Friday, November 13 9:00am ‒ 10:00am

Introducing OERTX
The Statewide OER Repository is Here!

Presenters: Carrie Gits and Tom Schilb

On September 1st, THECB and ISKME partnered to launch OERTX, a repository created to “facilitate the curation of OER e-textbooks and other OER materials used frequently by Texas institutions of higher education and to support the creation and customization of resources to meet the needs of Texas students and faculty.”

As an OERTX early adopter, ACC has been asked by THECB to set up a Hub to provide a centralized location for OER authored, adopted, and/or used by ACC faculty. Furthermore, the Hub offers a space for OER collaboration, community, and creation among ACC faculty members.

This presentation will provide an overview of the ACC Hub on OERTX and will walk attendees through some of the features such as collections, search, group creation, and the authoring tool. Attendees will be encouraged to create an account on OERTX and begin collaborating!

The Value of VidGrid

Presenter: Rene Renteria

Looking for ways to engage your students with video lectures for remote learning? In this session participants will receive an overview of the VidGrid lecture capture platform. Presentation topics included:

  • How to get a VidGrid account and login

  • How to create screen recordings

  • How to share recorded content

  • How to navigate around My Grid homepage

  • How to upload a video to My Grid

  • How to add machine captions to your video

  • How to create bookmarks and chapters for a video

  • How to checkout webcams, mics, and doc cams from ACC

  • Where to find more help and resources

Friday, November 13 10:15am ‒ 11:15am

Online Student Engagement: Creating Presence in Your Distance Learning Course

Presenter: Eduardo L. Garcia

In this workshop we will explore social, cognitive, and instructor presence as it relates to student engagement. We will learn about the three different types of interactions in the distance learning environment and how we can strive to create a Community of Inquiry in our distance learning courses. Attendees will learn practical tips that they can incorporate right away into their courses to make them more engaging.

Different Ways to Create
Online Test Security on Blackboard

Presenters: Stanley Thai and Jamie Madden

We'll be going over the "Reusing Questions" function on Blackboard, as well as Respondus LockDown Browser to show faculty how to prevent students from cheating when they take an online test.

Friday, November 13 11:30am ‒ 12:30pm

Statewide Initiatives and Opportunities in OER

Presenter: Judith Sebesta

Judith Sebesta, Executive Director of the Digital Higher Education Consortium of Texas, based at ACC, will share a number of statewide OER initiatives which we have led or in which we have participated, including Texas Learn OER; Open Texas, an annual conference; the new state repository, OERTX; and state and national grant programs; among others. Attendees will discover ways they can participate in one or more of these exciting initiatives and projects.

Deep Dive
4 Zoom Advanced Tools

Presenters: Rene Renteria, Mario Menendez,
and Christina Meno

Faculty can learn about four of Zoom's advanced tools which include:

  • Accessibility Live Transcripts

  • Polls

  • Pre-assigned breakout rooms

  • Reports for attendance

Using Blackboard Ally to make your online courses accessible for all learners

Presenter: Stephanie Bogdanich

Ally is a tool within Blackboard that provides alternative formats for students who need audio or electronic braille and so much more! At a glance you can find out if the documents in your course will be accessible to screen readers. Ally walks you through the process of making documents accessible when they aren’t. We will demonstrate how you can use this tool to protect yourself from liability, meet Quality Matters standards, and most importantly, student success.

Contact DLStaff@austincc.edu with questions.