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Canopy Biweekly Newsletter: Stay Updated on eLearning at UC
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Canopy, the University of Cincinnati's eLearning ecosystem. It's innovativev, collaborative and student-centric.

eLearning champion

Yu-Chin Fu

As Director of IT for McMicken College of Arts & Sciences, Yu-Chin Fu propels A&S IT forward by building a strong IT community, resulting in the first ever A&S Blackboard course template.  Read more...

bb news & updates

Bb Downtime, Dec. 22 from 5 - 8 a.m. (3 Hours)
Blackboard will be unavailable from 5 to 8 a.m. on Monday, Dec. 22 for scheduled updates. Details can be viewed at uc.edu/canopy/scheduled-maintenance.

Bb Scheduled Maintenance 2015
Blackboard scheduled maintenance for 2015 is now available to view at 
uc.edu/canopy/scheduled-maintenance. From this point forward, all Blackboard maintenance will now be performed on the second Thursday of every month from 5 - 7 a.m.

Blackboard.uc.edu Automatic Redirect
By spring break 2015, blackboard.uc.edu will no longer redirect to canopy.uc.edu. Please take this opportunity to update your bookmarks.

Bb Legacy No Longer Available by Jan. 30
Bb Legacy, UC's Blackboard system prior to the upgrade this past year, is reaching it's end of life. On Jan. 30, bblegacy.uc.edu will no longer be available.

For questions or concerns regarding any of these announcements, please contact the Help Desk at 513-556-4357 or at helpdesk@uc.edu.

events


 
Dr. William Rankin
Director of Learning, Apple Inc.
Learn more about innovations in eLearning with Bill Rankin, Director of Learning at Apple, Inc. He will be on the Uptown Clifton Campus for a discussion and meet ‘n greet Thurs., Jan. 29.

Prior to joining Apple, Rankin worked as an academic in higher education for twenty-four years. As Director of Educational Innovation at Abilene Christian University, Rankin helped design the world’s first one-to-one that gave every student an iPhone or iPod touch as a platform for exploring next-wave mobile learning.

Stay tuned for more information about the next speaker in our eLearning Speaker Series.

training

Upcoming trainings:
Thursday, Jan. 15:
Embedding Librarians in Blackboard to Enhance Student Learning
1 - 2:30 p.m.

 
Sign up for a training session today on Faculty OneStop.

Open Consultation Days
Thursday, Jan. 8 & Friday, Jan. 9
9 a.m. - 4 p.m.

 
Faculty using Blackboard to support face-to-face, hybrid, or online courses during the spring semester are invited to work one-on-one with instructional designers and instructional technologists during Open Consultation Days.

ID and IT experts will be available to address topics that range from structuring learning modules to increasing student engagement through multimedia or setting up grade centers. This is the perfect opportunity to have technology questions answered before classes start.
 
Open Consultation Days are hosted by the Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in conjunction with the Center for Excellence in eLearning (formerly the Faculty Technology Resource Center). If you are interested in scheduling a consultation, please contact CET&L Program Manager Brenda Browning at 513-556-9319 or CETL@uc.edu.

winter season days

December 25 - January 4: Limited IT Support

The IT@UC Service Desk will have limited staff on call to respond to IT emergencies and other major incidents during Winter Season Days. To report an IT emergency, please contact the Service Desk locally at 513-556-HELP (4357), toll free at 1-866-397-3382, or via email at HelpDesk@uc.edu. The Service Desk will resume normal operations on Mon., January 5, 2015.

For general support and self-help resources, visit the IT@UC Knowledgebase at kb.uc.edu.  The Knowledgebase is a 24/7, self-service site where students, faculty and staff can find answers to their every-day technology questions.

nominate

Do you know someone who is excelling at eLearning? Nominate him or her to be an eLearning Champion! Just submit his or her name, a brief explanation and a headshot to ucitpio@ucmail.uc.edu.

get involved

Get involved! If you are interested in becoming an active member of this growing eLearning community, please email ucitpio@ucmail.uc.edu and let us know how you would like to be involved. Or, join the eLearning conversation by following our Twitter feed @UCCanopy!
@UCCanopy
@UCCanopy
Our goal is to communicate the latest news related to UC’s eLearning ecosystem, Canopy. If you have input, please email us at ucitpio@ucmail.uc.eduView past publications of the Canopy Newsletter in our newsletter archive at uc.edu/canopy.

