Day at a Glance

The Educause Center for Analysis and Research surveyed students early this year, both pre- and post- Covid Pandemic, click here for the full article.

We will bring you an issue and some tips to help each day this week.  Here is the fourth and last one: 

Did you know that 1/2 of all students do not report their disabilities?  And that 1/3 of students who have accommodations feel like they do not have a positive experience with their school’s way of handling accommodations?  Here are some suggestions to build your course with these numbers in mind.

• Attend one of our Quality Course Design Institutes.  We will teach you backwards design, accessibility, RSI, transparency in design, and many other things.  Our next course will be in Winter of 2021 (January 21st – February 28th). You can earn up to $500 for completing the institute for the first time.
• We want to celebrate all the past attendees who have completed the certification process here at Shoreline.  Click here to see who has certified their courses.

I hope you liked our tips this year.  If you would like other kinds of tips or help with some ideas, please contact us at eLearning@shoreline.edu

For our third tip this week, we here at eLearning want to let you know that there are some new features in Canvas.  

There are some helpful new features in Canvas such as Search, a new rich content editor, the ability to (finally!) print a class roster, Copy to/Move to option, Course level control of Notifications, and High Contrast Mode are now available.

• There is a new Search Bar in Canvas that allows you to search each individual course for pages, assignments, quizzes, classroom materials, etc.  This new feature is now in the Navigation toolbar and had been put into each course.  If you do not see it, you will need to edit your navigation toolbar to allow yourself and students to use this feature. You can read more about it in the eLearning Resources for Faculty Canvas shell.
• There is New Rich Content Editor, with a more refined layout so you can edit content in quizzes, announcements, syllabi, Pages, etc. You can opt-in to use it now if you like in your course Feature Options.  It’s going live across Canvas on Wednesday, December 16.
• You can now print your class roster from Canvas New Analytics! Here’s how:

1. While in your course, click Home on your Navigation menu on the left-hand side.
2. Click New Analytics on the right-hand side.
3. Click Reports and then click Run Report on the Class Roster option. 

• We now have the option to Copy to/Move to Pages, Assignments, Quizzes, and whole modules from one course to the other.  This is a huge timesaver – no more importing, selecting content, etc. It’s just a few clicks and you can even be specific about which module you want items to land. Also makes it super easy to share content with colleagues.
• You can now manage notifications for a single course on the Course Notification Settings page. Course notification settings only apply to the course in which they are set. This is so helpful if you have been added to courses as Observers, etc. and you don’t need to receive every single notification the faculty sends to students. A great way to reduce your volume of email!  (To receive course notifications, you must first set your Canvas notification preferences).
• The high contrast user interface (UI) enhances the color contrast of text, buttons, and other elements so they are more distinct and easier to identify in Canvas. High contrast UI can be enabled from the feature options in your User Settings.

Check back tomorrow for a different issue and some tips.  If you need help with some ideas, please contact us at eLearning@shoreline.edu

Dear Colleague,

During this busy fall season, we pause our usual activities on Wednesday, November 11 to honor the sacrifices of the those who serve and have served in the United States armed forces. 

We are enriched in so many ways by past and present service members, many of whom work and study alongside us.

I hope you are able to take a moment to reflect on their sacrifices, honor their commitment to a cause larger than themselves, and appreciate the freedoms we enjoy because of their service. 

Respectfully, 
Cheryl Roberts, Ed.D. 
President 

The Educause Center for Analysis and Research surveyed students early this year, both pre- and post- Covid Pandemic, click here for the full article. 

We will bring you an issue and some tips to help each day this week.  Here is the second one:

Students state that they love technology in the classroom, however, they also state that faculty are not teaching students how to use this technology outside of the classroom. When it comes to transparency in design, a good practice is to add how the assignments, quizzes, and materials relate to their lives outside the classroom. 

Students tend to “buy-into” material that relates to them.  Having a section on your assignments that describes the purpose of the assignment is a great place to show how it relates to them. A transparent purpose statement has these three components:

• Knowledge gained in completing the discussion
• Skills practiced in completing the discussion
• Relevance to student’s work and life now and in five years
• Here is a link to an example of an assignment in the eLearning Resources for Faculty course.  
• We created various examples for discussion posts, quizzes, assignments, syllbus, etc. focusing on transparency in design.  

Check back tomorrow for a different issue and some tips.  If you need help with some ideas, please contact us at eLearning@shoreline.edu