Illinois Compass 2g Training Series

Illinois Compass 2g: The Essentials

In this hands-on workshop participants will practice building and organizing content within the Illinois Compass 2g environment. Special emphasis will be given to teaching tools including Assignments, Discussions, Quizzes, and the Grade Center. The workshop facilitator will also provide examples of best practices drawn from research on teaching and learning in both online and face-to-face settings.

• Duration: 2 hours
• Event type: Workshop
• Event sponsor(s): CITES Academic Technology Services

Illinois Compass 2g: The Grade Center

In this hands-on workshop participants will learn to use the Grade Center to manage grading in their Illinois Compass 2g sites.  Participants will learn how to grade assignments, upload scores, manually enter scores, develop calculations to determine student averages, and determine final grades.

• Duration: 2 hours
• Event type: Workshop
• Event sponsor(s): CITES Academic Technology Services

Illinois Compass 2g: Discussions and other Interactive Tools

In this hands-on workshop participants will learn how to create, manage, and grade a variety of discussion forums within the Illinois Compass 2g environment. The workshop facilitator will also provide examples of best practices drawn from research on discussion-based activities in online and face-to-face settings.

• Duration: 2 hours
• Event type: Workshop
• Event sponsor(s): CITES Academic Technology Services

Illinois Compass 2g: Assessing Students with Assignments

In this hands-on workshop participants will learn how to use the Assignments tool to assess student performance. Participants will practice creating assignments, viewing and grading student submissions, providing feedback to students, and publishing submissions to the class. The workshop will also cover the "Assignments" and "Needs Grading" areas of the Grade Center, and discuss best practices drawn from research on teaching and learning with web-based assignments.

• Duration: 2 hours
• Event type: Workshop
• Event sponsor(s): CITES Academic Technology Services

Illinois Compass 2g: Assessing Student Performance with Tests, Surveys, and Pools

Did you know that Illinois Compass 2g offers more than fifteen (15) question types? In this hands-on workshop, participants will practice creating online tests and surveys to assess student performance and seek student input. Special emphasis will be given to experiencing a test from the student perspective. This workshop will also cover the "Tests" and "Needs Grading" areas of the Grade Center, and best practices for teaching and learning with web-based assessments.

• Duration: 2 hours
• Event type: Workshop
• Event sponsor(s): CITES Academic Technology Services

Illinois Compass 2g: SafeAssign

SafeAssign is an anti-plagiarism tool available within Illinois Compass 2g. SafeAssign compares submitted papers to multiple online databases to determine whether the papers contain material that matches content previously published. In this workshop, we will teach you how to create a SafeAssignment within your Illinois Compass 2g course, how to enable students to submit their writing for evaluation, and how to evaluate the reports generated by SafeAssign.

• Duration: 2 hours
• Event type: Workshop
• Event sponsor(s): CITES Academic Technology Services

• Strongly recommended: the Illinois Compass Essentials workshop and/or experience with using Illinois Compass as an Instructor and/or Designer

Illinois Compass 2g: Question & Answer Walk-in Clinics

Struggling with the Grade Center? Not sure if your assessment idea will work? Forgot how to set up groups in Illinois Compass 2g? At these informal walk-in clinics, CITES Academic Technologies consultants will be on hand to assist you with all your questions on a first-come first-serve serve basis.

Illinois Compass 2g: Grade Center Walk-in Clinic

This clinic is for existing users of the Illinois Compass 2g Grade Center. We'll tackle all of your questions about calculating final grades, creating and managing grade columns, importing final exam grades, posting final grades, and other Illinois Compass 2g Grade Center issues on a first-come first-serve serve basis.

Illinois Compass 2g: Space Request Workshop

During this 30-minute training workshop, CITES Academic Technology Services staff will walk through the new Space Request application for Illinois Compass 2g, and address individual questions about the course site request process. This workshop will help you to:

• Be sure that lab or discussion sections appear properly in the Grade Center.
• Be sure that cross-listed courses have all sections included.
• Be sure that the proper number of sites are requested for instructors teaching multiple courses.
• Find the right site configuration for courses with multiple instructors or TAs.

llinois Compass 2g: Where's my Content? Managing your Moved Course Content

This workshop is for instructors who have chosen to have their course content moved from their Illinois Compass site to Illinois Compass 2g.  Workshop facilitators will help you locate your assignments, discussion boards, weblinks, and other course materials, and configure them to function in the new Illinois Compass 2g environment.

• Duration: 2 hours
• Event type: Workshop
• Event sponsor(s): CITES Academic Technology Services

Illinois Compass Training Series

Illinois Compass Essentials

This introductory hands-on workshop helps instructors, staff, and TAs get started using Illinois Compass. Working in a practice Compass course site, you will learn how to add content to your course page and organize it effectively. Demonstrations and hands-on practice introduces you to many Compass features including building assignments, communicating with students, and simple management of the Grade Book.

