Category Archives: Academic Innovation & eLearning

08.30.21

Canvas Communication

Canvas. LLCC Lincoln Land Community College.

Upcoming Canvas Open Labs:

Canvas Open lab with AIeL Staff (Face-to-Face) – Sangamon Hall 0119 on Zoom (Links below)

Attend the Canvas open labs to ask the AIeL team your Canvas questions and to get any additional help with Canvas you may need. We will be available in S0119 and virtually through Zoom during the dates and times listed below. Registration is not required for open labs.

Virtual Canvas Q&A with Canvas Trainer – Zoom Link

Join us after the second week of fall classes for a live virtual training session with a Canvas learning specialist. We do ask that you provide your questions in advance, if possible. Submit your questions in advance by adding them to this online document. Registration is not required.
Woody Roper, Senior Trainer, Instructure Learning Services
Thursday, Sept. 2, 3-4 p.m.

Canvas Virtual Conference

Canvas’ annual conference, Instructurecon will be virtual again this year and registration is now open! Check out the agenda and sign up to attend the free, fully online professional learning event for educators and edtech users.

08.25.21

Canvas open labs and workshop recordings

Canvas. LLCC Lincoln Land Community College.

Upcoming Canvas Open Labs

Canvas Open Lab with AIeL Staff (Face-to-Face) – Sangamon Hall 0119

Attend this open lab to ask the AIeL team your Canvas questions and to get any additional help with Canvas you may need.  Registration is not required.

  • Thursday, Aug. 26. 2:30-3:30 p.m.
  • Friday, Aug. 27. 10-11 a.m.
  • Tuesday, Aug. 31. 2:30-3:30 p.m.
  • Wednesday, Sept. 1. 11 a.m.-noon

Virtual Canvas Q&A with Canvas Trainer – Zoom Link

Thursday, Sept. 2, 3-4 p.m.
Join us after the second week of fall classes for a live virtual training session with a Canvas learning specialist. We do ask that you provide your questions in advance, if possible. Submit your questions in advance via this online document. Registration is not required.
Woody Roper, Senior Trainer, Instructure Learning Services

Recordings of last week’s virtual workshops

If you were unable to attend our Canvas virtual workshops last week you may watch the session recordings provided in the links below.

Canvas Fundamentals: Getting Started – Recording Link

In this introductory session participants are introduced to the global navigation in Canvas, course navigation and content building with content pages.
Full Canvas Fundamentals Agenda
Woody Roper, Senior Trainer, Instructure Learning Services

Graded Content: Assignments & Classic Quiz Overview – Recording Link

The Graded Content workshop provides an overview of the development of Canvas course content and setup of graded assignments that build out the course gradebook. Advanced features such as weighted grades will also be addressed. This session will include instructions on developing quizzes in Canvas, as well as a discussion on quiz settings, question types, and question banks.
Full Graded Content Agenda
Anne Blackwell, Learning Specialist, Instructure Learning Services

Grading Set Up: Rubrics | Speedgrader | Gradebook – Recording Link

This session provides information on creating and setting up rubrics in Canvas, as well as provides an overview of Speedgrader and its feedback functions, tools and settings. The session also includes information on grading in Canvas as well as the Canvas Gradebook.
Full Grading Set Up Agenda
Pamela Loveridge, Learning Specialist, Instructure Learning Services

08.24.21

Monday Morning Mentor program

LLCC Academic Innovation and eLearning is continuing the Monday Morning Mentor programming by MAGNA Publications this year. Each weekly topic is presented by respected academic peers and covers timely and relevant topics in only 20 minutes — brief enough to fit busy schedules, but long enough to deliver valuable, actionable content. The weekly videos and support materials will be available for a full week so you  may view at a time that is convenient for you.

This week’s topic:
How Can I Create a Meaningful Online Learning Experience for Students?Presentation date: Aug. 23, 2021 and on-demand for one week
Link to the presentation: mondaymorningmentors.com

From this link, you can view the featured 20-Minute Mentor and access the transcript, handouts and supplemental material. These materials are only available for the week of the presentation.

NOTE: You will need to enter a password in order to view the program. See Monday’s email from Becky Parton for the password, or contact becky.parton@llcc.edu.

Access to the programs in the Monday Morning Mentor series is restricted to members of the subscribing institution. Any unauthorized use or access, including sharing access with faculty and staff not affiliated with the subscribing institution, is prohibited.

08.23.21

Canvas Learning Management System

As LLCC officially launches Canvas this semester, the Academic Innovation and eLearning team has developed the “Did You Know?” video series to provide quick instructions to common Canvas questions and functions. The first set of Did You Know videos (embedded below) are focused on semester Canvas getting started tips for faculty developing Canvas course shells.

