Over the years, many colleges have adopted automated plagiarism detection tools in their Learning Management System to help faculty verify that students are submitting authentic coursework. WPI uses Turnitin Similarity and AI detection tools to achieve this in Canvas assignments. But how do these types of tools even work? Is there value in enabling them…Continue Reading Should I use AI and plagiarism detection tools in my course?
Flipgrid student engagement tool moves to Microsoft Teams
Microsoft purchased the student engagement tool Flipgrid in 2023 and rebranded the tool from Flipgrid to Flip. Since then, the company has moved some of the core Flip features into Teams for Education and will be retiring the standalone app and web site by September 30, 2024. Starting July 1, Flip will no longer be…Continue Reading Flipgrid student engagement tool moves to Microsoft Teams
Introducing Perusall
The perennial quest for engagement may have a boost with Perusall, a social annotation platform that can be incorporated into your Canvas course sites as an external tool. Built by a team of academics from Harvard and the University of Texas, Perusall aims to increase pre-class reading. Students can login to Perusall through Canvas (more…Continue Reading Introducing Perusall
ECE Professor Boosts Engagement with Creative Videos
Maqsood Mughal’s expertise with Open Broadcaster Suite (OBS), an open source software for creating and streaming videos, has been well-earned. After first hearing about the software during a KEEN (Kern Entrepreneurial Engineering Network) workshop in 2019, it again flew across his radar in 2020, during the Online Pedagogy Workshop. “Last summer, I took this online…Continue Reading ECE Professor Boosts Engagement with Creative Videos
Adding Pronouns to Zoom
It’s the last day of Pride Month, and so I’d be remiss to leave out a great new feature that Zoom added earlier this month–adding your pronouns to your Zoom profile! The first thing you’ll need to do is update your Zoom client to at least version 5.7. Instructions on how to do this can…Continue Reading Adding Pronouns to Zoom
Echo360-Zoom Connection
The Echo360 – Zoom Connection Good news for Echo360 users: your Zoom cloud recordings can be ingested by Echo360 and placed in your personal libraries and course sites. Why is this good? For starters, it allows you to keep all your video content in one place. You don’t have to deal with multiple video storage…Continue Reading Echo360-Zoom Connection
How Transcripts and Captions Work in Echo360
The Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits discrimination in the places of public accommodation – such as schools – and failing to transcribe or provide closed captions for your educational videos can be seen as a violation of the ADA. So transcripts and captions have legal significance. But beyond that, they help your students access your…Continue Reading How Transcripts and Captions Work in Echo360
Flipping Video with OBS
OBS – short for Open Broadcaster System – is an open source software for video streaming and recording. Downloads for OBS are available at obsproject.com. OBS is free and works well on Windows, macOS and Linux systems. That being said, as an open source tool, there isn’t a customer support hotline you can call…Continue Reading Flipping Video with OBS
Submitting an Assignment with Canvas Studio
Greetings WPI Students, Your Professor may assign a video project as an assignment. Here are the steps that you take to submit it using Canvas Studio, a content management and creation tool embedded in Canvas. First, you click on the assignment and click submit. Once you click submit, you see some choices. Choose Studio. …Continue Reading Submitting an Assignment with Canvas Studio
Production Tools: Recording Your Lectures
Did you know that WPI has three tools that can be utilized for recording videos? Those tools are Echo360, Zoom, and Studio. Like a choose-your-own-adventure, you may be wondering where to start. Asking yourselves these questions may help you decide. Q. Where are you producing these videos? A1. In the classroom? Use Echo360…Continue Reading Production Tools: Recording Your Lectures