Interested in contributing to our blog? Please email tls@carleton.ca to find out how.

Monday, May 6, 2019

Blog: Personalized education

By Ali Arya, Associate Dean (Planning and Awards), Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs and Associate Professor, School of Information Technology While the number of university students has increased in the last few decades, the rising cost of university education, the introduction of online methods of acquiring knowledge, and more recent... More

Monday, March 25, 2019

Blog: Emerging trends in educational technology

By Sabina Hajizada, Educational Technology Specialist, EDC A number of education-related experts and research think-tanks have made their annual predictions of the trends that will most likely dominate in the educational technology landscape this year: Artificial Intelligence (AI) Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality (AR/VR) Internet of Things (IoT)... More

Wednesday, February 20, 2019

Blog: Embedding change as a principle in our pedagogy

By Morgan Rooney, Educational Development Coordinator, EDC Change is hard. It can be hard to see when it’s necessary, or to envision concretely what it might look like, or to actually implement it. When it comes to teaching, there are a lot of factors working against change: our workload, our perceptions of ourselves and... More

Wednesday, January 30, 2019

Blog: Adding interactivity to your course with H5P

By Allie Davidson, Educational Technology Development Coordinator, EDC Are you looking for a new way to add interactivity to your cuLearn course? Are you curious about how to improve the look and feel your cuLearn course activities to increase student engagement? H5P may be the tool for you! H5P is a new cuLearn plugin... More

Monday, December 17, 2018

Blog: Even basic skills can be forgotten with disuse

By Kevin Cheung, Associate Professor, School of Mathematics and Statistics A recent article in The Globe and Mail had the following headline: “One in four Ontario postsecondary students lacks basic literacy, numeracy skills, studies say.”  The reports for the actual studies can be found on the HECQO website. The authors of the studies... More

Monday, December 3, 2018

Blog: Connecting instructors through the Poll Everywhere Community of Practice

By Kim Loenhart, Educational Technology Development Coordinator, EDC On November 07, 2018, the Educational Development Centre held its first Poll Everywhere Community of Practice (PECP) lunch. Seven experienced professors came together to share lunch and ideas about using Poll Everywhere in the classroom. The participants spanned teaching... More

Tuesday, October 30, 2018

Blog: Effective use of study time

By Kevin Cheung, Associate Professor, School of Mathematics and Statistics A recent article in Inside Higher Ed refers to a study that describes an unsuccessful attempt at helping students increase study time from 15 hours a week to 25 hours a week. Perhaps the results are not too surprising. Anyone who has attempted to go on a... More

Wednesday, August 29, 2018

Blog: On failing gloriously at experiential learning

By Shawn Graham, Associate Professor, Department of History I’m the digital humanities guy in the history department. But, I don’t know what these things – “digital history” or “digital humanities” – are, what they look like, what they could be. That’s the line with which I start almost every course I teach around here. After... More

Tuesday, July 3, 2018

Blog: Math – Yours to discover

By Kevin Cheung, Associate Professor, School of Mathematics and Statistics Now that the PC party has won majority in Ontario, one question that many Ontarians will be asking is whether Doug Ford will live up to his pre-election promise of repealing discovery math. Any discussion on the merits of discovery math is potentially contentious. There... More

Tuesday, June 26, 2018

Lightboard – Illuminate your teaching

By Mathew Schatkowsky, Instructional Designer, EDC Do you have a process or a sequence that you need to illustrate for your students? Lightboard might be the answer for you. Lightboard is a large sheet of glass powered by colourful LED lights. It can be used to create short, engaging videos that showcase the instructor drawing or... More

Monday, June 18, 2018

Reflections on a Choose Your Own Adventure-type experiential learning activity at the Museum of Nature

By Allie Davidson, Educational Technology Development Coordinator, and Tamara Vaughan, Educational Technology Development Coordinator In a 2011 interview, one of the founders of the Choose Your Own Adventure book series, R.A. Montgomery, had this to say about experiential learning:  “Experiential learning is the most powerful way for kids, or... More

