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Online Intercultural Exchange: Save the lost (in translation) with an emoji ;-)

On October 9, 2019, President of the United States, Donald Trump, wrote a letter to the President of the Republic of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, expressing concerns and sharing his advice on the situation in Turkey. What version of this letter do you want to read? English? Turkish? I suggest grabbing the one floating around social media. It is simple, fun, and without the need for interpretation. It was written in a universal language: emojis!

Emojis placed to symbolize the message sent from President Donald Trump to the President of the Republic of Turkey

A picture is worth a thousand words. When it comes to communicating with people from different cultures, that picture can be an emotional icon, called an emoticon, or a small pictograph of a face or object, called an emoji.

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Virtual and Augmented Reality in Education

The age-old question of how to keep learners engaged is being answered by new age answers:  augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and mixed reality (MR). With these emerging technologies, topics come to life for students. The experiences are novel, learners have control over their interactions, and can therefore become immersed in their experience.

Without any equipment except my cell phone, I tapped into the free Google Expeditions app and invited a virtual skeleton into my office:

an image of a virtual skeleton in an office

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SLATE 2019 Takeaways

Something I like to do for this blog is to post a review of any conferences I attend. My hope is that anyone who is struggling to find the right conference can look at my reviews as a guide to help find the “right fit” for them. 

This year I attended the SLATE conference in Naperville, IL. This was my second time attending and it had been several years since I last attended SLATE. The first time I went, the focus and content within the conference was very BlackBoard heavy. DePaul uses D2L, so the focus on BlackBoard really limited the sessions I could pick from.

I decided to give SLATE another chance this year to see if they broadened their learning management system (LMS) coverage. Sadly, for me, even though it wasn’t as Blackboard-centric, the only other LMS included was Canvas. I found myself with a limited amount of sessions to choose from, again, because the sessions were heavily based around LMS offerings that DePaul does not use. Despite the limited options, however, I did find some sessions that proved to have useful takeaways.

There also seemed to be a focus on new products, rather than new concepts, this year. Which I should preface with at this point, factoring the amount of conferences I have gone to and what I have already learned by working with my knowledgeable colleagues at DePaul, it’s getting harder to go to conferences and have those “eureka” moments. Continue reading →

Chemistry and Diversity & Inclusion at DePaul University: A Metaphor

Traditionally, Colombia celebrates Chemist’s Day (El día del Químico) every year on October 31st. The Colombian Council of Professional Chemists organizes events or meetings to help celebrate the day (https://cpqcol.gov.co/eventos/dia-del-quimico/). In short, today is certainly a big day for chemists around the world, but especially in my home country, Colombia. On account of this day, and given my role not only as a chemist but also as the Associate Provost for Diversity and Inclusion at DePaul University, I feel very motivated to write this short blog post wherein I attempt to link chemistry and diversity, at least symbolically. Continue reading →

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Best Practices for Video Use in Instructional Design

“We can just record my existing PowerPoint slides.”

The phrase always sends shivers down my spine.  Not because recording PowerPoint slides isn’t effective, as in some situations it can still be useful, but because of the seemingly flippant attitude of the “just” part.  If only it were that easy, and a recorded PowerPoint was the end-all solution for online learning.

This is always where we start our conversation that, in essence, defines my ethics of video lectures in instructional design.  This is a very loose framework, and not necessarily based on any particular theory I’ve encountered, but rather through observations of multitudes of online courses using various approaches to content delivery and seeing what works based on the course and the context.  Simply deploying a “video” isn’t really that simple.

Recently, I heard a phrase that I think sums this up nicely: “You haven’t yet mastered a tool until you understand when not to use it.” Continue reading →

A Brief Look at Open Educational Resources (OER)

This summer, Pearson announced it will transition to a “digital-first” model where their future textbook releases will primarily be in continually-updating digital formats. On the heels of an announcement that McGraw-Hill and Cengage will merge, this decision highlighted a large problem for textbook providers: how to expand access and reduce costs.

Of course, it’s worth noting that while Pearson states they are “commitment to lowering the cost of higher education,” nearly two-thirds of their revenue now comes from digital products.

These decisions directly impact the two-thirds of faculty reported requiring textbooks (and nearly half requiring articles/case studies in their classes according to one study). So as faculty and students feel the pressure of skyrocketing textbook price inflation, the majority of students who do not have access to textbooks cannot do so because of cost. In fact, in one survey, 65% of students reported skipping buying a textbook because of costs.

While many faculty attempt to control costs by supporting used textbooks, rental programs, or placing copies on reserve, there is another option: Open Educational Resources (OER).

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Do You Speak My Design Language?

My wife and I recently returned from a two-week trip to Italy. It was my first time ever in the country and my first time to Europe in over a decade. We were hopping from AirBnB to AirBnB for over a week, living out of a carry-on-size bag each, before we stayed at a place that included a much-needed washing machine. But as we got ready to wash our clothes, there was a problem. We had no idea what the icons on the machine meant. 

A circular dial with small icons around the sides. Continue reading →

Where Do You See Yourself in 5 Years? A Look at Strategic Planning and Your Stakeholder Goals

As part of faculty and learning support staff in higher education, the phrase strategic plan is a term central to projects to pursue, resources to allocate, and roles to identify for the university or institution. Where do you fit in the grand scheme of your institution’s agenda and vision? Does your work as an educator matter in the midst of corporate, large-scale goals? How can you support a strategic plan? If you’re a student, you may wonder how a strategic plan is supposed to benefit you in the midst of an often corporate-feeling objective. 

Since I am employed at a university with a newly minted strategic plan, and I also study at a school with a new strategic plan in progress, to ignore the significance placed on institutional priorities is unavoidable. My day-to-day work as an instructional technology consultant is framed in terms of Grounded in the Mission 2024. The support programming and resources available to me as a student are under town hall debates with the university president. If successful in its implementation and process, a strategic plan should be apparent to all stakeholders, albeit in different ways. Continue reading →

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Lights, Camera, Action: A Quick Guide to Better Lecture Videos

Have you ever made a lecture video? If so, have you watched it? What do you think about your pacing, the environment you shot in, and your performance?

More importantly, what do you think your students would say about your videos? Would they say you’re:

            Boring?

            Unfocused?

            Hard to see or hear?

            In a distracting environment?

            Verbose?

Fear not, even with the driest of materials, you can still put on a scintillating lecture. Today I’ll share with you some tried and true techniques to get the most out of your filming time, and to improve the end product both for you and for your students. Continue reading →

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Becoming an a11y: Inclusive Design in the Classroom

For years, the staff in my office have been talking about and writing about a platform of accessibility and concepts of Universal Design. Erin largely talked about a movement within accessibility called the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework. UDL focuses designing and ensuring that spaces —physical or digital— can be used by virtually anyone. Joe, built upon this idea by explaining the three pronged approach that UDL uses:

  1. Provide multiple means of engagement
  2. Provide multiple means of representation
  3. Provide multiple means of action and expression

Dee introduced some basic ways that we can implement these principles directly into our courses. However, while I was at D2L’s annual conference a couple weeks ago, I realized that we’ve done a pretty good job explaining what accessibility is, but we’ve never interrogated why it matters. Continue reading →