• Duration: 2 hours
• Event type: Workshop
• Event sponsor(s): CITES Academic Technology Services

Illinois Compass: Assessing Student Performance with Online Quizzes

Do you need to use surveys, self-tests, and quizzes in Compass to supplement your teaching? Illinois Compass assessment tools offer potential for enhancing your teaching in the online environment. In this brief workshop, we will explore and discuss how you can use the assessments as we create various questions and assessments.

By the completion of this workshop, you will be able to:

• Explain when to use each type of assessment,
• Create several question types, and compose a sample quiz,
• Manage quiz submissions and grades, and
• Customize selective release settings.

• Duration: 2 hours
• Event type: Workshop
• Event sponsor(s): CITES Academic Technology Services

• Strongly recommended: the Illinois Compass Essentials workshop and/or experience with using Illinois Compass as an Instructor and/or Designer

llinois Compass: SafeAssign

SafeAssign is an anti-plagiarism tool now available within Compass. SafeAssign compares submitted papers to multiple online databases to determine whether the papers contain material that matches content previously published. In this workshop, we will teach you how to create a SafeAssignment within your Compass course, how to enable students to submit their writing for evaluation, and how to evaluate the reports generated by SafeAssign.

• Duration: 2 hours
• Event type: Workshop
• Event sponsor(s): CITES Academic Technology Services
  

• Strongly recommended: the Illinois Compass Essentials workshop and/or experience with using Illinois Compass as an Instructor and/or Designer

Illinois Compass: Teaching with Online Discussions

Next to the Grade Book, online discussions are the most widely used feature in Compass. In this hands-on workshop, we'll explore best practices for engaging students in threaded discussions, blogs, journals, and other online writing assignments. Learn how to create discussion posts that incorporate hyperlinks, images, and web pages, and how to grade discussion activities quickly and easily. We will also discuss methods of facilitating discussions effectively to enhance teaching and learning.

• Duration: 2 hours
• Event type: Workshop
• Event sponsor(s): CITES Academic Technology Services

Illinois Compass: Forming Groups in Compass

Illinois Compass has a number of tools to help instructors create online discussion groups, group assignments, and group projects. This hands-on workshop will cover how to set up student groups in Compass and discuss effective practices for supporting online group activities.

• Duration: 2 hours
• Event type: Workshop
• Event sponsor(s): CITES Academic Technology Services

• Strongly recommended: the Illinois Compass Essentials workshop and/or experience with using Illinois Compass as an Instructor and/or Designer

Illinois Compass: Using the Grade Book

This hands-on workshop covers the basic features and functions of the Illinois Compass Grade Book. Learn how to enter and edit grade book data, create various types of columns, edit column data, use simple formulas, and import or export grades using a spreadsheet.

• Duration: 2 hours
• Event type: Workshop
• Event sponsor(s): CITES Academic Technology Services

Illinois Compass: Question & Answer Walk-in Clinics

Struggling with your grade book? Not sure if your assessment idea will work? Forgot how to set up groups in Compass? At these informal walk-in clinics, CITES Academic Technology Services consultants will be on hand to assist you with all your questions on a first come-first serve basis.

Illinois Compass: Grade Book Walk-in Clinic

This clinic is for existing users of the Illinois Compass Grade Book. We'll tackle all your questions about calculating final grades, calculating columns, importing final exam grades, posting final grades, and other Compass Grade Book issues.

Illinois Compass: Course Site Request Walk-in Clinic

At this walk-in clinic, CITES Academic Technology Services staff will individually assist instructors and TAs with the course site request process for Illinois Compass. Stop in any time during clinic hours and a staff member will show you how to:

• Be sure that lab or discussions sections will appear properly in the grade book.
• Be sure that cross-listed courses have all sections included.
• Be sure that the proper number of sites are requested for instructors teaching multiple courses.
• Find the right site combinations and configurations for courses with multiple instructors or TAs.

Teaching with Technology Training Series

Wikis and more: Collaborative tools for faculty research, service, and teaching 

Want to collaborate with colleagues on campus or in Cleveland or Cairo, facilitate your students' group projects, or serve on committees with fewer meetings? CITES Academic Technology Services is here to help. The campus wiki makes it easy to create documents and collaborate online. NetFiles gives you space to collaborate with peers; store, move, and distribute files with built-in Web space, available everywhere the Internet reaches. Within an hour, we'll have you ready to get started, and you can follow up with consultation on your specific projects.

