2019 Agenda & Session Descriptions
View the schedule at a glance here to reference throughout the week. To print a copy, download from the viewer and then print from your local device. Copies will also be available at all F2F sessions.
All face-to-face sessions will be held in Breiseth Hall room 105.
Log-in info for webinars will be posted here and will be sent to registrants the day before the session.
Friday, August 16th is available for one-on-one support. If you need individual assistance with your upcoming course or want to dive into how to incorporate any of the ideas you see this week, we strongly encourage you to contact the OTTL office, ottl@wilkes.edu, to make an appointment. While walk-ins will be accommodated as best as possible, appointments are suggested to ensure that someone is available to devote time specifically to you! Pease recognize it is a busy time of year for everyone and we want to provide the best service and support possible.
Monday, August 12th - All sessions in BR 105
9:00-9:45: New Faculty Orientation - OTTL Staff
This session is an introduction to the various systems and tools available to faculty to support the teaching and learning process. We will also provide a brief review of the various avenues for technology support and introduce the OTTL staff.
Format/Audience: Presentation / New faculty
10:00-10:45: Online Resource Workshop: Set Up an Online syllabus and More for Your Face-to-Face Class! - Angela Greco
How great would it be for your students to access your syllabus at any time, especially when they need to check a due date at the last minute? What if you could have an easily accessible space for students to ask assignment questions of each other 24/7? Wouldn't you love to upload your slides from today's lecture, so that students can use it to study for the next exam? In this hands-on workshop, we will teach you how to access your online classroom space, create a resources folder, upload your syllabus and other documents, and create a Q/A discussion board for student questions. Bring a thumb drive of your syllabus, or simply follow along with the process. We'll give your face-to-face class a tech-update in no time!
Format/Audience: Hands-on / Beginner level
11:00-11:45: Engaging Students with Online Resources - Donald Mencer
The authoring and implementation of an online textbook with interactive homework, along with classroom presentation tools, interactive classroom exercises, and electronic testing will be described.
Format/Audience: Presentation / All levels
1:30-2:15: What's New: Catching Up with D2L - Jason Wagner
Did you know we get updates to the Brightspace platform every month? These updates allow us to not only not have to wait a year to get new features, but it also helps prevent getting overwhelmed with a laundry list of new features when we get a new annual release. In this session, we'll highlight some of the best updates from the past year, including the Quick Eval tool, assignment annotations, different ways of grading assignments in your face-to-face courses, and much more!
Format/Audience: Presentation / All levels
2:30-3:15: Utilizing Turnitin.com as a Teaching Tool - Helen Davis
Are you interested in using Turnitin.com, but don't know much about how the system works, how to read the reports, or most importantly, how to frame the use of Turnitin.com to students? Rather than framing Turnitin as merely a plagiarism detection service, I will discuss how I empower students to actively use Turnitin to identify and correct problem citation areas and have a sense of the balance of cited material versus analysis. I will pull several reports to discuss the options for settings, how to use the reports generated, and how to discuss the reports with students.
Format/Audience: Demonstration / All levels
Tuesday, August 13th - All sessions in BR 105
9:00-9:45: Creating Portfolios Using Google Sites - Joseph Nalbone
Google sites is a fast and easy way to create a portfolio of work you want to share with the Wilkes community or the world wide web. We'll cover all the steps for creating a multi-page web site that resides on your Wilkes Google drive.
Format/Audience: Hands-on / All levels
10:00-10:45: Supporting Student Creativity to Gain a Competitive Advantage - Panel
One of the most sought-after skills in college graduates, creativity is now more important to most employers than technical or content knowledge. This shift suggests that higher education needs to ensure that students have ample opportunity to develop their “creative chops” before graduating so they can compete in this global economy. How do we support and develop this critical skill in our students? In this session, we will discuss why creativity and problem-solving have become so important and provide a variety of strategies and tools faculty can use in any content area to support and develop these in your students.
Format/Audience: Presentation / All levels
11:00-11:45: Using Adobe Spark to Support Creativity in Students - Kristine Pruett
Join me for an introduction to Adobe Spark, a free, easy to use, web-based tool that allows students to create posts, web pages and videos and express their creativity all while demonstrating their knowledge of your course content. We will cover the basics of how to use the tool and discuss a variety of ways to use it in any course.
