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Category: Technology

“Getting to Know You” Activities

“Getting to Know You” activities are an important consideration when establishing social presence in courses. My students are educators and learning experience designers so my “getting to know you” activities are sometimes design oriented — serving two important goals: social presence and design thinking/exploration. In addition these activities serve as low-stakes opportunities for orienting students to various tools and platforms (e.g., Flipgrid). I use these activities at the start of a semester as well as throughout the course for reconnection purposes because I don’t think one getting-to-know-you activity during the first week of a course is sufficient. Establishing social presence…

Finding visuals for instructional materials

My preference is always to use visuals I’ve created in order to better showcase my own creative design aesthetic and abilities. Also, I strongly believe it is important as a professional designer and educator to avoid copyright infringement…although I’m sure there have been times when I’ve missed the mark. When I don’t easily have my own visuals available, I have had good luck finding relevant free-to-use and royalty-free images via Pixabay, Unsplash, Freeimages, and The Commons in Flickr. In addition, I’ve found that some images on Flickr have generous Creative Commons licensing (see Finding Public Domain & Creative Commons Media…

Taking advantage of students’ technology

Image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigburpsx3/4523460123/ Students carry some powerful technology with them wherever they go, including into the classroom. Because these technologies — such as smartphones — may serve as distractions from what is instructionally happening in the classroom, many faculty are requiring students turn everything off at the start of class. What a loss! Instead, my suggestion is to find ways to use students’ technology in ways that serve the objectives of the class. Here are a few ideas (Note: I suggest you have students in small groups, so that there is the potential for a more balanced distribution of technology…because,…