Bringing TOPkit Digest to You
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Contents of this Digest:
- Video Tip: Transitioning Course Content from Face-to-Face to Online
- Registrations: TOPkit Workshop, Innovation Summit, Florida Virtual Campus
- Top Tips: Mobile Design Considerations for Your Faculty
- From the Community: Mobile Device Takeover
- Ask ADDIE: Mergers & Acquisitions - Models of Curriculum Design Review
- Top Community Topics
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VIDEO TIP
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Transitioning Course Content from Face-to-Face to Online
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Victor Ventor offers insight into how faculty need to rethink the delivery of their face-to-face courses when transitioning to online.
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TOP TIPS
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Mobile Design Considerations for your Faculty
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With smartphone ownership at nearly 100 percent and tablets owned by the majority of students, it’s important to remind faculty that online learning isn’t exclusive to a desktop anymore. Faculty development should include training elements that maximize the learning and user experience on any device. The following tips focus on how quick, common-sense adjustments can maximize the effectiveness of any course for all users regardless of platform.
#1 - Remember Students are Using Mobile Devices, Even If You Aren't
Many schools now have smartphone adoption rates well above 90% and tablets above 50% per the Educause Center for Analysis and Research data in the infographic "Getting to Yes". It's crucial to remind faculty that students use mobile devices, not just for personal reasons, but to support their education and expect a quality experience when away from their computer.
#2 - Chunk Content
According to a Canvas Mobile App survey administered by the University of Central Florida, students spend 2/3rds less time each session on a mobile device when accessing online coursework compared to a computer. To better accommodate this experience, consider suggesting that faculty chunk larger sections of content into smaller well-organized parts.
#3 - Be Mindful of File Formats
Remind faculty that traditional file formats such as Word and PDF can produce a subpar reading experience and be less accessible on a smartphone. Consider using publishing tools within an LMS to create content that supports native app features like enlarging text, high contrast modes, and text-to-speech.
#4 - Use Mobile-Friendly Media
Faculty need to consider removing file formats, such as Java and Flash, that lack support for mobile devices. If these technologies need to be a part of a course, it's important to remind faculty to let students know to view the content needs on the computer.
#5 - Provide Mobile Device Instructions and Prompts
Mobile devices and computers are physically different, which requires a unique user interface and experience. Remember to emphasize to faculty about avoiding references to specific aspects of the user interface when giving instructions (ex: Click the next button, Click the submit button above), because these elements could be different on mobile.
#6 - Inform
As a best practice, remind faculty that if a portion of a class is not mobile-friendly, it's important to be upfront and inform students of alternative ways to view the content, complete an assignment, or participate in the class.
#7 - Review Your Courses
Some faculty don't use mobile devices, and that's okay, but it's important to remind them to review their courses on a mobile device anyway. With more and more students using mobile devices to access their courses, their success and satisfaction isn't exclusive to the computer anymore.
Ryan Seilhamer, Assistant Director, Mobile Strategy and Innovation, University of Central Florida
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FROM THE COMMUNITY
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Invading classrooms all over campus and distracting students from the learning process! A complete takeover of every student in the classroom and no way to stop it! No educational value and a tool whose only use is for joking over text messages and wasting time on social media!
Are these some of the thoughts that come to mind when you imagine students using “mobile devices” in your classroom? Even if your thoughts are not to the above extreme, having mobile devices in your classroom can still be intimidating to “allow” in your classroom and even more intimidating, to try integrating them into your curriculum.
More on "Mobile Device Takeover" in the TOPkit Community of Practice post.
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Ask ADDIE
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Mergers & Acquisitions: Models Of Curriculum Design Review
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Dear ADDIE,
I’m an Instructional Designer at a R1 university where our teaching and learning center has recently merged with our Academic Technologies team. As part of this process, I’ve been asked to lead a curriculum review of all the workshops, institutes, and training we offer to our teaching community (this includes faculty, graduate students and post-docs). This is a large task that involves reflecting on what competencies we want them to have, and where there is overlap or gaps in our offerings. One of the attributes we want to assess is modality and where it might make sense to increase our offerings either fully online or blended. My questions are: What suggestions or recommendations do you have for designing online faculty development courses? Are there specific examples where a self-paced, fully online facilitated or blended might be the best choice? What approaches have others taken to broadly reviewing all their offerings and going through the process of curriculum mapping?
Signed,
Lost in Translation
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Content Coordinator and Contributor
Ryan Seilhamer, Assistant Director, Mobile Strategy and Innovation, University of Central Florida Editor
Bren Bedford, MNM, Web Project Analyst, Center for Distributed Learning, University of Central Florida
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