There has been this trend to map either individual stories or certain events, or works of fiction to bring them to life in geographical terms. The most obvious ways to use this would be to have students map out stories of their clients, clearly refugees, immigrants, and those who have moved a lot are best suited for this type of…

This week it’s an easy tip for those who often update their forms or other files in Blackboard. The first impulse is to go and edit the item/page and upload a file and link it. As a result, you will end up with two files in the file structure, the old one and the new one (however, if you keep…

We, the online folks, often have a running list of things to do, and our environment is such that we may be working in cafes, at home, at libraries, in hotels, you name it! Plus, the constant potential disruptions in the form of incoming Skype calls, emails, actual phone calls, meetings we need to attend, virtually or otherwise, and sudden…

Many of us, both students and instructors, are enrolled in several, or even dozens of courses. Here are some tips on how to manage the flow of Blackboard posts, notifications and the courses you see on the home page. To see how you can leverage the post stream from the Dashboard, view the video below. Please note that “@me” option…

When the Blackboard was updated, many instructors were thrilled to see the inline commenting feature which allowed them to pinpoint their comments to a particular line or even word when grading an assignment. Did you know that Google Docs has a similar feature and it’s one of the best uses of Google Docs for collaboration? How it can be used:…

We often view copyright as a nuisance, and it may be in certain instances. But along with protecting the rights of the owners and creators of intellectual property, copyright provides for rights of users to view, distribute, modify and do other things with certain materials for a fee or free of charge (such as under Fair Use). Fair Use guidelines start…

At a request of a faculty member, I have been researching some video presentation options beyond the standard Microsoft PowerPoint presentation. I began my research in Google Docs (Google Drive). If you have never done it, you should at least give it a shot. You will like it. In fact, you may like the Research Tool enough to share with your…

This may be the perfect time to address some of the issues that will eliminate issues down the road. If you have been using the Retention Center (which, by the way, is quite awesome!), you will notice that as your library of courses grows, so does the number of notifications coming from them, alerting you that your students haven’t logged…

Creating viral videos on purpose? It might just work! Sure, writing papers is academically significant and is a way to demonstrate understanding, analysis, and such. No question that putting together a website is collaborative and there are opportunities to make changes after peers offer feedback on the project. But, what if good videos carried a good message – and through…

Well, we are no strangers to taking advantage of efficiencies, so we are proudly presenting someone else’s handiwork here, for you may find it hugely helpful. This article in The Chronicle of Higher Education explains how to filter your image search results in Google Search based on rights to reuse. As some of your current courses are moving into a…