Please Note: Due to Winter Season Days, the next edition of the Canopy newsletter will be sent Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2015.

eLearning backpackers

We are proud to introduce cohort I of the eLearning Backpack Project:


The eLearning Backpack Project is an initiative to provide faculty with backpacks loaded with tools as an opportunity for them to reimagine how they create/deliver course content and engage with their students.

The first cohort of backpackers have been chosen and paired with members of the Center for Excellence in eLearning, who have set aisde 20 hours of group and one-on-one partnership per semester to help the members with their vision, to identify use cases and to establish best practices for these new services.


Listed below are the chosen 10 backpackers, their college and course information along with how they plan to use the backpack tools.

Let's meet them!
 
Ruth Benander
UC Blue Ash—Intro to English Composition

She plans to use Camtasia, the wireless mic, and Swivl to produce high quality video and sound recordings for students to review outside of class. Coaching videos will accompany assigned readings so that students can better understand assignments and have guidance outside of class. The videos will also have embedded quizzes to measure comprehension. She hopes that the tools offered through the backpack project will help students understand how to better use their experience in class with private study at home.
Krista Wood 
UC Blue Ash—General Physics II

She plans to use the iPad in class to have students write out problems and representations that can be mirrored to the class projector using the Apple TV. She also wants to use the Wireless USB Mic and Swivl to capture group interactions and discussions to create a collaborative and interactive classroom environment. She thinks that using technology to move more content outside of class will provide more in-class time to develop the higher level critical thinking skills necessary to understand physics.
Daniel Waddell
McMicken College of Arts & Sciences—Organic Chemistry II

He wants to create more digital content for students to access outside of class, so that more class time can be spent on peer-to-peer learning and problem solving. He notes that the headset and iPad will be especially useful with the Camtasia and Kaltura tools for uploading content in a user-friendly format.
Sherry Donaworth 
College of Nursing—Pharmacology for Adv Nursing Practice

She wants to develop interactive case studies for pharmacology students that will be accessible on an iPad. She also wants to present cases in the classroom and record them using the iPad Swivl. Being able to take additional cases, lectures and speakers from other courses and record them with Kaltura and the iPad Swivl will bring supplemental content and learning opportunities. She thinks that making the interactive cases interesting and accessible through the iPad will help boost student use and interest.
Udo Greinacher
DAAP—InMotion - Elective Theory/Lab

He thinks that all of the tools in the backpack will be relevant and useful in his class. He hopes students will benefit from the ability to share content directly from their iPhones or laptops to the big screen. He thinks this will make discussions more interesting and will increase participation and retention.
Wendy Eisner
McMicken College of Arts & Sciences—Crowded Greenhouse

She thinks the Swivl camera will be a game changer when it comes to student presentations, allowing them to review and critique each other’s projects and encourage participation. She also looks forward to using the Wacom tablet as she teaches the class because it allows teachers to draw and annotate as they move around the class and interact with students.
Michal Raucher
McMicken College of Arts & Sciences—History of Jewish Civilization II

She plans to record her lectures using Swivl, so that she can review her own teaching styles and improve. The Apple TV will also help make her lectures more dynamic by providing her access to documentaries, films and TV clips. She also wants to use the iPad and microphone in class to call primary sources for student interviews during class. She thinks that these tools will engage the students and make the class material easier to learn. By giving the students multiple opportunities to absorb information, it will give them multiple ways of connecting to it on a more personal level.
Gary Dick
College of Allied Health Sciences—Research II

He wants to learn about new technologies as he uses them to teach his students. With over 30 years of teaching experience, he is looking to propel his teaching methods into the 21st century using a variety of eLearning technologies.
Todd Foley
ProPEL—Intro to Coop CEAS

He would like to start a precedent of utilizing progressive teaching technologies to enhance the engagement and learning of students who go on co-op. He plans to use the technology provided to create video lectures to be watched in advance of classes; edit his Keynote presentations on the fly during class; record in-class lectures, presentations, and activities; poll students during class and incorporate Skype lectures. He believes this will allow for more individualized instruction, thus transforming the learning environment.
Julia Montier-Ball
McMicken College of Arts & Sciences—Career Development for Arts & Sciences
She hopes to boost her course enrollment by offering graduating seniors an alternative way to access the course and fit it into their busy senior schedules. By transforming it into an asynchronous learning environment, she believes more A&S students would be motivated to take the course because they would still feel included in class activities, guest speakers, lectures, etc., and interact with peers.
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