Categories for News
November 30 & December 1
CONNECT WITH YOUR ONLINE STUDENTS
Join the CTL Staff to Learn More
Dates: Thursday, 11/30 OR Friday, 12/1
Times: 3:30-4:30pm OR 11:00am-12:00pm
Location: CTL AS-175
Workshop Description: Cranium Cafe integrates with Canvas and enables students to virtually connect with you and receive the support they need in the same way they would during your face-to-face office hours. You’ll be able to provide homework help, screen-share, complete test reviews, provide tutoring, and other just-in-time support.
Ok, truthfully, as a native New Englander, I always struggle with Fall semester beginning when it is over 100 degrees every day but alas, here we are, pouring the chlorine into the pool to keep it from greening over in our absence and moving the sun block back into the cabinet while pulling out our academic bags that have been collecting dust in our offices since May.
While many of us have been here throughout the summer, the pace is most definitely slower. For those of you who unplugged – kudos – and welcome back. Next week we will find the college transform as our students return- bringing with them a new energy, new aspirations for the semester, and new hopes for their future. While you are busy prepping for your new sections for the semester, redesigning your Canvas classrooms, rethinking some of your activities, redrafting your syllabi, and reassessing your grading, allow us to help should you run into any road blocks- be it technical or mental.
We look forward to working with you this academic year as you teach and inspire so many students and welcome the opportunity to hear about your new ideas for your teaching. We have many opportunities this semester to engage in some learning opportunities around college initiatives such as zero cost textbooks, HSI in the classroom, flipped learning, hybrid, online, new technologies, assessment both formative and summative, and so much more. We look forward to working with you to help your students learn and engage in your course content for greater student success. Here are a few opportunities for this week alone…although also a note, we have two Saturdays this semester we are offering pd experiences in case you find the weeks too busy to spend some time here. CTL calendar of events
Wednesday August 16
- 9:00 Canvas: What’s New Since May
- 10:00 Exploring the Canvas Community
- 1:00 Google in Canvas
- 2:00 Canvas: Rubrics & Outcomes
- 3:00 Canvas: Syllabus & Assignments
Thursday August 17
- 9:00-11:00 Assessment for Learning
- 12:30-2:30 Course Alignment: From Learning Outcomes to Assessment
Friday August 18
- 9:00 UDOIT & Accessibility Lab
- 10:30 UDOIT & Accessibility Lab
Turning Technologies is a student response system distributor. Come to the CTL Workshop room to have lunch on them Thursday April 13 from 12:00pm to 1:00pm while they demonstrate how their system can increase student engagement in the classroom. One of their key products called TurningPoint will be demonstrated as well as their system’s ability to integrate with Canvas.
Seating is limited to 20 so RSVP Here to select your lunch preferences and reserve your seat.
Save the Date: Maricopa Digital Badging Dialog Day
Submitted for approval of 3 clock hours of non-academic advancement. If you are submitting for Faculty Professional Growth (FPG) hours, please print this announcement as you will need it to submit with your FPG application.
Join the MCLI, the “CTL Near You” and the Canvas LMS Core Group for a day focused on Digital Badging in Higher Education. Discover the valuable and growing role of digital badging in capturing student learning, motivating learners to new learning while also supporting competency-based education and industry/employer needs.
What is digital badging? Check out this article from Educause and then check out the event to dive in and learn more.
Hands-On Sessions
During the hands-on sessions, participants will get a chance to begin developing a badging model for their course or program, discuss the practical and fantastical strategies for using digital badges, and learn how to quickly and easily create and award badges using a web-based system.
Keynote Speaker
Digital badging expert, Veronica Diaz from Educause, will present the keynote session about digital badging including best practice examples from colleges and universities around the country. She will talk about how educators can leverage badges to motivate learners while transforming the education and credentialing landscape.
| Thursday, April 6
12:30 to 4:30 P.M.
Registration begins at 12 noon.
Chandler-Gilbert Community College –Pecos Campus
Agave (AGA) Bldg,
Rooms 1240 – 1242
Lunch on your own. Brown bags welcome. |
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We are pleased to inform you that the UDOIT Canvas accessibility inspection tool is now available to scan and address accessibility issues within your Canvas course!
Please review the following resources to assist you in accessing and using UDOIT to improve the accessibility of your courses:
As always, contact us with any questions you may have and we will be happy to assist.
What is UDOIT?
The Universal Design Online content Inspection Tool, or UDOIT (pronounced, “You Do It”) enables faculty to identify accessibility issues in Canvas. It will scan a course, generate a report, and provide resources on how to address common accessibility issues.
What does it do?
UDOIT will identify “errors” and provide “suggestions” in the following areas of your course:
- Announcements
- Assignments
- Discussions
- Files (i.e., .html files)
- Pages
- Syllabus
- Module URLs
It will check for the appropriate use of the following:
- Use of headings in page structure
- Alternative text for images
- Table headers
- Color contrast
- Descriptive link text
- Video captions
It’s only Tuesday!
There are many more fun activities to engage in at the CTL this week! Here is a quick look:
Wednesday 9/14
- 2:30-4:00 9 Formative Assessment Techniques for Online Courses – Hosted webcast in the CTL
- 4:00 – 4:45 Communicate with Google Email: Come and discover some tips to optimize your communication via email by using labels, filters, customizing your inbox, and so much more.
