Author: Christine Scherer

TEACHx 2018 Reflections: Part 1

by Jun 04, 2018

This year, majority of the DL team attended and/or presented at TEACHx. Hosted by NUIT, TEACHx is an opportunity for faculty and staff to share innovative and creative uses of technology in the classroom, whether that classroom is physical or digital. This week, several staff members share their thoughts on sessions they attended and what they learned. Dan Murphy At the TEACHx Tech Fair, I attended a presentation by Vinesh Kannan from the Computer Science Department at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Faced with the challenge of engaging students with varying degrees of coding experience in an introductory programming class,

,

Spring Cleaning: Five Ways to Spruce Up Your Course Site

by May 07, 2018

Spring has finally arrived in Chicago, and with it, many people are starting to think about spring cleaning. This can apply to more than your home or office, though. In the time before Summer classes start, there are ways you can clean up your course site too. Check your dates Make sure the dates in your course are correct for the next quarter. Students will notice if your syllabus or assignment page says that something is due in September for a class that’s running from June to August. Forgetting to change those dates is not just frustrating for students–it can

Planning Media for Your Course – April 2018 Online Learning Webinar

by Apr 16, 2018

Instructional Technologists Aaron Bannasch hosted the April Online Learning Webinar to demonstrate ways to plan to create media for your course. If you have a question about creating media for your course, contact distanceeducation@northwestern.edu. The text outline for the webinar is provided in this post and you can view the archive of the webinar by visiting the Blue Jeans recording. Before you begin Creating something new, even if it is only partly new, is a process. If all you want is something that is already fully formed, and that thing already exists elsewhere, there may not be a reason to

Reflecting on the Loyola Digital Accessibility Conference

by , Mar 19, 2018

Introduction The Loyola Digital Accessibility Conference was organized by graduate students in the digital humanities program at Loyola University. The event drew presenters and attendees from all over the country, including a team who called in from University of California-Davis! Content Specialist Christine Scherer and Learning Designer Krissy Wilson represented the School of Professional Studies Distance Learning department on the Tackling Large Scale Accessibility panel. The presentations covered a wide range of issues, from accessibility of digital library resources to podcast transcripts to retrofitting inaccessible web pages. But there were common themes raised throughout the conversations. One theme was that

,