Smart Phones Don't Make Us Dumb

Pace Nicholas Carr and urban myth, but no, they do not. Not phones, not Google, not video games. Evidence says NO. Then, why do we believe that (if not ourselves) our students are growing less curious, more distant, less engaged...well, dumber?

The NY Times has an opinion and some research that answers the question. "It may be that digital devices have not left us unable to pay attention, but have made us unwilling to do so." 

OK. Next question: WHY would my students be unwilling to listen to me? Perhaps because there are always other options at their finger tips and our student know that they have access to other forms of knowledge acquisition via the 3+ devices they're often carrying on their person. 

I did a poll in class of mobile devices being carried. The winner pulled out SIX: phone, iPod, laptop, Kindle, FitBit... and a mini-GPS he uses on his bike.

Last year, another student walked into my class wearing a t-shirt that said "I don't have ADD. I'm just not listening to you."

Mobile devices don't make us dumb. They give us options. Perhaps they make us smarter, putting information at our fingers. Let's start talking about how we could leverage those smart options to engage learners and change teaching practice? The Faculty Resource Center has tea, coffee treats and bright, shiny technology tools that could help us hold these conversations.

Horizon Report 2015

Just came out! Click Here! Read NOW! 

May not surprise many of you following emergent learning in higher education, but the methodical and thoughtful work that goes into NMC's determining trends and meaning deserves a shout out and HURRAH.

NMC word cloud of 2015 Horizon Report

So, what did they find? 
Key trends (1-2 years): Online Learning and New Learning Spaces
On the Horizon (3-5 years: Open resources and data-driven learning & assessment
In the distance (5+ years): Agile approaches to change & importance of open communities

There's more, much more, and great stories and evidence that explains the trends, challenges and developments on the "Horizon" that gives meaning to the data. Check it out. 

Prefer video to text? They made one!

Travels with Darcy and TLT

Dateline: November 19, 2014--Portland, Oregon

Darcy and I are here for the WCET annual conference and enjoying the emergence of a theme across many of the sessions. Big Data! The last time I was at WCET, two years ago, the talk was of the new, context-aware, feature-rich, learner-centered LMS. Today, nary a session on the topic in sight. This time, everyone is looking to the data. It's fun to see analytics of so many flavors: predictive, descriptive, action, vendor-culled, pattern-aware, and our own home-flavor: nudge. 

I think it was John Campbell, father of the Signals project at Purdue and the birth of dynamic learner access to pattern data, who said "If we're not applying it in action, why do the analytics?" Who would have thought his call to action would have seen such a rush to response. It took awhile, but some of the reported activity is quite jaw-dropping and awe-inspiring in its ambition and scope. 

I'll leave you to look at the work of new vendors like Civitas and Blue Canary. And to explore the potential of WCET's own baby, the now non-profit PAR Framework. You'll have to find conferences like this one to hear about the home-grown, data-driven learner environments and dashboards being implemented at places like Capella University and Rio Salado Community College. 

A lot of work done by all to get to the point where they're able to shape and join

the data, but just beginning to touch on the actions John Campbell intended, and made available to learners. Darcy and I are doing a session on starting at the beginning, with the low-hanging fruit of using data, small and accessible data sources, to inform, support and nudge students to success. 

Nudging Students to the Finish Line talks about a few action-nudge projects undertaken at UW Tacoma to keep students informed of their progress, options,

supports, smart practices and local resources. (Read more about UW Tacoma's approach to just-in-time nudge initiatives) at Not as sophisticated as the big data machines now churning at bigger money and enrollment schools than UW Tacoma, but aimed at achieving the same goals: better grades, better persistence, better engagement in the learning. 

In the session, we'll talk about UW Tacoma's practices of sending prompts to students, via phone, text message, and our new Canvas LMS. We share faculty LMS feature use ("message students who..."), peer and advisor phone calls based on an event status (students not registered for next quarter; students identified via early warning, etc), or machine-based support messages through a collaborating vendor, Persistence Plus, based on their cohort (first year experience; online math students, etc). 

Analytics in a diversity of flavors seems to be the hot topic of the year at a conference where smart, dedicated people are looking for ways to see the new learner to graduation. Wish you were here. 

Just-In-Time Technology: Improving Retention and Success of “New Traditionals”

In a recent article published in The Evolllution, Colleen and Darcy discuss ways UWT is using "nudges" to increase student success.

Tools designed to automate personalized

retention-developing tactics are critical to 

student persistence and success, helping 

institutions boost their performance metrics.

Just In Time. Famous words of the time-stressed, over-committed adult learner that now makes up more than 38 percent of the college-going population (according to a recent Student Clearinghouse report (Student Clearinghouse report). Whether in assignments, courses, financial aid or getting to class, adult learners behave like most time and task-stressed adults; we queue things up as they need to get done. And sometimes, some of the demands just slip through the cracks. Read the full article...

Explore some new features in Canvas!

We would like to welcome all of our new Canvas users and welcome back those who are returning. We love the energy and excitement that come with the beginning of a new academic year and hope your summer was fantastic! Communication is one of our top priorities and we want to keep you informed of a few new features in Canvas.

