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Talking About… Learning & Teaching
Talking About…Learning & Teaching
College of Social Sciences, University of Birmingham INSIDE THIS ISSUE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
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Welcome and Teaching and Learning Conference 2013 What does this mean for CoSS? Canvas User Profiles Canvas Web and Mobile App Look and Feel
Welcome Under the Bonnet: Exploring the University’s new Virtual Learning Environment Canvas. As you may be aware, over the next 16 months we are in the process This edition’s theme is
of transitioning from our current virtual learning environment (WebCT) to Canvas. In this edition we provide a preview of some of its unique features that we hope will be of interest. “Following the extensive review and selection process in which many staff and students were involved, UEB has approved Instructure’s product Canvas for the new institutional Virtual Learning Environment (iVLE). This was the highest scoring product within our selection process, particularly noted for its ease of use, agile approach to development, and cloud-based hosting.”
Canvas Analytics and Statistics Canvas File Management Canvas Communication Tools Canvas Communication Tools (Notifications & Announcements) Canvas Communication Tools (Scheduler for Office Hours and related activities) Canvas Group Functionality
On a related note, keep the 24th and 25th of June, 2013 free as this year marks the 10th Anniversary of the University’s Teaching and Learning Conference. The three themes for this year’s conference are: 1) Technology Enhanced Learning 2) 10 year Anniversary 3) Launch Event for the new iVLE (including a presentation by Devlin Daley, Co-Founder of Canvas by Instructure)
Canvas Multimedia Capabilities Canvas and Accessibility (Screen Readers)
10 Final Word: IASS Academics Showcase New Approaches to Using Social Media for Research, Teaching & Learning
Produced and edited by: Prof Mike McLinden and Danielle Hinton
We look forward to the keynote speech which comes this year from Simon Bates, Senior Advisor Teaching and Learning at the University of British Columbia in Canada.
This newsletter is produced three times per year. We welcome contributions around the broad themes of Learning, Teaching and Enhancement for future editions. Please submit copy to: d.m.hinton@bham.ac.uk.
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Talking About…Learning & Teaching
What Does This Mean for CoSS? Joe Berry, CoSS E-Learning Manager The College of Social Sciences is by far the biggest user of WebCT at the University. We were the first College to systematically integrate WebCT into our administrative processes, the first to rollout online submission en-masse, and recently the first to introduce online marking for all our first year undergraduates. We also have one of the most diverse variety of programme types, encompassing overseas delivery, distance learning, campus-based and blended formats. The College has over four hundred academic staff and around a hundred administrators who use WebCT regularly. At last count there were 893 CoSS WebCT sections. As you can imagine therefore, moving away from WebCT to the new IVLE (Institutional Virtual Learning Environment) will be a massive project in terms of staff retraining, process reengineering and also in the physical recreation of the current WebCT sections and structure.
CoSS has 893 WebCT sections,
I will be managing the rollout, along with your local e-learning staff, in consultation with Directors of Education, key teaching academic staff, and programme administrative team leads. I am in regular discussion with the Centre to ensure that our College’s needs are supported by the new system and will keep you informed of progress as the project unfolds. We have been trialling Canvas extensively within the team over the last few months and are very pleased with the University’s choice. For more information and local implementation plans, please speak to your local E-learning Canvas Rollout Lead:
400 academic and 100 administrative staff using WebCT regularly
Business School Joe Berry Room 144, University House Tel: 0121 4158194 (58194) or Hub Office 0121 414 5005 (45005) Email: j.r.berry@bham.ac.uk School of Education Geraint Evans Room 210, Education Tel: 0121 4147186 (47186) Email: g.evans@bham.ac.uk School of Social Policy Dee Partridge Room 928, Muirhead Tel: 0121 4145734 (45734) Email: d.partridge@bham.ac.uk School of Government and Society Danielle Hinton Room 635, Muirhead Tel: 0121 4143468 (43468) Email: d.m.hinton@bham.ac.uk The following pages provide you with a glimpse of some of the key features of Canvas. We hope you find this useful as part of the transition process.
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Canvas Sneak Peek: User Profiles Canvas accounts all have an associated User Profile area that allows you to (settings dependent): set your contact details (including email, SMS, Twitter and Facebook) upload a profile picture access personal files and ePortfolio area link to tools you might already use (including Facebook, Delicious, Twitter, Google Docs, Skype and LinkedIn). decide which communication channel you wish to receive Canvas notifications by and the frequency (Right Away, Daily, Weekly, or Never). User’s profile pictures are displayed when they post to discussion messages bringing an important human dimension to blended and online learning (especially for those studying at a distance).