Monday, June 11, 2018

Blog: Bundled Indigenous knowledge for the Carleton University classroom

By Kahente Horn-Miller, Assistant Professor, School of Indigenous and Canadian Studies In 2016, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada made several calls to action to address systemic racism in Canada’s language and culture, child welfare, health care, judicial, and education systems. In the recommendations for reconciliation specific... More

Monday, May 28, 2018

Writing a math eBook part 4 – A new beginning

By Kevin Cheung, Associate Professor, School of Mathematics and Statistics “This isn’t working,” I said to myself after using VoiceOver on my MacBook Pro to read my math eBook for a few minutes. So I started to find out what was wrong. Minutes of searching turned into hours. Hours turned into days. Eventually, I... More

Monday, May 7, 2018

Writing a math eBook part 3 – 20 years of MathML

By Kevin Cheung, Associate Professor, School of Mathematics and Statistics In my previous blog post, I mentioned the need for explorability when it comes to making long or complex math expressions accessible to readers with minimal or zero vision. Before getting into the specifics of exploring math expressions, let us take a step back and... More

Monday, April 30, 2018

Blog: Writing a math eBook part 2 – Basic accessibility issues

By Kevin Cheung, Associate Professor, School of Mathematics and Statistics I find it unfortunate that the word "eBook" is used to refer to a collection of electronic resources on a particular subject. Whenever I hear the word "book", I can't help thinking about a physical book. I don't think I am alone in this... More

Monday, April 23, 2018

Blog: Teaching for umami: Savoury learning experiences

By Tonya Davidson, Instructor II, Department of Sociology and Anthropology My first year teaching a third-year qualitative methods course at Carleton went all right. It was a small class and I assigned some challenging readings, attempting to pair theoretical and methodological how-to readings with demonstrations of those same qualitative methods... More

Monday, April 23, 2018

Blog: Teaching for umami: Savoury learning experiences

By Tonya Davidson, Instructor II, Department of Sociology and Anthropology My first year teaching a third-year qualitative methods course at Carleton went all right. It was a small class and I assigned some challenging readings, attempting to pair theoretical and methodological how-to readings with demonstrations of those same qualitative methods... More

Monday, April 16, 2018

Blog: Writing a math eBook part 1 – Choosing an authoring tool

By Kevin Cheung, Associate Professor, School of Mathematics and Statistics Having just completed an eCampusOntario-funded open eTextbook project with my collaborator, Mathieu Lemire, and the rest of the team members with expertise in editing, accessibility, instructional design, open learning, library services and finances, I would like to share... More

Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Blog: Building trust between instructors and students

By Mathew Schatkowsky, Instructional Designer, EDC “Trust between teachers and students is the affective glue binding educational relationships together.” (Brookfield, 1990) Why build trust? There are positive outcomes for students when they are engaged in a course and when they feel they can speak to their instructors. Micari and Pazos (2012)... More

Monday, January 29, 2018

Blog: Fostering resilience among university students

*This blog was later published in University Affairs. By Dr. Kim Hellemans, Department of Neuroscience The increase in mental health problems among university students over the last decade has received considerable attention as of late, both in the academic literature and in the media. Current statistics estimate that approximately one-fifth of... More

Monday, January 15, 2018

Blog: Should we retire the term “Multiple Intelligences”, as well?

By Maristela Petrovic-Dzerdz, Supervisor, Instructional Design In 2015, I wrote the blog “Should we retire the term ‘Learning Styles?’”. Many eminent academics and educators have written about this learning myth, and I have only tried to do my small part in generating some discussion around the topic. In that blog post, I quoted Howard... More

Wednesday, January 3, 2018

Blog: Simple changes you can make in your classroom and cuLearn for the New Year

By Elspeth McCulloch, EDC Manager of eLearning The longer I work in higher education, the more attracted I am to those small things we can do to make teaching and learning more effective. Recently, an article came into my Twitter feed that had some useful and timely ideas I wanted to share with you.... More

Friday, November 10, 2017

Tips for Building Accessibility into Word Documents

By Kim Loenhart, Educational Technology Support, EDC Many instructors and TAs upload Word documents in cuLearn to provide instructions to students for assignments or lessons. The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), 2005, requires instructors to ensure that documents are written to prevent barriers to access for people with... More