Thursday 9/15
- (12:00-12:45) Lunch n Learn: Spanish: Do you want to learn basic Spanish? ¿Si habla un poco de español y quiere practicar o aprender más? All MCC faculty and staff are invited to engage in an informal learning experience to practice fundamental Spanish. Speakers of various levels may join the workshop at any time. You are welcome to bring lunch.
- (1:30-2:15) Canvas Commons: Canvas Commons is Instructure’s learning object repository for Canvas cloud customers. It has been turned on for MCCCD starting in Fall 2016. Commons allows you to share parts or all of your course content and to use lessons, quizzes, and even entire courses shared by other Commons users in the Canvas community.
- (1:30-2:30) Explore: Flipping the Classroom: Log in and discover what it means to “Flip the Classroom.” This webinar will cover an overview what Flipping is and how it can be valuable and encourage engagement in the classroom.
Friday 9/16
- (2:30-4:00) Lesson Design Series: Collaborative Learning: Would you like to design engaging lessons for students to construct knowledge through authentic learning experiences? Do your lessons and assignments align to course competencies? In this 5-part workshop series, participants will apply knowledge of effective lesson construction to refine or create content-based lessons. Participants who complete all five workshops will receive a badge and certificate of completion. Collaboration in the classroom offers opportunity for students to interact with content and peers to make-meaning of new knowledge. Practice and apply learner-centered approaches for students to solve problems and make-meaning of course content in work groups.
Register or show up – we don’t care – just join in the new experiences and contribute to the conversation!
The CTL will be closed
Tuesday July 26th at 12:00 noon
For department planning.
Thank you for your patience as we strive to plan how we can best support you this upcoming year!
The CTL Team
On June 30, Maricopa launches a new teaching and learning tool within Canvas called Commons. A team faculty, library, eLearning and Center for Teaching and Learning staff from across the District collaborated to bring this new learning objects component to Canvas.
What is Commons?
Commons is an addition to Maricopa’s current Canvas license that allows the sharing, discovering, and reusing of learning activities and objects in a seamless and easy-to-use environment. Using Commons, faculty (and users with teacher and designer access to Canvas courses) will be able to search for relevant materials from personal, institutional or public learning object repositories. This means they can design courses and activities (modules, assignments and quizzes) without creating materials from scratch or pulling them from external sources.
Commons will also offer a platform to share resources and content expertise within Maricopa and a wider educational community, a tremendous asset for sharing template courses, assignments, and more.
As an added student benefit, Commons will deepen Maricopa’s commitment to the Open Educational Resources (OER) Maricopa Millions project by providing a platform where Maricopa Millions OER resources can be shared and showcased.
Learn more about Commons (Overview Video).
Will this change Canvas?
The Commons feature is very unobtrusive and will not change how faculty design or teach courses in Canvas. For users who have teacher or designer-level access to Canvas, a new global navigation menu will appear that says “Commons.” Students will not see the Commons option.
Where can I learn more?
There are great resources to get you ready for this exciting tool.
Commons Community
Commons Guides
Subscribe to the Commons Newsletter
Enroll in the Welcome to Commons Course
Will training be offered?
MCC will offer training on how to use Commons, as well as best practices for sharing and using Commons materials (copyright and content licensing). Please look for additional campus announcements from the MCC Center for Teaching and Learning and via the MCC Intranet for more information about training opportunities.
If you have any questions, contact the MCC Center for Teaching and Learning: ctl@mesacc.edu or 480-461-7331
As you may be aware, there have been integration issues between Canvas and Turnitin® since mid-October, 2015. Neither Instructure nor Turnitin® have been able to fully resolve these issues due to the use of an older, soon-to-be deprecated, integration. To improve and stabilize this service, we are removing the old integration effective May 18. The new Turnitin® LTI integration gives Canvas users full access to all Turnitin® functionality (OriginalityCheck™, GradeMark and PeerMark) and ensures we will be able to utilize new features and fixes as they are released for the product.
What does this mean to you? You will need to download any originality reports you wish to keep before May 18, as you will lose access to them once the old integration is removed. You will need to re-configure assignments for Summer and Fall 2016 courses to use the new integration anytime before or after May 18. Follow this guide for step-by-step instructions.
If you have any questions contact the CTL via email: ctl@mesacc.edu or phone: 480-461-7331
A New Face for the Same Canvas
On May 18, MCCCD is planning to move to the new Canvas User Interface (UI). The new UI has been in international Canvas environments since Summer of 2015 and now will become standard for all instances of Canvas.
This updated interface (look-and-feel) for Canvas includes:
- an enhanced user experience for the Dashboard and Global Navigation menu, and
- a collapsed Course Navigation that allow for a more content-focused and responsive layout.
What does this change mean for me and for students?
Canvas will look different, but it will work the same. For example, menus like the Global Navigation will move to the left-side of the screen, but the feature options available in the menu will not change.
New Canvas UI Quick Reference (Print Version).
New Canvas UI Dashboard & Global Menu (Interactive Reference)
New Canvas UI Course Menu (Interactive Reference)
Preview the Changes
Faculty and staff can preview the changes in the MCCCD Canvas Test environment at https://maricopa.test.instructure.com. We encourage you to view your courses and become familiar with the new UI.
Please note that this is a testing environment and changes made will not be reflected in the live production site.
What resources are available to assist me and students with the new User Interface?
Faculty Resources
Student Resources
Do I need to change my links to Canvas Guides?
All the Canvas Guides have already been changed to reflect the new interface. Be sure you provide links to the new Canvas User Guides.
Get a Sneak Peek in this Video Overview
