by Mike Dixon | Jul 21, 2016 | Teaching and Learning
Atomic Learning is a video-based training resource available at no cost for students, faculty and staff. It’s great for those “just-in-time” self-paced training needs when you need to learn something quick and in small bites.
If you haven’t visited Atomic Learning in a while, your next visit will look a bit different. They have been honing their interface and adding more content, especially topics outside typical software and technology. They have built a new framework for learning within their site, featuring a “LearnIt, DoIt, ShareIt, ProveIt” learning model. For more on this new way to experience Atomic Learning, view this short video which explains it all.
Visit Atomic Learning (you will be prompted to login with your NetID and password) and experience the new look and content. If you have any questions about Atomic Learning or would like to discuss how to integrate it into your course or in Blackboard, reach out to your CTLT liaison.
by Mike Dixon | Jul 18, 2016 | Teaching and Learning
If you’ve logged into Blackboard today, you may have noticed a new set of tools available to you right on the main “portal” page where your courses are listed. It’s called “Qwickly”. Qwickly is a set of enhancements to Blackboard that can help instructors speed up often time-consuming tasks.
First and foremost, the option of making your courses “available” has always been hard to find. Qwickly allows you to make your courses available/unavailable on the main screen right after you login. You don’t have to visit individual courses! Just click the off/on toggle next to each course to make available to your students.
Qwickly also has the ability to e-mail all your classes at once, posting announcements to all classes at once, and even taking attendance right in Blackboard (yes, finally!). We’ll feature the Qwickly Attendance feature in a future blog post. If you’d like to learn more about Qwickly, reach out your CTLT liaison (Humanities faculty can contact Mike Dixon at mdixon4@richmond.edu or 289-8066)
by Mike Dixon | Jul 1, 2016 | Teaching and Learning
Our humanities liaison, Scott Pennington, has accepted a fantastic position at the University of Maryland. While we are excited for Scott, we are sad to lose such a dedicated colleague. Scott’s last day is July 8. If you’d like to send him your thoughts or best wishes, e-mail Scott at spenning@richmond.edu by the 8th.
Until we fill Scott’s position, the Center’s assistant director, Mike Dixon, will be filling in as the humanities liaison. He has over 20 years in instructional design/technology as an academic consultant in higher education. He’s also taught at the university level since 1995, and has two degrees in music theory/composition as well as a second masters in instructional design & technology. He also has extensive experience and certification in distance education administration, online course design and online teaching. Mike has a passion for working/collaborating with faculty and hopes to meet with most of the faculty under the UR humanities umbrella! Reach out to Mike at mdixon4@richmond.edu or 289-8066. His office is on the 3rd floor of Boatwright library, room 322, just down the hall from the TLC.
Details on the search process, including candidate visits/presentations, will be communicated via Spiderbytes, direct e-mail to department chairs and program coordinators, and here on our website.
by Mike Dixon | Jun 20, 2016 | Teaching and Learning
UR’s desktop and lecture capture tool, Panopto, is undergoing a server update this Saturday, June 25 from 8 PM to 11 PM EST. During this time, faculty, staff and students will not be able to view Panopto-recorded videos and video files or new recordings will not be able to be uploaded.
Faculty and staff who are able to create recordings in Panopto may recall that there is an editor available to crop videos. As of this update, the editor has been rebuilt and is much more user-friendly. You can trim videos and edit other parts of the recording much easier now, all without Flash or Silverlight browser plugins! If you have any questions, reach out to your CTLT liaison.
by Mike Dixon | Apr 7, 2016 | Teaching and Learning
The CTLT has been asked to organize several listening groups to gather faculty feedback on Blackboard and their overall needs of a “learning management system” like Blackboard. UR’s Blackboard contract is up for renewal in early 2018, and the University always likes to go through an evaluation phase to determine if Blackboard is still meeting our needs.
This is a very busy time of the semester and we apologize for the timing of these listening groups, but we hope you are able to find one of our catered sessions (typically 1 hour) to attend. Visit our Listening Group registration page and sign up today!