Format/Audience: Demonstration / All levels
1:30-2:15: Getting 'Content' with Content - Angela Greco
Are you wondering about all the ways to add and organize content in D2L? Do your students say they have a hard time finding material or following along? In this session we will cover ways to present course material through the various options in D2L including the course builder, templates, checklists, etc. We'll cover best practices for organizing your content to make things easier for your students and finally how to copy your materials from semester to semester. If you would like to follow along and try some of the tools, please have a way to access some content either on a flash drive, Google drive, etc.
Format/Audience: Demonstration, Hands-on / All levels
2:30-3:15: Developing Accessible Course Content - Rachael Scicchitano
During course development, accessibility is typically an afterthought. Often, course designers and faculty are scrambling to create accessible course content only after they have received notice from Disability Support Services informing them that an accommodation is needed in their course. Moreover, most faculty are not aware of best practices and how to make their course materials accessible from the start. During this session, I will introduce everyday strategies for promoting proactive accessible design for all courses, while also sharing best practices, tips, and tricks for incorporating the Universal Design for Learning approach. The goal of this approach is to not only enhance the students’ overall learning experience, but minimize the amount of time it takes for students with disabilities to access course content and complete tasks successfully whether online or on-ground.
Format/Audience: Presentation / All levels
Wednesday, August 14th - All sessions will be delivered via webinar format.
All sessions today will use the same web link. Participants can jump in an out as they want. The "room" will close during lunch and then re-open for the afternoon sessions.
Webinar link: https://wilkes.webex.com/meet/kristine.pruett
We encourage participants to use the audio available when connecting online, but if you do not have a microphone you can also call in (info will pop up upon link launch) or just participate using the chat feature.
9:00-9:45: Proactive Steps to Promote Connections in Online Learning - Michelle Liken
In this workshop, attendees will learn about some key barriers to fully connecting with students in online courses. In addition to identifying barriers, attendees will learn about steps they can take to proactively create connections and offer students a more meaningful and value-based learning experience. This experience can extend beyond just mastery of content and may help students create and maintain informal professional mentor relationships. While this can be beneficial for students, it also offers faculty members an opportunity to experience an enhanced and fulfilled teaching experience. The workshop will include the presentation of a case study as well as interactive activities.
Format/Audience: Presentation / All levels
10:00-10:45: Discussing online so Students Write and Writing so Students Discuss (online) - Paul Reinert
In online discussions, students write more than they talk in face-to-face discussions, participate more over time, and are generally collaborative and constructive in their interactions (Orlando, 2017). Given these characteristics, instructors can take advantage of online discussions to support collaboration and knowledge construction. Online discussions may offer the same potential in a course that is fully online or as a supplement in a face-to-face course. In this workshop, participants will have the opportunity to consider the usefulness of online discussions in supporting learning and engagement in their teaching. In addition, participants will have an opportunity to create an effective online discussion prompt that can be used in a course they teach.
Format/Audience: Hands-on / All levels
11:00-11:45: What Does It Mean to Care in Cyberspace? The Ethics of Care in Online Learning Environments - Jane Blanken-Webb, Charlie Smargiassi, Grace Surdovel
Relationships of care are at the very core of the teaching and learning endeavors that we uphold at Wilkes University. But as more and more classrooms shift to the online space, a very real question emerges: What does it mean to care in cyberspace? As teachers who are deeply committed to cultivating lived relationships with students, hesitation about teaching in the disembodied context of online environments is completely understandable. In this presentation, we will take on the question of what it means to care in cyberspace. In doing so we will demonstrate how virtual classroom environments and discussion boards can be used to support the relationships of care that are core to our practice. We welcome instructors at all levels of experience with online pedagogies who are committed to cultivating caring relationships with students in online spaces.
Format/Audience: Presentation / All levels
1:30-2:15: “Breakout” of a Comfort Zone - Stephanie Wasmanski
Providing students with an environment in which active learning can occur is vital in both the traditional and virtual classroom space. Engaging students in the learning process may prove to be somewhat difficult in a larger group setting. The use of breakout sessions provides students with an opportunity to explore a topic in greater depth, reflect upon their own learning, and share personal experiences with their peers. In larger groups, this sharing of information may be stifled by time-constraints and/or personal fear of sharing in front of a large group. This interactive presentation will highlight the benefits of small group discussion, items to avoid, and tips for making the integration of breakout sessions in the classroom successful.