• Duration: 2 hours
• Event type: Workshop
• Event sponsor(s):
  • CITES Academic Technology Services

Using Clicker Technology to Enhance Student Learning 

The i>clicker, invented here at the University of Illinois, is a student response system developed to increase student engagement, promote discussion, provide feedback, and improve learning in class. Over 200 faculty in a variety of disciplines on our campus have adopted this teaching/learning tool. In this workshop, we will discuss best practices, types of i>clicker questions, and how to get started using i>clicker in your course.

• Duration: 2 hours
• Event type: Workshop
• Event sponsor(s):
  • Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE)
  • CITES Academic Technology Services

Blended Learning: Meeting the Challenge of Blended Learning

Do students need to meet in a physical class for three hours a week to learn the most from a course? Recent research suggests that replacing some physical classroom hours with virtual activities can actually increase student performance. Across the disciplines, instructors are exploring various blended formats to offer the best of both worlds but shifting traditional instruction to an online format requires careful restructuring of course content. This session features a variety of small group activities highlighting the pedagogical and technological challenges of blended learning. Come prepared to discuss creative solutions for replacing some portions of your course with online activities in any learning management system.

• Duration: 2 hours
• Event type: Workshop
• Event sponsor(s):
  • Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE)
  • CITES Academic Technology Services

Blended Learning: Facilitating Online Discussion

In both blended and fully online courses the discussion forum is the most widely used tool in a course management system, but encouraging students to converse online in a meaningful way continues to be a challenge. The answer is to become a more effective facilitator of online discussion activities. This workshop features a variety of small group activities and draws upon recent research to present useful tools and suggestions for managing online discussions in any learning management system.

• Duration: 2 hours
• Event type: Workshop
• Event sponsor(s):
  • CITES Academic Technology Services

Blended Learning: Instructional Design for Blended and Online Courses

Instructional design is an organized approach to planning course content and activities. Drawing from research on course development models and rubrics, we will work in small groups to redesign parts of your online or blended course. Along the way we'll also talk about learning styles, learning objectives, useful web tools, and other media to enhance your instructional design. Whether you are creating a new course or redesigning an old one, this hands-on workshop will give you a framework for rethinking your course design while sharing insights and suggestions with colleagues.

• Duration: 2 hours
• Event type: Workshop
• Event sponsor(s):
  • CITES Academic Technology Services

How-to Series: Getting Started with Multimedia

Original multimedia can be very useful for presenting course material but its not always easy to get started. CITES Academic Technology Services will take the mystery out of some of the most common types of media you can produce yourself and present to your students. We will demonstrate creating a basic podcast, recording a movie of your computer screen with voice over narration, as well as video recording, editing, and generating a movie from a camera. In addition to demonstrating the basics of creating these forms of micro lecture, we will show you how you can post each of them online and link them to your Illinois Compass 2g or Illinois Compass course so your students can hear and see them.

• Duration: 1.5 hours
• Event type: Presentation
• Event sponsor(s):
  • CITES Academic Technology Services

How-to Series: Teaching with Google Maps

This hands-on workshop will have you tripping down memory lane as you create a Google map of your own home town. Learn how to highlight specific features, add facts and information, and share your maps with others. Suggestions for pedagogical activities and concerns for privacy will be addressed.

• Duration: 2 hours
• Event type: Workshop
• Event sponsor(s):
  • CITES Academic Technology Services
    

• Requirements: Participants need to establish a Google account before coming to class

How-to Series: Teaching with RSS (Really Simple Syndication)

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) makes it easier and faster to keep up with news and other changing information on your favorite websites. Rather than visiting websites individually, you can get new content sent directly to you. RSS feeds can help you stay on top of new developments in your discipline. There are also many possibilities for instructors to use RSS for student learning projects, reflections, discussion, and continuing education. In this workshop, you will learn how to subscribe to RSS feeds for various types of websites using Google Reader and explore its functions as a social and collaborative resource.

• Duration: 2 hours
• Event type: Workshop
• Event sponsor(s):
  • CITES Academic Technology Services

How-to Series: Teaching with Twitter

More and more educators are using Twitter to share information, express pedagogical ideas, carry on discussions, search for content, etc. While the sheer volume of "tweets" may seem overwhelming, there are several tools and strategies that can make it a very manageable resource. In this workshop you will learn how to tweet messages, organize the way you view and receive other people's tweets, use hashtags to search for content, and use Twitter for live discussion and note-taking. Participants are strongly encouraged to create a free account at twitter.com beforehand in order to have more time during the workshop to explore Twitter's vast potential as a professional resource.

• Duration: 2 hours
• Event type: Workshop
• Event sponsor(s):
  • CITES Academic Technology Services
  • Recommended: Participants are strongly encouraged to create a free account at twitter.com before class