Tag: discussion board

Ten Ways to Spice Up Online Discussions: September Online Learning Webinar

by Sep 13, 2016

Instructional Technologist Jackie Wickham hosted the September Online Learning Webinar, Ten Ways to Spice Up Online Discussions. The recording is available on Blue Jeans, and you can provide feedback and suggest topics for future Online Learning Webinars. The ideas and resources that Jackie shared in the webinar are outlined below: Require students to use media – a picture, audio, or video – in their discussion posts. This Canvas Guide shows how to record and upload video within Canvas. Use the Discussion Analytics tool developed by Northwestern Information Technology to get data on student participation and discussion themes. Encourage storytelling. Asking

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Nebula: February 2016 Online Learning Webinar

Feb 10, 2016

The February Online Learning Webinar focused on Nebula, a new tool developed by Northwestern’s department of Industrial Engineering and Management Science in collaboration with Northwestern Information Technology. Nebula integrates with the discussion board in any Canvas course to build a visual network graph of the course discussions. For more information about Nebula, see this blog post. The recording of February’s Online Learning Webinar is available here. If you’re interested in learning more about Nebula, participating in a test discussion, or adding Nebula to your course, contact Jackie Wickham.

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Nebula: A Graphic Interface for Discussion Forums

by Jan 19, 2016

Northwestern’s department of Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences and Northwestern Information Technology have created Nebula, a tool that presents discussion forum activity as a visual network graph. Nebula was developed to increase interaction and collaboration in the discussion board environment. Using Nebula, students and faculty can see the entire discussion board history on one interface. Different node colors represent participants’ own contributions, and the read or unread status of each discussion post. The size of each node on the network graph represents the length of the post. These attributes allow discussion participants to easily visualize their activity in the class

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Yellowdig: September 2015 Online Learning Webinar

by Sep 03, 2015

September’s Online Learning Webinar session featured Yellowdig, a Facebook-like tool for the Canvas classroom. Shaunak Roy, founder and CEO of Yellowdig, joined the Distance Learning team on Wednesday to describe and discuss the merits of the tool. If you missed it, there is a recording of the session available. To learn more about Yellowdig, please watch the informational video below. Introducing Yellowdig from yellowdig on Vimeo. If you are interested in piloting Yellowdig in your classroom, please reach out to us distanceeducation@northwestern.edu. Look for the next Online Learning Webinar in the first week of October. NUIT and Yellowdig are piloting the

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Increasing Student Engagement in Discussion Boards

by Jul 13, 2015

At InstructureCon 2015, I attended the presentation “Creating Online Learning Communities through Discussion Boards” by Marcella Caprario and Belinda Clements from Council on International Educational Exchange – Teaching English as a Foreign Language (CIEE-TEFL) The presentation highlighted three key findings after a year of analyzing discussion board posts in their course and researching different theories of student engagement in the online space. Instructor presence, when frequent and planned, on discussion boards increased student engagement in the boards – both in the quantity and quality of postings. Tips for instructors: Be active on the boards so students know you’re listening. Summarize

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