Inspire Blog Tag: ecampus

Collaborative Online Annotation Tools for Engaging Students in Readings

Do you ever get the sense that students posting in their online discussions haven’t really engaged with the reading materials for that week? One way to encourage active engagement with course readings is to have students annotate directly in the article or textbook chapter that they are assigned. While it is common to see students annotating in their paper copies of their textbooks or readings, these aren’t easily shared with their peers or instructor. Of course, students could snap a photo of their handwritten annotations and upload that as a reading assignment task, though that does require additional steps on the part of both the student and instructor, and there is no interaction with others in the course during that … Collaborative Online Annotation Tools for Engaging Students in Readings
by · April 27, 2020

Facilitating Active Learning with Zoom

Facilitating Active Learning with Zoom By Christine Scott, Instructional Design Specialist, Oregon State University Ecampus So you managed to get your face-to-face courses up and running remotely in the midst of a global pandemic. You’ve secured your Zoom sessions to avoid unwanted disruptions, your students are in their virtual seats, and you’ve successfully delivered a few lectures. So what’s next? Now that you have students’ attention, you may find that you’re ready to focus on transforming your synchronous session into a space for active learning to take place. It’s no secret that students learn better when they are actively engaged in the learning process. The question is how that translates to a remote Zoom session. Is it even possible to … Facilitating Active Learning with Zoom
by · April 17, 2020

Self-Determination Theory and Online Education: Thinking About Grades

Photo by Terry Vlisidis on Unsplash Last Time on SDT & Online Education… This post is a continuation of my previous blog posts on Self-Determination Theory (SDT) and Online Education and a companion post to Chris Lindberg’s series of posts, Games as a Model for Motivation and Engagement. In my last post, I posed some difficult questions to consider as you start thinking about how you use grades and motivation in your courses. In case you missed that post, here are the questions—I invite you to spend a few minutes, hours, or days with these questions before moving on with the rest of this blog post: Do you use grades to create external regulation of behavior in your course? Are … Self-Determination Theory and Online Education: Thinking About Grades
by · February 3, 2020

Accessibility, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), and Inclusive Design: What Do They Really Mean?

The other day, my six-year-old asked me what the word “industrious” means, and I was overcome with pride and, moments later, mild panic as I tried to answer his question and couldn’t clearly articulate the meaning of the word. This experience ended well (thanks, Alexa), but prompted me to think about how often we use words without fully understanding what they mean. We don’t question the meaning of these words when they are used in our work or daily interactions. We may use these words ourselves on occasion–or with regularity–but when we stop and try to define these words, the proper associations and descriptions don’t come immediately to mind. In my work as an instructional designer, it’s common to talk … Accessibility, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), and Inclusive Design: What Do They Really Mean?
by · December 16, 2019

Digital Storytelling for Higher Education

About halfway through earning a master’s in education, I took a summer session class on digital storytelling. It ran over the course of three half-day sessions during which we were required to complete two digital stories. I had no great academic ambitions in my approach to these assignments. I was trying to satisfy a degree requirement in a way that worked with my schedule as a single mother of two teenagers working full time while earning a graduate degree. My first story was a self-introduction. I loved this assignment. Even though I had one evening to complete it, I spent hours tweaking it. I enjoyed learning the tools. I enjoyed sharing my story with my classmates. Even after it was graded, … Digital Storytelling for Higher Education
by · December 9, 2019