Enlighten Us, But Make It Quick– IGNITE

What happens when over 36 Instructional Designers from around the university system gather in one location? It’s a creativity fest where all participants walk away with new friends and new ideas. Thank you Dave Dannenberg and the UAA group for hosting this event this year.

One of my favorite take-aways from the conference was shared by UAF campus, and it’s called Ignite. Ignite is a way to present information, clearly, concisely, effectively and briefly!  There are Ignite events all over the world. Each presenter is permitted 20 slides which are advanced automatically after 15 seconds. That gives each presenter exactly 5 minutes.

Think about it — a subject you are passionate about, 20 slides and only 15 seconds per slide to tell your story. Exciting! Here are some tips:

• Do not create a script or use notes to practice — rather, focus on the key points of each slide
• Choose four or five key points that you want to make, then create your 20 slides
• Your slides should support what you are saying, and have images flexible enough for you to gain or lose some time during your talk (you can even put the same image in twice if you need more time!)
• Practice giving your Ignite talk

At iTeach Juneau and Sitka this summer we talked about presenting our course and/or course objectives in more interesting ways. Why not try Ignite to explain to students the big idea of the course they are about to take? After all, isn’t this a topic that you are passionate about? Shouldn’t you be able to describe to them why this topic is so interesting and important with 20, 15 second slides?

THE CHALLENGE: Create an Ignite that describes YOUR course to students. We’ll record it for you!! You can use it at the start of your semester, you can use it to advertise for your course or we can have a UAS Ignite Event!! Let’s do it.

Image credit:philipdyer iStockPhoto.com

Technology Tips from eCampus News

We talk alot about using technology in both online and face-to-face classrooms. But we don’t want the technology to overshadow the learning and we don’t want to push technology on either our faculty or our students.

This week eCampusNews shares 10 Tech Do’s and Don’ts for Every Campus. It’s a good article and we encourage you to click the image and read it. There are a few on the list that I found particularly resonated with me.

• We are seeing a lot about mobile learning in the news. This list encourages you to use mobile phones in your classroom, but use them wisely. Research is still indicating (at least for now) that the serious learning in classrooms still takes place on larger devices.
• Don’t be afraid to introduce students to new and exciting technologies, BUT, don’t expect them to be tech-saavy enough to jump right in. You may have to explain and show them how to use these tools.

The article lists other good points so be sure to click the link and read through it. What do you think? Have you other tips you’d like to share on the do’s and don’ts list? Feel free to add these to the comment area.

Copyright Simplified

Maureen came across a great article today on making the complexities of copyright easier to understand. We encourage you to click on the Infographic here to read the article Copyright Flowchart: Can I Use It? Yes? No? If This… Then …

And, speaking of infographics– aren’t they popping up everywhere? Don’t you enjoy using them? Well, they really aren’t difficult to make. Nicole gave us some great resources during iTeach Juneau and iTeach2 Sitka for making your own infographics. Many classroom applications. Why not give it a try?

You might start by using Piktochart and you might want to follow or subscribe to eLearning Infographics, a blog that shows some really interesting eduational infographics. We’d love to see some examples of things you create–so share your infographics with us so we can celebrate your creations.

Speaking of sharing– did anyone make a good bubb.li or photo collage that they would like to share? We’re still waiting for your submissions. If you missed May 23rds post, it’s not too late to give it a try!

iTeach Sitka, Phew!! A Great Week

iTeach2: What a fabulous way to learn new skills, talk about pedagogy, look at what your colleagues are exploring, pick up new tricks, get feedback from experts, learn mobile technologies, and so much more, all packed in 5 fast and furious days. Wow. It’s hard to believe that we all survived!

We thank all of our faculty participants for enthusiastically joining us and sharing some great creations. And, in addition to the Title III and IDC crew, we want to thank our guests, Katie Walker, UAA, Susan Mircovich, KPC, and Madara Mason, UAF for making this week so successful.

If you want to see some of the great observations and creations from faculty last week you can search our twitter feed at #iteachak and you can visit our iTeach blog at http://iteachsitka2014.wordpress.com

Tina created a nice Mobile App Listing PDF which you might find helpful when evaluating or trying new apps. I found it helpful to use these categories to organize my iPad. See what you think. Click the image to view and print.

We’ll be sharing more resources soon– keep your eyes open this summer. There’s lots coming your way!

 

 

Fried Friday: A Weekend Photo Challenge!!

We hope that everyone is going to have a fantastic holiday weekend and we’re throwing out a challenge– share your weekend with us using either the photo collage app that we recommend below (and have examples here for you), the cool video app that we’ve demo’d below, OR an equivalent product of your choice. Remember, we’ll be posting any submissions publicly so be sure you send us material that’s appropriate! And have fun.

Tina made each of these collages from iTeach Juneau photos taken last week. She used the Pic Collage for ipads/iphones. It’s so easy to use and fun to create some beautiful photo collages. Click each to enlarge.

Those are our sample collages. Email ksbaldwin@alaska.edu with YOUR weekend collage.

OR, if you’d like to try a really cool 360 and more video creation tool, download bubbli to your phone or ipad and make a bubble video. This app makes a dynamic spherical photo video clip. Quite unique and fun.

Here are a few examples taken in Juneau by Tina, CLICK EACH BUBBLE BELOW:

 

OK, don’t forget this is a competition! Have fun and please send (ksbaldwin@alaska.edu) us your weekend photo collages or bubbles so we can post!

iTeach Juneau–phew!