Format/Audience: Presentation / All levels
2:30-3:15: Tools and Strategies to Support Academic Integrity - Kristine Pruett & Joseph Nalbone
Academic honesty is a critical component to the learning experience and yet students continue to challenge us with new ways of being dishonest. This session will review the variety of tools we have available to support academic integrity in your classes and provide some tips and tricks to help encourage more honest behavior in students.
Format/Audience: Demonstration / All levels
Thursday, August 15th - Morning sessions in BR 105. Afternoon sessions will be delivered via webinar.
Use the link provided under each session description to connect to the webinar. Webinar links will be added closer to the event dates.
9:00-9:45: Just Click "Record": Video Creation with Panopto - Kathy Lewis
Whether you’re teaching an online course or in a Face-to-Face classroom, video has emerged as a significant tool to increase student engagement and knowledge retention. Recording video for your classes is easy with Panopto, a video creation, editing, and storage tool integrated with LIVE. We will show you how to make Panopto recordings to share with your students as well as best practices for improving your videos. Panopto allows you to customize learning for your online or blended courses, can help you “flip” your Face-to-Face class, and lets you stay prepared to continue classes during closings due to winter/extreme weather conditions.
Format/Audience: Hands-on / Beginner
10:00-10:45: Get Your Game On: Interactive Tools to Make Learning Fun - Kimmy Nguyen & Troy Lewis
Is PollEverywhere easy to use? How does Anki differ from Quizlet? What the heck is a Kahoot? All these answers and more are offered through an interactive workshop designed to allow participants to engage in demonstrations of the following five programs: PollEverywhere, Kahoot, Slido, Quizlet, and Anki. From real-time polling software and team-based trivia games to an anonymous question platform and flashcard review systems, these programs are bound to provide some food for thought in the creation of a fun and efficient learning environment.
Format/Audience: Demonstration, Hands-on / All levels
11:00-11:45: No Bystanders Here: Engaging Students with Video Assignments - Kathy Lewis
Want to rev up student engagement in your online or Face-to-Face course? Panopto and Bongo are integrated into LIVE and allow instructors to create video assignments for students. Students can record their own audio, video and screens to create dynamic projects for assignments or even for a discussion forum. We’ll show you how to set up Panopto’s Student Assignment folder as well as Bongo’s Video assignments. These tools will engage your students in active learning, allow them to collaborate with each other and personalize their own learning. These are not only great tools for online instructors but also for Face-to-Face instructors to use for individual/ group projects.
Format/Audience: Hands-on / All levels
All sessions this afternoon will use the same web link.
Webinar link: https://wilkes.webex.com/meet/kristine.pruett
We encourage participants to use the audio available when connecting online, but if you do not have a microphone you can also call in (info will pop up upon link launch) or just participate using the chat feature.
1:30-2:15: Active Teaching in an Asynchronous World - Tif Mulally
A theory to practice seminar to help instructors create an online environment that will help students engage productively in active learning classrooms. This research-based session will offer recommendations for helping students become expert learners who engage in an online setting, allowing students to feel both intrinsically and extrinsically motivated to engage, setting clear expectations, and understanding how to assess a student's level of engagement.
Format/Audience: Presentation / All levels
2:30-3:15: Leveraging D2L's Advanced Tools for Student Success - Jason Wagner
In this session, we'll be digging into some of the more advanced tools of D2L, with a particular focus on tools to help improve student success. Some of the tools we'll be looking at include: the Class Progress tool, which allows you to see what your students have accomplished in the course quickly; intelligent agents, that let you set alerts when some of the warning signs start to appear; quiz statistics, to help you identify which questions gave your students a hard time on the quiz; and more.
Format/Audience: Demonstration / Some experience necessary
Friday, August 17th - 3rd floor Max Roth Center
9:00-12:00: Individual support time. Schedule an appointment with an Office of Technology for Teaching & Learning instructional designer!
Take the next step with something you saw earlier in the week, get assistance adding something new to your fall course or get assistance with a current issue - we are here to help! Or stop by for coffee and chat about anything teaching and learning! The OTTL staff will be available to assist you during this open time. Appointments are strongly encouraged if you need technical assistance to ensure someone is available, but walk-ins are welcome. Email ottl@wilkes.edu to schedule an appointment.