Tag: tips and tricks

Online Learning Resource Round-Up!

by May 08, 2017

Online education is growing fast–so fast that it can be hard to keep up with all the latest news and resources. The Distance Learning staff have assembled some of their favorite online learning resources to help highlight some of our favorites. Inside Higher Ed – Inside Digital Learning – Krissy Wilson In order to stay up-to-date with the latest news in digital learning, I’ve subscribed to the Inside Higher Ed – Inside Digital Learning newsletter. Like many digital media providers, Inside Higher Ed publishes news and opinion pieces at a pace that is almost impossible to keep up with. How can

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Uncomplicating Alt-Text for Complex Images

by Nov 15, 2016

Including alt-text on images is one of the most basic requirements for web accessibility. Alt-text is a brief description of the information conveyed by the image and allows blind and low-vision users to fully engage with all content on a web page. For simple images, writing alt-text is easy. An image of the Chicago skyline, for example, could have alt-text reading “The Chicago downtown skyline, which includes the Willis Tower and Hancock building, at sunrise.” Pretty straightforward, right? But in online education, not all images are so simple. When teaching courses on subjects such as global health, predictive analytics, or medical

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Incorporating Current Events into Online Course Content

by Aug 29, 2016

Because of Northwestern University’s quarter system, teaching the same course four times each year can start to feel repetitive! One way to keep your course up to date and interesting is to incorporate current events into your course content and facilitation. Current events can also be used to customize the course to each cohort’s interests and keep students up to date on the happenings in the field they want to work in. Below are four easy ways to incorporate current events into your online course. 1. Take advantage of the library’s E-Journal subscriptions. The library subscribes to 158,013 electronic journals!

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Selecting a Video Style

by Jun 22, 2016

What type of video should I make? If you arrived at this blog post hoping for a prescriptive answer to that question, you won’t find it here. Instead you will find a framework for including video in your online course, a framework to help you focus your course development efforts by narrowing the process of making a video down to three main sequences of events. Begin by identifying the need for a video solution The proliferation of video-enabled devices, as well as the tradition of capturing lecture for use in online courses, may have set up the expectation that you

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Maximizing Your Synchronous Sessions – Part II: Agenda

by May 16, 2016

In the School of Professional Studies, most students are busy adult professionals who have to carefully carve time out to focus on coursework. This post is part two of a series on how to make the most of synchronous time, or time when all students in the course and the instructor are online at the same time. Part I focused on technology: how to choose an appropriate web conferencing tool, provide connection information to students, and give students the opportunity to test the technology prior to the session. This post provides three strategies to assist you in planning a synchronous

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