicated project team and will be working together on migration efforts.  Provost Elrod and Assistant Vice Chancellor Pokot (ICIT) are the UW-Whitewater project sponsors.
  • The earliest opportunity to migrate courses to Canvas is expected to be Fall 2018 with all courses migrated before December 2019.  The move from D2L to Canvas is an exciting change, but will not happen overnight.  These estimates are not set in stone, and they may change as things progress.
  • Please do not contact UW-Madison colleagues or Canvas to gain access to a test course. Though we can understand that you might be excited to get started working in Canvas right away, please do not contact our colleagues at UW-Madison in an effort to gain access to their Canvas environment or use the free public version of Canvas to get started. Both of these environments may be quite different than the environment the UW System will be creating with Canvas and will not be included in migration planning.
  • Any inquiries from the media regarding the Instructure Canvas contract should be directed to: https://www.wisconsin.edu/dle/

We will continue to receive more information in the weeks and months ahead, and will do our best to communicate this information with the UW-Whitewater campus community as transparently as possible throughout this transition process. As we understand that there will be a lot of questions during this transition period, the Learning Technology Center has created a website to help keep the UW-Whitewater campus community informed, which can be accessed at this link: http://go.uww.edu/canvas-migration

We understand that whenever a large-scale change like this occurs, there will be a number of questions and concerns that arise. The Learning Technology Center aims to be as transparent as possible during this transition period, and will undertake concerted efforts to keep the UW-Whitewater campus community as informed as possible throughout the change. Please continue to contact the Learning Technology Center (ltc@uww.edu) for questions and concerns related to this transition.

Programming and Partnership

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In my last blog post, I shared the LTC’s mission and promised that I would be back to share about some of the exciting projects that we have been working on. Well, here I am!

Often, our projects do not necessarily fit into one specific area. Today I want to talk to you about one project that I am incredibly proud of–how the LTC supports instructors through cutting edge programming via a partnership with the campus unit, LEARN.

Like all areas of ICIT, the LTC values strategic partnership with instructors, students, departments, colleges, campus units, and administration. We started collaborating with LEARN a year ago on a three-part workshop series offered each semester focused on instructor needs around teaching and learning.

For the past three semesters, we have partnered to offer this series on key focus areas (e.g., facilitating discussions, active learning, and student engagement) following a similar format that starts with the first session being a brief introduction, the second featuring instructors from each college talking about their experiences, and the third exploring how technology can be leveraged to assist in that area. This has been a wonderful collaboration and we look forward to it continuing!

This semester we used data from our annual instructor support survey to help drive decision-making around the topic where instructors identified student engagement to be a key pedagogical challenge for them. Andrew Cole, Learning Technology Specialist with the LTC, lead an interactive introduction to student engagement in “Student Engagement Challenges in the 21st Century Classroom” in September. We had so Chalkboard and cell phonemany participants register that we had to change rooms! We still have plenty of room in our second session (Thursday, October 26 from 12-1:30pm) where instructors (Tammy French, College of Arts and Communications; Choton Basu, College of Business and Economics; Kelly Hatch, College of Education and Professional Studies; and Eric Loepp, College of Letters and Sciences) will discuss student engagement strategies that they are using in their own classes. We also still have plenty of room in our third session (Monday, November 6 from 12-1:30pm) where we will be exploring how learning technologies can assist with student engagement (teaser: you’ll even get to try some out and make a plan for how you might use it in your class!). 

For more information and to sign-up, please (log in with your Net-ID and password and) visit the LEARN section: https://my.uww.edu/signup/