Did You Know videos

Importing Blackboard Content into Canvas

Course Cleanup

Setting Up Your Home Page

Publishing Your Course

Additional Canvas Support:

  • AIeL Open Labs and Workshops: AIeL will be scheduling open labs, as well as Canvas hands-on workshops throughout the semester. These will be included in the AIeL workshop schedule released in September.
  • Canvas support 24/7 support: You may access Canvas support 24/7 through the Help link in your global navigation menu. From the Help menu you can access Canvas technicians directly through live chat support, phone, and the “report a problem” webform.
  • Canvas Training Services Portal: On-demand Canvas training is available to LLCC faculty through the Canvas Training Services Portal. In the training portal you will find a large number of self-paced online workshops and on-demand videos covering a wide variety of Canvas topics and tools. You may access the Canvas Training Services Portal through the Help link in the global navigation menu.
  • Panda Pros: A new support option provided by Canvas is Panda Pros. Panda Pros allows you schedule an appointment with a Canvas learning specialist for a live online meeting to answer your questions and help you setup your Canvas course shell. Appointments can be booked online through the link above.
  • AIeL Team: In addition to the above listed support options the AIeL team is here for you. You may visit us in person (walk-in or by appointment), call our office phones, contact us via Teams chat or video call, or ask for a Zoom meeting.  You may also visit the AIeL Canvas training page for additional support.
06.16.21

Kahoot! EDU Summit June 16-17

The Kahoot! EDU Summit, which begins today at 11 a.m., is a free virtual professional development event that shares information and tips on how to prepare a future-proof toolkit for coming back to the classroom. Sessions are designed for teachers of all levels, technology specialists and school leaders. Recordings of the sessions will be available to those who register.

View the schedule.
Register for the Kahoot! EDU Summit 2021.

06.07.21

LLCC named in top Illinois online criminal justice programs

Illinois Top 10 Criminal Justice Programs. CriminalJusticeDegreeHub.comLLCC has been named a top college in Illinois for online criminal justice programs by Criminal Justice Degree Hub in its recently published “10 Best Online Criminal Justice Programs in Illinois for 2021.” LLCC is ranked No. 10.

An announcement of the rankings states, “An online criminal justice degree program from one of Illinois’ colleges and universities helps working professionals make advances in their career … Students who need flexibility in their education due to work obligations are well-served.”

“LLCC offers online options for the associate in arts and associate in applied science degrees in criminal justice,” explains Becky Parton, dean of academic innovation and eLearning at LLCC. “Our faculty receive intensive training in online teaching, and with a low student-to-faculty ratio, our online students receive personal attention in their classes.”

For 24 years, LLCC has provided affordable, high quality courses online and maintains the highest level of accreditation for online teaching from the Higher Learning Commission.

06.01.21

SoftChalk summer workshops

SoftChalk will have a full range of live workshops via Zoom this summer. Upcoming Short Courses in June:

  • Getting Started 1: An Overview of SoftChalk Cloud
  • Getting Started 2: An Overview of SoftChalk Create
  • Enhancing Text with SoftChalk Create
  • TextPoppers, Images and Hyperlinks
  • Navigation Features and Sidebars
  • Embedded Media
  • Interactive Presentation Learning Activities
  • Interactive Scoring Learning Activities
  • Quizzes and SoftChalk ScoreCenter
  • Using SoftChalk Create With Your LMS

Visit SoftChalk’s Short Courses page for details and registration.

05.26.21

Blackboard access ends June 1 at 5 p.m.

As a reminder, user access to the college’s Blackboard system will end on Tuesday, June 1, 2021 at 5 p.m.

Please see the information and tutorials below for instructions on exporting your Blackboard course content and backing up your Blackboard grade center for each course.

Additionally, the LLCC Academic Innovation and eLearning team have developed a Canvas Training page to help you get started using the Canvas learning management system.

Specific online tutorials from the Canvas training page that will help you get started are :

Please feel free to reach out to any of the AIeL team if you have questions,

05.14.21

Reminder: College’s access to Blackboard ends June 1 at 5 p.m.

This is a reminder that user access to the college’s Blackboard system will end on Tuesday, June 1, 2021 at 5 p.m.

It is important that you follow the instructions below and backup any content you wish to retain, as well as backup course grades by exporting each course grade center out of Blackboard. For proper record keeping you need to export each course and export the gradebook for each course as a separate file. This should produce two separate files for each course in Blackboard that you intend to keep information from. Instructions on how to do each of these processes are below.

In addition to the linked information in the email below, we have developed the following video tutorials to help you with these processes.

We have also developed a Blackboard/Canvas transition webpage to support the move to the new learning management system. Please visit this site for further information and instructions to assist with transitioning your course materials.

If you have any questions about exporting course or gradebook content, please contact Andy Mitkos at andy.mitkos@llcc.edu, 217-786-2763 or Gary Bach at gary.bach@llcc.edu, 217-786-2345.

05.11.21

Monday Morning Mentor program

Each week, Academic Innovation and eLearning is sending out a link to a different Monday Morning Mentor program by MAGNA Publications. Each topic is presented by respected academic peers and covers timely and relevant topics in only 20 minutes — brief enough to fit busy schedules, but long enough to deliver valuable, actionable content.

This week’s topic: What Is the Best Leadership Advice I Ever Received?

https://www.magnapubs.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/2021-Spring-MMM-05-10.pdf
Presentation date: May 10, 2021 and on-demand for one week
Link to the presentation: mondaymorningmentors.com

From this link, you can view the featured 20-Minute Mentor and access the transcript, handouts and supplemental material. These materials are only available for the week of the presentation.

NOTE: You will need to enter a password in order to view the program. See Monday’s email from Becky Parton for the password, or contact becky.parton@llcc.edu.

Access to the programs in the Monday Morning Mentor series is restricted to members of the subscribing institution. Any unauthorized use or access, including sharing access with faculty and staff not affiliated with the subscribing institution, is prohibited.