educational technology – Teaching Hub

Engage Students with Socially Distant Annotation of Course Texts

June 25, 2020

by Nathan Loewen, Department of Religious Studies I hope that you and yours are keeping safe, healthy, and well this summer. With the University’s plan in place for Fall 2020, you might be taking more concrete steps in with your syllabus and course designs. Some of your planning might involve UA-supported online platforms and software. There are more than 200 faculty-written Teaching Hub blog posts, too, whose content you might adapt to your purposes. I wish to add to this list […]

Digital Tools, Foreign Lands, and Flying Machines*

August 6, 2018

by Nathan Loewen, Department of Religious Studies How would you prepare to visit a foreign country where English is not the primary language? How would you prepare to take along children? How do your ideas about preparing to travel compare to how you prepare to use digital tools? Does the analogy extend to how you prepare others to use digital tools? You may have gotten the point, but, I will try using another set of examples. How do you learn […]

8 Reasons Why Your LMS is Awesome for Teaching and Learning (Yes, Eight)

August 2, 2018

by Nathan Loewen, Department of Religious Studies This week, I learned about digital literacies.* My workshop leader was Jade Davis, the Manager of Digital Projects at Columbia University Library. Right at the beginning of the workshop, she stated why she loves the LMS. I have previously expressed skepticism about the LMS. Dr. Davis helped crystallize how my opinion of the LMS has begun to change. Here is why: Among all the digital platforms available, LMS providers are the ones most likely to […]

Apps for Better Class Participation

October 24, 2016

by John Miller, New College My father was a gadget man. He loved a new doo-dad. Even something called a “heat bar,” an aluminum hunk you plugged into a wall socket, whereupon it would (wait for it . . .) get hot. He bought a truck-load he was going to sell to keep Alabamian’s pipes from freezing. That – well — I’m not exactly saying he hid them at my grandmother’s house but… All this to say, I grew up […]

Creating a Positive “Feel” for Online Classes

October 17, 2016

by Natalie Loper, Department of English As online coordinator for UA’s First-Year Writing Program, one issue I consistently face is how to create a positive classroom environment in online classes. Unlike face-to-face classes, where teachers can casually chat with students before and after class, get to know them during conferences and office hours, and gauge student interest by reading body language and facial expressions, online teachers communicate with students primarily through writing. After an initial discussion board, where students and […]

Put Your Best Phone Forward: Cellphones for In-Class Projects

October 13, 2016

by Nathan Loewen, Department of Religious Studies How did you obtain your first smartphone? I got a hand-me-down iPhone 3 in 2011, and it changed my world. I was about to leave for a research project in India (thanks to a grant from Fédération des CÉGEPs). My research technologies were glitchy and their codecs did not play well together: a SONY voice recorder, a 2.0 megapixel, brick-sized digital camera, a Samsung video camera and a dusty old laptop on which I […]

How Padlet Can Help with Group Projects

October 12, 2016

by Lauren Cardon, Department of English During the Teaching Professor Technology Conference in Atlanta, I was a facilitator for a Strategy Swap session on group work. I met with two different groups of people for thirty minutes each, and we shared our strategies. Most of our discussion focused on group work in the classroom — that is, breaking students up into small groups to let them practice strategies we’re teaching them. However, in one of the groups, our conversation focused […]

Want to Help Students Annotate? Here’s a Hypothes.is

August 18, 2016

by Nathan Loewen, Department of Religious Studies How do you annotate your texts? How do you think your students annotate their texts? Among the likely answers to the former include writing marginalia and underlining with a pen or pencil. Some may answer the latter the same way. In any case, the typical method for doing close reading involves interacting with hard-copy. The situation changes when it comes to electronic formats such as PDF files and web pages. I use Blackboard to host a lot […]

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