Spring 2013 issue of IALLT is available now

The latest issue of the IALLT Journal for Language Learning Technologies, a peer reviewed academic journal published by the International Association for Language Learning Technology (IALLT) is now available at http://www.iallt.org/iallt_journal

Some highlights of this issue that may be of interest to SLLC faculty are:

• Online Online Peer Feedback in Beginners’ Writing Tasks: Lessons Learned Feedback
• Exploring the Benefits of ACMC for Speaking Development
• Effectiveness of Computer-Graded vs. Instructor-Graded Homework Assignments in an Elementary Spanish Course: A comparative study at two undergraduate institutions
• Enhancing Student Engagement through Online Authentic Materials
• Sociocultural Theory-Guided College-Level Mandarin Chinese Hybrid Course Design
• Using Web 2.0 to Learn the Spanish Pretérito and Imperfecto
• Collaboration through Wiki and Paper Compositions in Foreign Language Classes
  

Canvas updates available for 6/1

06.01.13 - New Release Screencast from Instructure on Vimeo.

Teaching this summer?

• All courses for the summer have already been added to Canvas. You do not need to request a space.
  
• Students are added to your course space within 24 hours after enrollment. If you are finding that there is a discrepancy, please let me know.
  
• You can add people temporarily (Designer, Observer and Student two week pass) by logging into the ELMS management tool at http://www.elms.umd.edu and clicking on "Manage Enrollments".

Best Practices

• Customize your course home page http://guides.instructure.com/s/2204/m/8472/l/57075-how-do-i-change-the-course-home-page
  
• Disable the course navigation items you are not going to use. This will decrease student confusion on how your course material is organized. For a brief tutorial, check this link: http://www.screencast.com/t/ne2eqQxc
  
• Getting Started Recommendations: https://umd.instructure.com/courses/916657/wiki/getting-started-recommendations
  
• Canvas Instructor Quickstart Guide http://guides.instructure.com/m/8472

CANVAS or COURSE DESIGN ASSISTANCE

Because of the construction in Jimenez hall, my office is unavailable and I will be temporarily located in the French conference room in 3106 Jimenez. If you would like to meet for any Canvas assistance, email is the best way to get in touch with me. To view potential meeting times, please check my online calendar and sign up here: http://bit.ly/RkGVFe

Feel free to sign up for a block of time and I can either meet with you in your office or in the French conference room.  I can also meet with you virtually on Skype - my username is janelbrennan and I am usually logged in during work hours.

Instructure Canvas support staff are available 24/7 either by calling 877-399-4090 or by clicking on the Help link after you log into elms.umd.edu. From there you can elect to "Chat with Canvas Support" or to "Report a Problem". Canvas staff cannot help with enrollment issues so you will need to contact me or elms@umd.edu to report the problem.

To stay up to date on any Canvas updates and workshops, be sure to check http://elms.umd.edu/

Sloan Consortium Workshops for May

The Sloan Consortium is an institutional and professional leadership organization dedicated to integrating online education into the mainstream of higher education, and helping institutions and individual educators improve the quality, scale, and breadth of online education.  The Division of Information Technology sponsors this institution's membership in the Sloan Consortium, which provides faculty, staff, and graduate students access to the online workshops provided throughout the year.  The May workshops are now open for registration.

* New to Online: The Essentials (May 3-10)

* Student Satisfaction: Feedback (May 3-10)

* Learning Environments: Teaching & Learning with Online Science Labs (STEM) (May 3-10)

* Leadership in Online Education: Structures and Models (May 3-10)

* YouTube for Learning (May 14)

* Enhancing Distance Learning with Audio and Video (May 17-24)

* Online Literacy Issues: Strategy for Currency (May 17-24)

To register for these free workshops, please go to www.training.umd.edu and click on "Sloan-C Online Workshops" in the Course Catalog.

For more information, please contact Deb Mateik at um-training@umd.edu.

Sites to see - Flickr Poet, Voicethread, Google Earth

Flickr Poet - works in many languages
http://www.storiesinflight.com/flickrpoet/index.php

FlickrPoet is part of Stories In Flight, an ongoing exploration of storytelling in the age of the Internet. Just enter a paragraph of text, a poem, some lyrics or even just a few random words and FlickrPoet will find matching photos on Flickr based on a search of tags, titles and descriptions of the photos.
- You can re-run the search with other images by clicking "Show Story" again.
- Poems and lyrics seem to work best, hence the title, but feel free to experiment.

Voicethread allows educators to use a single tool to host secure conversations around almost any type of media, whether it's videos, documents, images, or presentations. Present course materials within a rich, online environment that fosters a warmer and more engaging dialogue around ideas and concepts. http://ed.voicethread.com
Click here to read about how Oberlin college is using this tool as a final exam in a language course: Teaching outside of the textbook and inside of the museum

Have you heard about Google Lit Trips?
For three years, English teacher Jerome Burg has been using Google Earth to teach literature. Each "Lit Trip" involves mapping the movements of characters over a plot's timeline and providing excerpts, pictures, and links at each location. Read more about it here:
http://www.openculture.com/2010/02/google_lit_trips.html