by Nathan Loewen, A&S Faculty Technology Liaison Melissa Green recently hosted a Blackboard RoundTable where she remarked that Flipgrid is now among the UA-licensed platforms. Anyone can use their UA email (username@ua.edu or username@crimson.ua.edu) on the Flipgrid Sign Up page to “Sign up with Microsoft.” My colleague Jennifer Roth-Burnette suggested I contact members of the
Category: Virtual Learning
Preparing Today’s Students for Tomorrow’s Workforce: An Adobe Creative Campus Collaboration Recap
by Nathan Loewen, Department of Religious Studies Meagan Bennett and Nathan Loewen presented remotely to the Adobe Creative Campus Collaboration event. They discussed some aspects of how UA approaches the extraordinary conditions of 2020-2021. If you scroll down a few paragraphs, you will see what Sebastian Distefano took away from our presentation, he wrote, “Knowing
Creating Learning Communities with WordPress, Slack, and Adobe Creative Cloud
Presented by Nathan Loewen at the 2021 Adobe for Education’s Creative Campus Collaboration on April 14, 2021. Two Perspectives I wish to talk about specific methods I and my colleagues adopted for pre-, inter and post-pandemic teaching.* I come at this with two perspectives: Teaching – As a freshly-tenured professor of religious studies at a
Using Discord + GitHub to Organize Small Group Active Learning
by Nathan Loewen, Faculty Technology Liaison & Department of Religious Studies Based on an interview and materials shared by Dr. Traci M. Nathans-Kelly, College of Engineering at Cornell University I recently spoke to Dr. Traci Nathans-Kelly, who is a partner teacher for Games Design courses at Cornell University, where they have used Discord for Spring 2020
Discord App Adds Options for Remote Learning & Teamwork
by Nathan Loewen, Faculty Technology Liaison & Department of Religious Studies Someone responded to the survey for Last Week’s Teaching in 2020 with a comment about the Discord app. It turns out plenty of people use Discord for teaching and learning (Several teachers in France and Quebec are adopting Discord). Here are the experiences of
16 Community-Building Ice-Breakers for Zoom
by Nathan Loewen, Department of Religious Studies Among the many objectives for the first day of class, for some teachers, is to create a sense of community. Many of the strategies used face-to-face may be adapted to the online environment. Here are some ice-breakers that have worked in the past. They may be adapted to
Three Ways to Construct Supportive Online Courses
by Jaimie Choi, Department of Psychology As COVID-19 swept the country, many of us have transitioned to virtual teaching, using diverse platforms that deliver online lectures. Unfortunately, despite the convenience of being able to lead a lecture in our pajama pants, there are many studies that cast light on the psychological pitfall that follows being
Using Gradescope to Give Detailed Feedback on Assignments
by Nathan Loewen, Department of Religious Studies/eTech Did you notice the “Gradescope” option under the “Build Content” option in your Blackboard courses in Fall 2020? Perhaps you also noticed the Gradescope resources posted by the Center for Instructional Technology? Thanks to the support of the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Engineering, and
Messaging with Slack Improves Class Communication
by Lauren Horn Griffin, Department of Religious Studies I’ve been using Slack, a communication and collaboration tool, with the students in my Fall 2020 course REL310, “REL Goes to the Movies.” The app has given me more insight into student understanding and progress (those formative moments) than the live discussions where only some participate. Due
Zoom Roleplay Practices to Teach Theory and Case Studies
by Elif Kalaycioglu, Political Science A key goal for my hybrid, advanced seminar this semester is to get students to think about the multiple roles that expertise plays in diverse domains of global politics. This requires familiarity with a range of IR theories on expertise, as well as linking these theories to concrete case studies.