Inspire Blog

13 pieces of advice from unsuccessful online students & How instructors can help

“As a stranger give it welcome” – Shakespeare Students need tactics for when they encounter strange people or strange ideas.(Wilson, 2018) If you think of a first time online student, this is very true as they are entering a new learning environment, likely extremely different from their previous educational experiences. Welcoming that strange experience should include a little bit of information gathering. Look for positive and negatives so that you can decide for yourself how you view it, most of all, have an open mind. To help potential online students make decisions, and hopefully be more successful should they chose to take an online course, Marie Fetzner asked unsuccessful online students; “What advice would you give to students who are … 13 pieces of advice from unsuccessful online students & How instructors can help
by · July 8, 2019

What can we learn from the success of CANVAS LMS?

Oregon State University’s Learning Management System (LMS) migrated to Canvas in 2014-2015. The Canvas migration was based not only on the company’s feature alignment with our learning platform needs but also on the outstanding customer service Canvas Instructure has provided to our LMS user community including students, faculty, instructional designers, and administrators. How Canvas provides customer service offers an example we can model to continue to exceed student expectations. According to Michael Feldstein’s July 8, 2018 report, major players in US LMS market include Blackboard, Canvas, Moodle, Bright Space, Sakai, Schoology, and others (Feldstein, 2018). Figure 1: US Primary LMS Systems, July 6th, 2018 (Feldstein, 2018) Of these major players in the LMS field, Canvas is most noticeable with fastest … What can we learn from the success of CANVAS LMS?
by · June 24, 2019

Rubrics: Markers of Quality – Unlock the Benefits! (Part 1)

Would you like to save time grading, accurately assess student learning, provide timely feedback, track student progress, demonstrate teaching and learning excellence, foster communication, and much more? If you answered yes, then rubrics are for you! Let’s explore why the intentional use of rubrics can be a valuable tool for instructors and students. Value for instructors Time management: Have you ever found yourself drowning in a sea of student assignments that need to be graded ASAP (like last week)?  Grading with a rubric can quicken the process because each student is graded in the same way using the same criteria. Rubrics which are detailed, specific, organized and measurable clearly communicate expectations. As you become familiar with how students are commonly … Rubrics: Markers of Quality – Unlock the Benefits! (Part 1)
by · June 17, 2019

Self-Determination Theory and Online Education: A Primer

My interest in learning about motivation in education began many years ago when I started learning about motivation in game design. In a way, while this blog post will follow a different format, it is an outgrowth of my previous post on how game design can influence course design. In order to better understand motivation, in a classroom, while playing a game, and in an online learning environment, I am turning to the body of research that has grown from Edward Deci and Richard Ryan’s Self-Determination Theory (SDT). What is Self-Determination Theory? Deci and Ryan’s theory stems from the larger investigation of human needs for well-being. While physiological needs like food, water, and shelter may be obvious, what are our … Self-Determination Theory and Online Education: A Primer
by · June 10, 2019

Before Recording Narrated Slides: #1 Copyright

Curious what an Ecampus Instructional Designer is looking for when they approve slides for narrated lectures?  It certainly depends on the course content. Generally, the top three things I am looking at are copyright, accessibility, and aesthetics. For this post, I am going to focus on copyright and I will return to the other topics in a future post.  A copy of the slides, which includes links to helpful materials, is available below the video as well as a list of resources. https://youtu.be/49DNaOW82Ho Slides: Copyright Considerations for Narrated Slides Resources: Creative Commons Search (may require attribution) Flaticon (requires attribution) Freepik (requires attribution) Unsplash (does not require attribution)
by · June 5, 2019