11/21/2024

• Quick Tip - New Analytics
  
• What's New with Webcourses@UCF
  
• Getting Started with New Quizzes - Upcoming Workshops
  
• Video Tip - Accessibility Checker in Webcourses@UCF
• CDL "10 Wednesdays" Sessions
  
• Design with Quality in Mind - Promote Community through Student Introductions
  
• Upcoming Events - AIM High, Innovation Summit
• Kelvin's Corner - How to Be Creative on Demand
  
• Book Discussion Group - Connecting in the Online Classroom

Wonder how engaged your online students are with your course content. New Analytics allows you to view the Weekly Online Activity of your students by charting page views and participation. Participation analytics are defined by specific actions a student takes in the course and can be used to identify trends in the course. To view the Weekly Online Activity graph, go to New Analytics and click on the Weekly Online Activity tab.

To learn about additional options in the Weekly Online Activity feature of New Analytics, visit How do I view weekly online activity analytics in a data table in New Analytics?

This weekend’s Canvas (aka Webcourses@UCF) update has two items worth mentioning:

BigBlueButton Conference - When using BigBlueButton, users can enable a waiting room in Conferences Settings. Additionally, in Conferences, users can add conferences to the calendar and update or sync attendees.

Schedule Page Publication – This feature allows instructors to prepare content in advance and to automatically publish the page on a specific date and time. Scheduled pages remain invisible to students until the set date and time.

View the October 15, 2022 Canvas Release Notes.

If you haven't heard, Classic Quizzes is retiring. Beginning Spring 2023, faculty and staff will begin the process of migrating from Classic Quizzes to New Quizzes in Webcourses@UCF. Learn about the new tools and features, see a demonstration of New Quizzes, and ask questions about how this migration will affect your quizzes. This workshop is available to all UCF faculty staff, and GTA's who use Webcourses@UCF.

• In-person Sessions
• Online Session

To see a full list of changes to New Quizzes, please visit the UCF Quiz Migration page.

This video will show you how to use the Webcourses@UCF Accessibility Checker within the Rich Content Editor to ensure your course content is accessible.

CDL is hosting in-person activities for online credentialed faculty every Wednesday through November 16th (“10 Wednesdays”). Sessions are up to one-hour in length and emphasize practical and fun tips for enriching your online teaching practice. Join us!

Popping the Hood on the Quality Initiative

Event Date: October 19, 2022

Are you teaching an online or blended course that you know is awesome? Or do you have a course that you’ve taught for a while that could be due for a spring cleaning? Have a one-on-one conversation with your Instructional Designer to discuss the best aspects of your course and the areas that could be improved.

Check out other "10 Wednesdays" sessions.

Fostering a sense of community in an online course is one of the most important steps to a successful experience. Check out Promote Community through Student Introductions for ways to promote the development of the class community through student introductions.

As you continue to look for ways to improve your online and blended courses, check out the other posts in Design with Quality in Mind, a growing collection of brief articles based on UCF’s Quality and High-Quality Course Reviews, that describe ways to support all students to succeed in your online courses. 

Innovation Summit

Event Date: March 30, 2023

The call for proposals submissions and event registration is open for the 5th Annual Florida Innovation Summit occurring on March 30, 2023.

We all need a little creativity in our course design and teaching now and then. This month Kelvin recommends an article from the Harvard Business Review titled “How to be Creative on Demand” by Joseph Grenny. In the article Grenny provides six suggestions for establishing habits that foster a greater likelihood of creative inspiration.

Kelvin Thompson is the Executive Director for the Center for Distributed Learning. He is always finding, sharing, recommending interesting and insightful resources about teaching and learning.