Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Twiddla This...Twiddla That

Do students work in groups in your class?  Do you want to collaborate with other instructors in your area of teaching?  Are you looking for a free web-based meeting platform - or playground as Twiddla calls theirs - to share with your students or use yourself to make these meetings and interactions more productive and user-friendly? 

Check out what Twiddla is, what it can do for you and your students, the various features it can offer you and your students, and for a chance to try it out for yourself on the public playground.

A key aspect to note is that it is free to students and teachers by following these instructions:   "Sign up for a Free Trial, then send [Twiddla] an email from a .edu address,... and [they'll] hook you with a Pro account free of charge. [They're] at info@twiddla.com. Be sure to include your username!"

Let me know what you think and happy Twiddla-ing!

Heather Thomton-Stockman
Online Instructional Specialist

Monday, October 15, 2012

Prezify Your PowerPoints!

Are you looking for a way to jazz up your publisher created PowerPoint slides?  Why not Prezify them using Prezi's new PowerPoint feature?  You can quickly and easily adapt those static slides into an aesthetically engaging and interactively pleasing presentation using the tutorial and guides found here.

And, if you are really looking to add more value to these slides, you can go one step further by then using Jing or Screencast-o-Matic (I recommend Screencast-o-Matic as there may be some user access changes to Jing in the near future) to record an audio screencast as you go through and guide students through your Prezi PowerPoint.

Give it a try and let me know what you think!!!

Thanks,
Heather Thomton-Stockman
Online Instructional Specialist

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Articulate...Expert Perspectives

Welcome to Fall Quarter!

As you embark on the start of the new quarter, I encourage you to surround yourself with fresh ideas and fresh perspectives on e-learning.  To help you do this, I'd like to share a great resource that our Campus Director, Seth Tesdall, shared with me awhile ago.  It is called Articulate.com and I've been following this e-learning community for awhile and find it really interesting and insightful.

To use the words from Articulate.com directly, they deem themselves as E-Learning Heros offering a "high-powered community where you’ll find" David, Jeanette and 107,816 e-learning professionals.

They have:
  • "Step-by-step tutorials for building better courses
  • Fast answers to your e-learning questions
  • Advice and opinions from industry experts
  • Free downloads for your projects"
As you start the new quarter, I encourage you to reach out to this community to get new ideas and new perspectives to then take back with you to your online course(s).

Have a great start to the quarter!

Heather Thomton-Stockman
Online Instructional Specialist