Monday, February 23, 2015

A Look at a Book: Managing Online Instructor Workload

Managing Online Instructor Workload: Strategies for 
Finding Balance and Success 

Simone C. O. Conceiao and Rosemary M. Lehman

LB 1044.87.J62 2011

"Managing Online Instructor Workload is a groundbreaking book that offers strategies, advice, illustrative examples, and a four-step process for identifying challenges and rethinking, prioritizing, managing, and balancing one's online instruction workload. Based on surveys and interviews with successful online instructors, the book is filled with timely and comprehensive insight that is essential for online instructors, instructional designers, faculty developers, and anyone who wants to succeed in online learning."

This book and many other titles are available for checkout in the CTE Library in Room 324 TLC.

Friday, February 13, 2015

Lynda Trials Available


LCC has purchased 5 Lynda Pro licenses which are good until December 2015.  We are currently offering access to all faculty for two-week trial periods to the Lynda training materials.  While much of the Lynda library is devoted to the digital graphic arts and programming, Lynda also offers an extensive section devoted to teaching and learning.  Below is a short list of educational topics and the number of courses related to that topic.

If you would like to “try out” Lynda, email your request to John Thommen in the CTE thommej@lcc.edu and include your TUID and department.

Teacher Tools 71
Elearning 51
Higher Education 36
Educational Technology 34
Teacher Professional Development 24
Instructional Design 22
LMS 12
Classroom Management 9

Change-up your Course Intro with Animoto


In an online environment, it can be difficult and time consuming to design content that grabs a student's attention on day one.  Animoto is a web tool that presents educators with an easy-to-use set of templates for creating short videos to use in the online classroom.  They embed easily into Desire2Learn, and educators can apply for a free account to increase their maximum video length from thirty seconds to three minutes.

Here is a video that I created to introduce students to BIOL 120.



On March 18, the CTE is offering a workshop to help you get started using Animoto.  See the CTE Workshop Calendar for more details, or contact Meg Elias at clarkm1@star.lcc.edu

Apply for a FREE Animoto Educator's Account

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Regrade in D2L More Efficiently

When fulfilling student email requests to regrade online tests, I open the test listing in a new browser tab, perform the regrade, then return to the tab containing the email to complete the transaction with the student.  Moving between tabs saves a great amount of time over clicking multiple links to traverse the system.
To open a link in a new tab quickly, hold down the Shift and Ctrl keys and then Click_the_link.  The link will open in a new tab within the browser.
For you Apple users Command+Shift+Click_the_link will achieve the same result.


For more information, visit us in the CTE or email John Thommen at thommej@lcc.edu.

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

D2L is Coming to East Lansing

From D2L Faculty User Group:

Just a reminder that the Call for Proposals is open, and we want to hear from you! D2L is coming to Lansing, MI, on March 26, 2015 for the Michigan Brightspace Ignite. Submit your proposal today to be a part of the Michigan Brightspace Ignite. Now is your chance to share your thoughts and ideas about all things technology and eLearning with like minded peers. Deadline is February 20, 2015

Date & Time: Thursday, March 26th, 2015 8:00 AM – 4:00 PM (Eastern Time) Location: Kellogg Hotel & Conference Center, 219 South Harrison Road, East Lansing, MI, 48824-1022