Draft State is here!

Canvas released a new tool over the summer called Draft State. Draft State allows individual content in Modules, Pages, Assignments, Quizzes and Discussions to exist in an unpublished (draft) state. You can then “publish” any draft module, assignment, etc. when it is ready for students to see! With this new Draft State tool comes a significant, improved look & feel of the Canvas design. So, keep an eye out for the cloud icons on your Canvas course site and make sure to publish materials that you want students to see!

Here is a 4 minute overview on Draft State.
Here is a more detailed guide on how to use it!

Use Canvas to help students plan their degree!

Your Canvas course syllabus page can be made visible in MyPlan. MyPlan is the UW’s online academic planning tool, enabling students to make the most of their time at the UW by helping them to develop a comprehensive academic plan. Students have the ability to browse courses of interest and bookmark them for future quarters. They can then build out a draft schedule of courses for their entire academic journey and audit it as they go!

By building out your syllabus page in Canvas with information about your course, students will be able to view it in MyPlan. Using Canvas to publicize your course description does not commit you to using Canvas for teaching, nor does it make course content beyond the syllabus visible to anyone other than enrolled students. Students love being able to read what a course is about before they register for it. Consider providing this information for them!

For more information and instructions on how you can help students plan their academic success, visit: Use Canvas to Publicize Your Individual Course Description

4.0 Grading scheme is now in Canvas!

The UW 4.0 Grade Scale tool makes it easier to set up a 4.0 scale and apply it to a Canvas course.  Grade scales can then be used with assignments in that course, and instructors can enter 4.0 grades in the gradebook, and display them to students.  4.0 grade scales created with this tool can also be reused in other Canvas courses. 

To use this tool in Canvas, faculty must create a conversion table to to indicate the equivalent percentage is for each grade point in their Create a 4.0 Grade Scale for Canvas Assignments

course. To learn about this process visit:

Training and support

As always, let us know if you have any questions/concerns or if you need help learning about or exploring new technologies!

To fit your schedule, all training is now by appointment for one-on-one appointments or groups of any size.

Email us at athelp@uw.edu or contact Darcy Janzen, e-Learning Support Manager to schedule a training session.

 

Poll: What are you thinking?

We would know that if I asked you to respond digitally, in real time, and I displayed the results. We can do that in the class now - "Quick, students...pull out one of your mobile devices!"

Image courtesy of Duke University Digital Initiative

If you haven't seen it yet, we're (semi)-supporting Poll Everywhere at UWT. You use the Web-based software from Any/Everywhere to create a poll. T/F, multiple choice or short answers. Save the poll, and students participate by visiting a fast mobile-friendly (phone, laptop, tablet) Web site, displayed for that poll. 

They choose how to answer your question based on the technology they carry: Web page, via txt, or Twitter. Instructions are displayed on-screen for each type of response. And then the poll updates and displays summary results in real time. Wow.

Instructors who have used clickers before understand the value of polling, and those now using cloud-based polling understand the great leap in not having students purchase (and lose or let the battery run down on) costly clickers.  We also get back the lost time in passing out, explaining, dealing with dead batteries and collecting clickers brought to the classroom, when supplied by IT. 

Polling offers instructors a new set of possibilities when it moves to the Web. Colleagues are using it to anonymously to test understanding, to do end-of-class 2-minute assessments, to take attendance and more. Give it a try.

Active learning, collecting group work, engaging reticent learners. You can do that in moments with cloud-based polling software. 

Well, you can if you have less that 40 students in your class. That's the semi-support. Forty responses is where Poll Everywhere cuts off the free license. Larger classes means you'll need to poll in groups. Sorry.

So I'll end with the good news. There's rumor that Canvas is building polling software into their LMS. Colleagues at UW-IT say they've actually seen a demo of the pilot and it should be in production within a year. Till then, there's free, easy, fast polling software in the cloud. Check it out.

Panopt Who?

Panopto! UW’s new lecture capture system is flexible and easy to use! Record your class, your students’ presentations, or create videos for your flipped classroom and then provide direct access to those recordings inside of your Canvas course. You may have heard about or used Tegrity in the past, but after conducting a needs assessment and pilot in autumn and winter quarter 2013, UW announced that Panopto would replace two of their systems, Tegrity and UW Coursecasting over the summer! 

Why record lectures? What is Flipping the Classroom? Lecture Capture can enhance learning by adding more focus – students can review lectures as often as they want from anywhere and review difficult or complex topics, annotate key concepts, search for terms, and post questions throughout the recorded lecture. It also allows for more flexibility – affording students who have busy schedules to re-visit content on the bus, in the middle of the night or whenever they set aside time for coursework. By flipping your classroom, recording material for students to view prior to class frees up precious in-person class time for active learning strategies.  The main goal in flipping a class is to cultivate deeper, richer active learning experiences for students when the instructor is present to coach and guide them.

So, Panopto is here and we are ready and excited to get you up and running on the new system! There are some really great features within Panopto. Check out the 8 Ways for Universities to Use Panopto or visit our About Panopto page to learn more!