News and Announcements
Faculty: Need to Upload Zoom Recordings to Blackboard?
Because of file size/storage limitations on Blackboard, we recommend using the Panopto Videos tool within Blackboard to upload any recorded videos to your course.
Steps to configure your Blackboard course for Panopto and how to make videos avail…
Blackboard System Maintenance Wednesday, 1/8 at 4:30 AM
Blackboard will be unavailable for an outage Wednesday, January 8th beginning at 4:30 AM. Please know the system will not be available between 4:30 AM and approximately 4:45 AM and no changes will be made to course content. Please contact blackboard@r…
Students: Not seeing a course in Blackboard?
Instructors control whether a course in Blackboard is visible to students. If you are enrolled in a course but cannot see the course in Blackboard, contact your instructor to determine if they are using Blackboard this term, and if so, when they will m…
UR Blackboard Upgrade May 10th
Blackboard will be unavailable for routine system maintenance Friday, May 10, beginning at 10 p.m. Please know the system will not be available between 10 p.m. and approximately 4 a.m. No changes will be made to course content. Please make sure all work (assignments, tests, quizzes, etc.) is completed prior to 10 p.m. or due after […]
Help Your Students Help Themselves via Effective Peer Review Activities
Jennifer Brown of Clemson University shares her ideas on effective peer review use in class. She shares the benefits of not only helping with instructor workload, but the skills students hone by going through the process (students learn how to professionally...
(E-)Learning Strategy for the Future
Teemu Leinonen, an Associate Professor of New Media Design and Learning at the Aalto University in Helsinki, Finland, documents his three-pronged approach to reforming education for the future. Firstly, he highlights the importance of incorporating a wide variety of...
Using Class Preparation Assignments (CPAs) to Inform and Stimulate Class Discussion
Student Preparedness Incorporated into the Course Design author Lynn Gillette (Nicholls State U.) describes a surprisingly effective way to improve students preparing for class. Her course design involves informal writing assignments (CPA) tied into a definitional...
Your Students Learn by Doing, Not by Listening
David Gooblar, a lecturer in the Rhetoric Department at the University of Iowa, uses the story of a diet experiment to explain how college professors should approach pedagogy. Through a survey of the study, Gooblar argues that teaching should focus on doing and...
Games vs Game-based Learning vs Gamification
Pranjalee Lahri’s article explores the differences between games, game-based learning, and gamification in regards to education. She looks at it from a marketing and corporate-based angle but her ideas can be easily applied to the classroom as well.
Building a Sense of Belonging in an Online Classroom
Since the beginnings of online instruction, the biggest challenge has been how to build in social presence. The choice of LMS makes a big difference, as that can limit options. However, most LMSs these days have options that can work, even when fully asynchronous. In...
How Students Learn From Writing Their Own Exams
Although not a terribly new concept, there is quite a bit of literature out there that supports improved learning (and retention of knowledge) by students when they participating in creating questions for a quiz or exam. As this Chronicle.com article details, not just...
Lessons Learned from a Chalkboard: Slow and Steady Technology Integration
Bradley Emerling, a research scientist at Pearson Research and Innovation Network, documents his observations of the K-12 education system in Japan. He notices early on that almost all teaching is done with a chalkboard, a tool that is rarely used in the US anymore...