We just completed an intense week of faculty development in Juneau and I’m sure all would agree, it was stimulating! Don’t take my word for it, feel free to browse our week’s blog and pay particular attention to the Resource Links page (last link on menu bar). We’ll be moving these resources to this blog after iTeach2 next month.

A quick recap of some of the highlight of the week include:

• Fun with iPads creating videos, 360 photos, ‘bubbles’
• Creating interesting teasers with Pixton and Powtoons and other products
• Honing in on the big idea and learning objectives in interesting and creative ways
• Learning about the newest features in our latest Blackboard upgrade
• Seeing Collaborate used by a pro (thanks for joining us Katie Walker, UAA) and learning about file sharing tools and the cloud
• Good discussions on the use of video in the classroom, intellectual property and copyright laws

There was a lot more going on, but that list gives you a glimpse of the activities we engaged in. We thank everyone who participated and hope that they took away lots of useful ideas.

 

Great Opportunity: Ask the Expert

Susan Mircovich, KPC

We have a great opportunity to interact with an expert instructor and user of Camtasia. Susan Mircovich uses Camtasia lessons to help her students learn chemistry. She has created a tutorial Camtasia Recordings a Short Tutorial (35 minutes long) for you to get started using this tool.

Camtasia is like Jing on steroids– in fact, Jing is the TechSmith’s simple, free tool and Camtasia is their higher end product. Camtasia Studio is a software product that the university provides for faculty use.

Susan developed this tutorial expecting you to have Camtasia open while she demonstrates various techniques. You can pause her webinar while you try it out for yourself. In this tutorial you will:

• See examples of camtasia projects and hear how Susan uses these movie clips in her course
• Learn to record a project
• Edit a project
• Save and publish your movie
• Learn about some extras: menus, title clips, callouts and transitions

As an extra bonus, Susan will make herself available to questions either in a followup Collaborate session or via email 1:1. It’s up to you. We’ll need to hear from you to let us know if you’d like us to schedule Susan for a group session or if you’d like to contact her personally.

Finally, another reason to think about signing up for the Sitka iTeach2 — Susan will be one of our guest instructional designers working with faculty all week long. We’re really looking forward to her joining us this summer! Thank you Susan.

Unlocking the Power of PowerPoint

Most of us have used PowerPoint (PPT) to create presentations, but did you know that the newer versions of PPT have built into them some powerful tools for creating graphics and templates and make your eLearning or your presentations really look and function nicely.

Here are a few tutorials from our friends at Rapid eLearning. If you like these, you might check with Maureen for other PPT tutorials that we have available through Lynda.com.

PPT can be a powerful tool, and it can be fun to unpack the power of the tool!  By the way, these tutorials were made using Articulate’s Storyline or Studio. We’ll be offering face-to-face training for Articulate Studio in March. You’ll want to be familiar with some of the power of PPT before you come to Studio training. So these or the Lynda.com training links would be a great place to start.  Microsoft offers its own training tutorials for PPT linked here: Training Courses for PPT 2013

Create Your Own Graphics in PPT — 4 Tutorials

Using PPT to Crop Images, Create Interesting Effects — 3 Tutorials

Creating Templates, Master Slides, Layers, Backgrounds — 8 Tutorials

Create a Template in PPT — 3 Tutorials

Reminder: Free Webinar Opportunities

UAS maintains a number of site licenses for software that allows faculty to create presentations and interactive learning activities. StudyMate and Softchalk are some of these.

Studymate is a Windows program which makes a variety of learning activities: quizzes, flashcards, games, etc. Studymate can be used to review facts, vocabulary and basic concepts.

Softchalk is a program that lets you build lessons in the form of HTML pages that include navigation and interactive learning activities (popup text, quizzes, interactive images, timelines, and many more). Lessons can be packaged and uploaded to Blackboard. Softchalk runs on both Mac’s and Windows.

Need the software? UAS faculty can access the information here: http://www.uas.alaska.edu/idc/software/index.html. (Downloads require UAS log in.)

WEBINAR SCHEDULE

Webinar	Dates and Registration
StudyMate: Creating Learning Activities & Self-Assessments	Wednesday, February 26, 2pm EST – Register
Softchalk Webinars	Multiple dates – View website for dates and topics and to register

Training Webinar Opportunities

UAS maintains a number of site licenses for software that allows faculty to create presentations and interactive learning activities. Respondus, StudyMate and Softchalk are some of these.

Respondus is a Windows program which lets you create and manage tests. With Respondus, you can:

• Create tests in Word (you can even insert pictures in the questions!).
• Easily uploaded your tests to Blackboard.
• Print your tests.
• Use Respondus to export tests and reports.

Studymate is a Windows program which makes a variety of learning activities: quizzes, flashcards, games, etc. Studymate can be used to review facts, vocabulary and basic concepts.

Softchalk is a program that lets you build lessons in the form of HTML pages that include navigation and interactive learning activities (popup text, quizzes, interactive images, timelines, and many more). Lessons can be packaged and uploaded to Blackboard. Softchalk runs on both Mac’s and Windows.

Need the software? UAS faculty can access the information here: http://www.uas.alaska.edu/idc/software/index.html. (Downloads require UAS log in.)

WEBINAR SCHEDULE

Webinar	Dates and Registration
Respondus 4.0: Create & Manage Exam Content	Wednesday, February 19, 1pm EST – Register
StudyMate: Creating Learning Activities & Self-Assessments	Wednesday, February 26, 2pm EST – Register
Softchalk Webinars	Multiple dates – View website for dates and topics and to register