Monday, October 16, 2017

Blog: Ed tech tips for better instructional videos

By Kim Loenhart, Educational Technology Support, EDC Did you know that all Carleton instructors and TAs have access to software that allows you to create lecture recordings and/or screencasts on video? Capture (TechSmith Relay) is available to download for free and is installed on every classroom computer on campus. Lecture recordings provide a... More

Wednesday, September 27, 2017

Blog: The new and improved BigBlueButton

By Elspeth McCulloch, EDC Educational Technology Development Coordinator BigBlueButton is a tool that you can use for student conferences, office hours, exam review and presentations. But if you thought you knew BigBlueButton, it might be time to take another look. The recent updates improve the interface, functionality and overall user... More

Wednesday, August 30, 2017

Trying cuLearn on for size – Getting your students engaged in digital learning

By Elspeth McCulloch, Educational Technology Development Coordinator As we ramp up to what is sure to be a very busy Fall term, getting cuLearn set up and ready to go is a priority for many of us at Carleton. Whether this is your first time using a learning management system or you are an... More

Wednesday, August 23, 2017

cuPortfolio – What is it and why is everyone talking about it?

By Allie Davidson, EDC Educational Technology Development Coordinator In the past year, you may have heard about Carleton’s ePortfolio system, cuPortfolio. Maybe you noticed emails in your inbox about how the tool is being used across the university or maybe you heard about it from a colleague who has tried it out in their... More

Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Blog: Overcoming illusions of competence

By Kevin Cheung, Associate Professor, School of Mathematics and Statistics I first heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect from biology professor James Cheetham. It is named after Justin Kruger and David Dunning who wrote a paper titled “Unskilled and Unaware of It”. The effect is often seen on TV in some popular talent show auditions, such... More

Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Blog: Considerations for assessing impact

By Kevin Cheung, Associate Professor, School of Mathematics and Statistics When instructors make changes in their teaching, they often want to know the impact of such changes.  Even though countless studies in higher education exist in the literature, conducting a proper study that meets statistical rigour is hardly a walk in the park. As... More

Monday, June 5, 2017

Poll Everywhere: The fidget spinner for higher ed?

By Kim Loenhart, Educational Technology Support, EDC Fidget spinners are all over the news these days as kids adopt this new tool to deal with sensory and attention needs. Keeping the fingers busy has been promoted as a way to refocus students, provide sensory input and stimulate bored minds. While mostly in the realm... More

Wednesday, May 17, 2017

Blog: The power of images in the classroom

By Kim Loenhart, Educational Technology Support, EDC Well-chosen images offer powerful teaching potential. Perhaps nothing gets people talking more than a compelling image or a visual mystery. Consider the viral online discussion surrounding the white and gold dress (or blue and black dress, if you’re one of those people).  This simple image of... More

Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Blog: Learn at your own pace as long as you pay

By Kevin Cheung, Associate Professor, School of Mathematics and Statistics When Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) began to take traction in 2011, there was much fanfare about how higher education could be democratized. The possibility of opening up courses offered at top universities for the masses led some to believe that the gap between the... More

Wednesday, May 3, 2017

Blog: 10 things you can do to rev up your course

By: Elspeth McCulloch, EDC Educational Technology Development Coordinator Why not spend a few minutes getting your course ready for the summer or fall term with an EDC course tune up? Sign up to work with an educational technologist to tweak, edit and rethink how you use cuLearn so that you and your students get... More

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Blog: ePortfolio – The nail in the coffin of ‘the dog ate my homework’ (and other merits)

By Julie Lepine, Contract Instructor, School of Linguistics and Language Studies Okay, so maybe the excuses of your university students are not as juvenile as ‘the dog ate my homework’ (or maybe they are!), but I’m sure you’ve all witnessed the slightly panicked, slightly defiant face of a student who has ‘forgotten’ to bring... More

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

Blog: Data-driven course improvement

By Kevin Cheung, Associate Professor, School of Mathematics and Statistics As I start to become more familiar with cuLearn, I realize that there is a lot of course data that can be useful for improving the learning environment for my students. Without a doubt, the ability to perform complex queries in cuLearn is limited.... More

Share: Twitter, Facebook
Short URL: https://carleton.ca/tls/?p=454