Tag Archives: technology

Faculty today

Sychronous Online Classes: 10 Tips for Engaging Students

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Marie Norman from Faculty Focus just posted a very interesting article online on “Sychronous Online Classes: 10 Tips for Engaging Students“.

There’s a widely circulated YouTube video you may have seen called “A Conference Call in Real Life.” To spoof the strange, stilted dynamics of conference calls, it replicates them in a face-to-face setting. Participants stiffly announce their names at the door of a meeting room, are suddenly interrupted by bizarre background noises, and find themselves inexplicably locked out of a room they were just in.

If you haven’t watched it, do. You’ll recognize the familiar awkwardness of virtual meetings, where the rhythm of conversational interaction is thrown wildly askew by technological hiccups and the absence of visual cues.

Virtual space is not always easy.

Yet, virtual meetings are increasingly common, not only for geographically distributed work teams, but also for online courses.

So how do you teach in this odd virtual space? How do you keep participants from descending into that peculiar passivity characteristic of conference calls? And how do you help students fight the constant temptation of momentarily clicking away from class? While virtual classes are not without challenges, there are, in fact, concrete steps you can take to run class sessions that are energetic, interactive, and productive. Here are a few suggestions…..

…view the rest of the article on their site: Sychronous Online Classes: 10 Tips for Engaging Students

Are you interested in developing a synchronous online class? Come speak with and educational developer in TLS who can help you think about redesigning your class for a new environment. Continue reading Sychronous Online Classes: 10 Tips for Engaging Students →

Universities today

Publishing’s Wild West Watchdog

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When we hear academic integrity, we often think about the student code of conduct which contains policies on plagiarism and cheating. These polices provide explicit boundaries to help guide students towards learning ethical behaviour practises. The polices also empower instructors with clear definitions to help them teach students the nuances of academic writing, research, and ethical work. However, when students cross the boundaries, these policies become the foundation of disciplinary action. But what about professors and researchers? Their research and publishing is not always confined to an institution and is more commonly found in the global ether of academic publishing where journals and publishers set the boundaries. Who monitors their publishing and research and what happens when they cross the line? Enter Dr. Ivan Oranksy, vice president and global editorial director of MedPage Today and co-founder of Retraction Watch, an online blog. Oransky visited McGill as part of the Academic Integrity Day on Feb. 3. His talk, [Retractions, Post-Publication Peer Review, and Fraud: Scientific Publishing’s Wild West] attracted over 150 profs, graduate students, and staff from four Montreal universities. Continue reading Publishing’s Wild West Watchdog →

Faculty today

Instructors branch out by offering students social media as an alternative to traditional assignments and assessment

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This post, featuring Casey McCormick, a PhD candidate and course lecturer in Cultural Studies, and Dr. Nathalie Cooke, a professor in the English Department and Associate Dean, McGill Library, Archives & Rare Collections, is the latest installment in our ongoing series about assessment tools for large classes. On October 17, 2016, Casey and Prof. Cooke were the guest speakers at a session entitled Critical Analysis and Student Engagement: Social Media Strategies. This post provides a summary of the session and access their presentation slides, which include hyperlinks to their assignment details and assessment rubrics.

Continue reading Instructors branch out by offering students social media as an alternative to traditional assignments and assessment →

Faculty today

myCourses Webinar Series Now Available on Video@McGill

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Did you know Teaching and Learning Services has its own Video@McGill Channel? If you missed the monthly myCourses Webinar Series presented by myself and Justin Fletcher last year, you can now view the webinars on the Teaching and Learning Services’ video channel. During the webinars, we review various tools within myCourses, such as online quizzes, rubrics, and online discussions. We explore more in-depth the functionality of these, and other features, as well as go beyond myCourses to discuss the larger learning technology ecosystem at McGill. Continue reading myCourses Webinar Series Now Available on Video@McGill →

Faculty today

Breaking the ice – 5 tips for getting your discussions started in myCourses


Welcome to our first post of the 2015 academic year! Keep an eye out for lots more in the coming weeks. And now onto some great tips on using discussions in myCourses.

Classes start in just over two weeks, so it’s the perfect time to start getting your myCourses pages ready for the semester. The Discussions tool can be a great way to add an online component to your course. This blog post contains recommendations for creating exciting online discussions, with a focus on how you can leverage online icebreaker activities as an opportunity to introduce students to the Discussions tool. Continue reading Breaking the ice – 5 tips for getting your discussions started in myCourses →

Faculty today

Making the Grade in myCourses


The Gradebook tool in myCourses has many powerful options to make managing your class easier. That said,  it can also be one of the more daunting aspects of myCourses. That’s understandable—grades are a high-stakes matter. Here are some tips to help you use the myCourses Gradebook, along with some tricks to ensure that you’ve done everything correctly. Continue reading Making the Grade in myCourses →

Faculty today

Emaze – an alternative to PowerPoint?

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With everyone actively looking for PowerPoint alternatives, here is an interesting possibility. Very slick looking templates, all web based, and might work well for certain types of presentations. Any instructors that try this out, please let us know how it goes in the comments!

ICT Across the Curriculum

emaze_logoEmaze looks like a potentially useful tool which can be put to good use in education, whether it is for students to create online presentations for homework or assessment purposes, or for teachers that want to create a presentation with a different look to PowerPoint with stunning visual effects for added impact, either in the classroom, or for creating CPD presentations for training purposes.

Emaze is also said to have  animation facilities which surpass those available on Powerpoint. It is a cloud based technology so you can access your presentations from anywhere. Another benefit is that it is multi-device so that it can be viewed and edited on PCs/ tablets / smartphones etc. There are also ready made templates and slides which can be easily edited.

Whilst Emaze wont replace my use of PowerPoint and SMART notebook in my teaching I can certainly see the benefit of having another tool in the toolkit when wanting to…

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