An exciting associated tool that is available for all users via each “course” area is called People. This tool allows you to see who is enrolled in the course (both students and teaching and related staff), view individual profiles as well as access the exciting group functionality. In addition, those with staff roles can access detailed analytics or tracking data from this area.
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Canvas Sneak Peek: Web Look and Feel As students enter each “Canvas Course” (programme or module) they will see the Front Page type that has been selected and designed for them. Canvas itself is divided into a three column display, with the left hand column containing the Canvas Tools that the instructor has made available to students, the middle column displaying “content” and the right hand column containing context specific information and options. The top grey bar provides global navigation access to specific services that are personal to the user (e.g. Courses and Groups, Personal Profile and Inbox) as well as aggregations that provide “at the glance access” to specific tools (e.g. Assignments, Grades and Calendar). The CoSS E-Learning Team is currently developing a range of College templates that will provide an accessible, clean and professional look and feel for blended and online learning and teaching. Templates will cater for the needs of programmes and modules whether undergraduate or postgraduate, campus or blended distance learning.
Canvas Sneak Peek: Mobile App Look and Feel Downloading a free Canvas app will allow access to your enrolled “courses” on both tablets and smart phones (platforms include the iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch, Android, WebOS, Blackberry, and Windows Phone). Canvas uses minimal instances of Flash, so most features are supported on your mobile devices. The app can be downloaded via either the Apple iTunes App Store or the Google Play App Store.
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Canvas Sneak Peek: Analytics and Statistics Canvas Analytics evaluates individual components of a course and student performance. Anyone with a Teaching related role can access a range of analytical and statistical data both at “course” and student level. At “course” level you have access to “at a glance” analytics in regards to activity, assignments and grades.
Staff can also view at a glance “high level” individual student analytics before drilling down to specific information about a student’s activity in the areas of Page Views, Communication, Assignments and Grades.
If you need to view a student’s progress through materials presented in the (Learning) Module area of Canvas, a report is available that indicates whether a Learning Module section (eg. Week 3 or Introduction to Marxism) and its contents still need to be completed, is in progress or has been completed. More information about this feature can be obtained via http://guides.instructure.com/s/2204/m/4152/l/102031-how-do-i-view-the-progress-of-mystudents-in-modules
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Canvas Sneak Peek: File Management Canvas users will find access to files (documents, images, media, etc.) in three different places: Personal files, located in each user's profile (students, teachers, and TAs) Course files, located in each course (students, teachers, and TAs unless files are locked by the teacher) Group files, located in each group (students and teachers who are enrolled in groups) Some web browsers (Firefox and Chrome) contain a unique feature which allows the user to simply drag and drop the file(s) from your local computer window directly into the web based Canvas file repository window. Another interesting feature is the ability to lock folders and files. The default setting locks access to anyone not enrolled as a “Teacher” or “TA” (teaching assistant). A nice alternate setting allows students to download or view locked files only when the teacher links to them.
Canvas Sneak Peek: Communication Tools Canvas communication tools include: Personal notifications Announcements Calendar and Scheduler Discussions (asynchronous or ‘time delayed’ system for focused and threaded discussions) Collaborations (users can work together on a document in something like Google Docs and EtherPad) Conferences (synchronous (real-time) conversations with up to 50 users) Canvas supports notifications through a variety of methods (you decide from the options provided) which may include email, SMS text message, Twitter, and Facebook. You can choose to receive notification alerts immediately, daily, weekly, or never for up to 21 Canvas activities. One of the first activities you should complete when first going onto Canvas is to change your notification settings. It is advisable that for the “Announcements” category you consider the following settings (depending on your role): Daily or Weekly Summary Module or Programme leads where multiple staff maybe posting announcements Students that enrolled in multiple “courses” or where RSS feeds are incorporated into individual “courses” Do not send anything Support staff (including technical, library and admin roles)
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Canvas Sneak Peek: Communication Tools Canvas has a very powerful announcement tool (below) that allows you to send easily tailored messages to your students that link to internal or external resources and services. For those interested you can also add external news feeds into the announcements via RSS or Atom feeds (see right). A word of caution though – talk to your School E-Learning Manager first before you potentially alienate your colleagues and student groups! If you decide to incorporate a feed it is suggested that teaching staff alert students and ensure that they know what will appear, reason for its use and where possible limit these types of posts to those with specific phrases in the title.
