Have you ever wanted to capture questions from students during a lecture? Do you just know students have questions about the content, but there is always silence when you ask them? I’d love to share a really cool and interesting way of using Poll Everywhere in your classes to solve this problem. Dirk Albrecht is…Continue Reading Poll Everywhere as Back Channel Space for Questions
Canvas: Custom Home Page with Buttons
Are you looking to add some aesthetics and usability to your Canvas course? Consider building a custom home page for your course. Your students will see this home page right away and each button will link them to modules or other areas in the course that they need to go to. This leads to less…Continue Reading Canvas: Custom Home Page with Buttons
myWPI Accessibility Series: Providing Semantic Structure to your Documents
The myWPI platform is accessible to all users by default; however, the individual content items uploaded by faculty and students may not be. How can the common documents we use day to day be made accessible for users with visual impairments or learning and cognitive disabilities? You’ll be happy to hear that there are just a few…Continue Reading myWPI Accessibility Series: Providing Semantic Structure to your Documents
Custom Ordering Playlists in Ensemble
Ensemble is WPI’s online video platform – like an internal YouTube. WPI community members can request space in the system for creating their own repository of videos which further educational goals. Many instructors are already using Ensemble, from System Dynamics to Fire Protection to Biology. Like YouTube, users can create playlists. Playlists can have neat…Continue Reading Custom Ordering Playlists in Ensemble
Lecture Capture: This Time It’s Personal
There are many reasons to explore contingency planning for your class lectures and anyone who was in Worcester last winter can remember a particularly cold one. But even if you’re not trapped behind a sheet of ice you may still want to find a way to deliver course content to your students remotely. One tool that…Continue Reading Lecture Capture: This Time It’s Personal
The app that we’ve all been waiting for is here! Echo360 for Tablets!!
Over the past few years, the ATC has fielded requests from many instructors concerning how they might record annotated videos using their tablets. And have them publish to their myWPI site using Echo360, our lecture capturing system. For the earlier, we always recommended the iPad app “Explain Everything.” However, for the latter, we never had a great…Continue Reading The app that we’ve all been waiting for is here! Echo360 for Tablets!!
Check out these 3 great features of PDF Annotator!
On the classroom podiums you will find 2 programs that will allow you to mark up PDFs as well as Powerpoint presentations and other files – Smart Notebook and PDF Annotator. Alright! So lets start with why I’m focusing on PDF Annotator and not Smart Notebook. At some point in the near future WPI will…Continue Reading Check out these 3 great features of PDF Annotator!
That’s What We Are Here For!
Yesterday I had one of what we call our “great meetings”. I met with two faculty (don’t worry, they shall not be named here) who identified some of their teaching challenges. We spent our time discussing the following topics: 1. Grading multiple choice exams. How can we cut down on grading time while also gathering…Continue Reading That’s What We Are Here For!
Conducting an Online Survey? Qualtrics is the tool for you.
What is it? Qualtrics’ Research Suite is an online survey software solution for WPI Students, Faculty, and Staff that allows users to collect, analyze and act on relevant data. Who is eligible to create surveys? All WPI Community Members with an @wpi.edu email address! How do I get there? https://wpi.qualtrics.com Where can I learn more?…Continue Reading Conducting an Online Survey? Qualtrics is the tool for you.
Collaborative Writing: Tools and Techniques: Workshop on June 6th
Google Docs or Dropbox? SharePoint or myWPI? Researcher or Editor? Project Manager or Writer? WPI Project teams make a host of decisions behind-the-scenes of their actual project work, deciding how to organize roles within their group, and which tools will be best for their needs. Should we have a calendar to keep track of our…Continue Reading Collaborative Writing: Tools and Techniques: Workshop on June 6th