A quick technology tip to help you engage your students whether in the classroom or remotely.
Modules again??? Yes, we know, modules again. BUT this week’s tech tip looks at three different ways you can use modules to organize class content and why you might want to use modules rather than the other course navigation pages. Plus, there are a few bonus tips (including how to add Google Docs)! Watch this video by Denison’s ETS team member Kelli Van Wasshenova to learn more about leveraging Canvas Modules.
Still wondering how to leverage the best parts of Canvas for your classes? Modules are a great way to present materials to your students. They are flexible, and you can set them up however you like. For some basics on modules, take a look at the Canvas instructor guides section on modules. Prefer a video? Here’s one that has an overview of modules.
Canvas has so many resources to support instructors that it can be overwhelming what to choose. To make this much less daunting, ETS has curated a short list of video favorites, giving you a good start for using Canvas. Most are well under 5 mins long, and you can easily select to view only the topics that are of interest to you.
If you accidentally delete an item from Canvas or change your mind about deleting it, all is not lost. Go to your course’s home page, and at the end of the URL, type “/undelete.” It will look like this:
https://courses.denison.edu/courses/5258/undelete
Each course has a unique number. In the example URL above, the course “Cheryl Johnson Sandbox” has the unique number “5258”.
This week ETS shares a top 5 list of Gmail and Drive “must know” features that could make your digital life easier. Our top 5 are Gmail templates, confidential mode, delayed sending, blocking downloading, printing, and copying, named revisions, and a bonus tip. (Yes, this makes 6, but, hey, everyone needs a bonus.) Take a look at our blog post “Up Your Game with Google” for details.
We are at that time of the academic year when we feel pressed for time. Voice Typing may offer you a time saving solution. We generally speak faster than we type, even if we possess pretty good typing skills. The Voice Typing tool allows you to dictate and format in Google Docs and in the speaker notes section of Google Slides.
While the pandemic changed the fabric of higher education and life in general, people had to find a way to keep going. Students kept learning. Teachers kept teaching. Parents kept parenting. It was not always pretty. Often it was (and is) downright exhausting. Many of us experienced lengthy periods of burnout. Many still struggle finding motivation. Human resilience shone through.
Dr. Bonnie Shaver-Troup, an educational therapist, began the Lexend Project in 2000 and teamed up with the typeface designer Thomas Jockin and Google to produce the free Lexend fonts. These fonts were designed initially to support struggling readers and those with dyslexia. However, along the way research has found that these fonts reduce visual stress for everyone and therefore, improve reading performance.
Do your students need support collecting, organizing, and correctly citing their research? If so, take a look at Zotero. Zotero is a free, open-source tool that is easy to use. For more information and a video walkthrough, take a look at this EdTech Blog post, “Zotero to the Rescue.”
Social annotation brings the individual experience of marking up a text with highlights, notes and questions to a shared online space where individuals can now share their mark ups and commentary as well as respond to each other’s comments and questions.To learn more about social annotation and how it can kick start a class discussion and allow you to see how students are making sense of a digital text (including images, video and audio files) before class, check out this EdTech Blog post, “Let’s Get Social”.