Canvas contains a very user friendly calendar that incorporates a Scheduler feature. This allows anyone with a teaching role to set up and manage office hours or personal tutor appointments. You define the time slots and their length within the meeting students individually or in small groups.
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Additionally, you can also message specific groups of users in relation to individual office hour calendar postings as in the following examples:
Canvas Sneak Peek: Groups Canvas Groups features a facility to create private areas that has its own Discussions, Pages, Files, Collaborations, and Calendar for real-time collaboration. You can use groups for grading if so desired. Groups can be used to: Set up student group configurations for seminar/regional groups, assignments and in-class work. Facilitate module-long projects so that students can communicate and iterate on documents together. Facilitate staff professional development and institutional committees or activities. Facilitate student-run study groups within courses. Any groups you have joined will appear on your list of Courses & Groups from the top global navigation bar. This means that you can easily move between the course and group level at any time. Please talk to your E-Learning Canvas Rollout Lead as early as possible if you need or wish to utilise this feature during the next academic year.
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Canvas Sneak Peek: Multimedia Canvas’ Rich Content Editor (just like the toolbar in Microsoft Word) makes it very easy to mix text, images, math equations, audio or video all together in a single page, file, assignment, announcement, discussion posting. You can also quickly record and embed audio or video comments almost anywhere in a “course” (as long as you have access to a Web cam or headset). Adding a YouTube video only requires you to paste the link (via the link tool), Canvas then automatically embeds the video. When you link to a PowerPoint presentation or Word document, Canvas also talks to Scribd to create an embedded preview that you can browse without having first to download it to your computer.
Canvas Sneak Peek: Accessibility (Screen Readers) Canvas (in 2010) became the first learning management system to receive "Gold" certification from the National Federation of the Blind (US) for paying special attention to ensuring it is accessible via screen-readers. The Rich Content Editor also encourages users to create accessible content pages (i.e. text formatting is accomplished using styles). For this reason, Canvas allows limited customization of colours and schemes. Canvas also conforms to the W3C's Web Accessibility Initiative Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WAI WCAG) 2.0 AA and Section 508 guidelines (US). However, this doesn’t mean that Canvas ticks all the screen reader accessibility boxes. A report compiled by the OCAD University in August 2012 grades Canvas features (pass or fail). They report areas for improvement (mainly around keyboard access) for particular student facing components of Canvas.
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Final Word: IASS Academics Showcase New Approaches to Using Social Media for Research, Teaching & Learning Chris Allen and Tarsem Singh Cooner On Friday 19th April, two IASS academics – Tarsem Singh Cooner and Chris Allen – facilitated a Higher Education Academy (HEA) event at the University of Birmingham titled, ‘Changing the Learning Landscape – Practical uses of social media in social work and social policy teaching and research’. Bringing together around 40 participants from different universities and practical settings who were involved in teaching, research or directly managing degree programmes in social work and social policy, the event provided participants with an opportunity to find out more about the role social media can play in enhancing the student and tutor experiences. Comprising two workshops – the first on research and dissemination, the second on teaching and learning – participants engaged in a series of practical hands-on activities and discussions as a means of introducing them to a range of new and innovative social media approaches and methods. In doing so participants explored the use of Storify in their research and dissemination as also closed Facebook groups for teaching and learning. After the event, IASS’s Tarsem Singh Cooner said: “There was a really vibrant feel to the day, the participants really enjoyed being challenged in the workshops to use social media to develop teaching and research approaches they could take away and use. The day went well because of the high level of interaction the participants had to engage in. Adopting a team based, hands-on approach to the activities, meant people went away with real experiences they could tailor for their specific needs.” Chris Allen comments, “The way in which we communicate and engage with each other is changing so quickly that it’s difficult at times to try and keep up. This event gave us an opportunity to not only look at these changes, but to more importantly highlight and share some of the wonderful opportunities social media provides for developing our research and teaching practices.” During the event, participants were encouraged to use social media to communicate with each other, with the facilitators and also with those who could not attend. If interested, you can see the lively exchanges by searching #CLL1213 on Twitter. Storify (https://storify.com/) allows the user to easily create and publish their own stories using a combination of media (video, photos, twitter, news stories, web sites etc) from across the web and their own commentary. See Chris Allen’s storify on Baroness Warsi and her AntiMuslim Hatred Speech. For more about Tarsem Singh Cooner’s work on Using Facebook to Explore Boundary Issues for Social Workers in a Networked Society (journal article and video).
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