Discussion: Introduce Yourself & Weekly Timeline for participation

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2014-03-11T13:40:47-06:00

Getting Started

Welcome again to IPT 286: Technology Integration in Secondary Education. For this online course we will be using Canvas, a Learning Management System (LMS) by Instructure that supports lots of great tools. One of these tools is the discussion page like the one you are in now. For this class we will be having lots of discussions using the video feature in the discussion pages. Please watch the videos below to learn how to navigate Canvas and how to make video discussion posts.

Introduction to Using Canvas

Creating Video Discussion Posts

Weekly Timeline

As a part of this course, you will be required to make a video post and respond to someone else's post nearly every week. To ensure everyone posts their video comments in a timely manner, thus allowing others to view them and make side comments, we will follow the schedule shown below. To receive points for participation you must make your posts by the deadlines indicated below!

Tuesday - New week begins. If you have finished the previous week's assignments, you are welcome to start early. Be sure to check Canvas to see if we are meeting in person or online.

Thursday - By this day, you should have viewed the content on the discussion pages and made your first video post responding to any required prompts.

Monday - By this day at midnight, you should have completed any assignments and engaged in the discussion with your peers (be sure to have replied to at least one other person's post).

How you get graded - At the end of the semester, you and I will look at your overall participation throughout the semester and determine a participation grade. To qualify for full points, basically just come to class and be a thoughtful participant when you are supposed to come to class, and when we are doing things online and I ask for your discussion participation (as I do below), then do that! Not every page in Canvas asks for a discussion, but it should be clear, as it is on this page, when you should be doing it!

Frequently Asked Questions

1. I get a black screen when I try to use my webcam.

It is possible that your network is too slow, and you might try a faster network. Most likely your Java (which runs many things on the web including screencast-o-matic and your webcam) is not up to date. Try doing a search for "download Java" and download the most recent version. Some browsers work better with Java than others (Chrome for some reason doesn't work well), so you might try a different browser too.

2. I can't see the instructional videos posted here

This could also be due to the browser and/or computer not being up to date, so try using a different browser. For some reason, it seems Chrome has more challenges than others.

3. I still can't get it to work so I can leave video comments

Try clicking on the Youtube button to the left of the video button. This will use a Youtube recording app, but will work just as well. It will ask you to log in to your Youtube account, and you'll then record with your webcam and hit save and it will post the video from Youtube automatically into your post here in Canvas. If this is not working, it may be that we forgot to enable this option when we created this section of Canvas, so just remind us.

Discussion

Now that you know how to create a video post, let's practice!

Instructions

1. Create a short video post introducing yourself. Tell us your name, your experience with technology, and one technology you would love to learn this semester if you got the chance.

2. Watch the videos added by other students so you can get to know them.

3. Respond to 1 person's video (in the form of a video post) by telling them hi and some other appropriate comment (such as, hey I like Basketball too!).

This is the same procedure we'll use in the discussion posts so we can all have a chance to collaborate with each other.