AI and Universal Design for Learning

 

AI-driven tools are increasingly shaping classrooms through adaptive learning platforms, tutoring systems, lesson-planning assistants, and other educational technologies. Their true potential, however, is realized when they are designed and implemented using Universal Design for Learning <UDL> principles. By combining what we know from learning science through Universal Design for Learning with the personalization capabilities of AI, we can intentionally design learning experiences and tools that support all learners from the outset, rather than relying on time-consuming retrofits later.

AI has already enhanced many traditional assistive technologies, such as text-to-speech and voice recognition, making them more accurate and natural-sounding. The next exciting frontier for AI in learning lies in its ability to reduce cognitive load. In this phase, AI functions as assistive instruction by helping individuals more efficiently understand and process information.

When AI is intentionally integrated with Universal Design for Learning, these tools make content more accessible and support deeper, more meaningful engagement for all learners.

 

3 Ways AI & Universal Design for Learning Can Mix:

1.       AI equals Assistive Instruction.

People with disabilities often rely on assistive technologies to learn and navigate the world. AI has already improved many of these tools, such as text-to-speech. The next major opportunity for AI in learning is its ability to reduce cognitive load by helping learners more quickly understand and process information. For individuals with executive functioning or language-processing challenges, tasks like organizing information or reading complex texts can be exhausting barriers to deeper learning. AI tools that adjust reading levels or simplify complex content. such as scientific explanations, can make academic material more accessible and support meaningful engagement.

When combined with Universal Design for Learning, these tools help learners access content more easily and engage more deeply.

2.  Don’t Retro-fit – Co-Design! 

Frequently, educational technology is designed with an “average” student in mind.  Because no learner is truly average, this approach often results in hidden barriers within the technology that excludes many learners. These barriers require educators and institutions to spend additional time and resources modifying or accommodating tools after the fact for those they do not initially serve. Instead of retrofitting solutions, you should account for learner variability from the beginning and actively include learner voices in the design process.

By co-designing with learners and applying Universal Design for Learning principles from the outset, developers and teachers can reduce barriers, improve accessibility, and reach a broader audience. Importantly, involving diverse voices, such as people with disabilities and multilingual learners, early in development often leads to more innovative and effective solutions that benefit all users.

3.  Use Universal Design for Learning to support AI-Tool Development and AI Literacy.

Everyone brings unique perspectives and experiences to learning, so we should not treat them the same. To address this predictable variability, Universal Design for Learning provides a framework for identifying and reducing hidden barriers that limit access.

The theory’s guidelines can assist AI developers in anticipating learner needs, and by building multiple means of engagement, representation, and expression. When educators apply Universal Design for Learning, they create more accessible learning environments, strengthen learner agency, and offer flexible pathways to success. AI can further extend these benefits by providing personalized support tailored to individual learners. Beyond AI-powered tools, the Universal Design for Learning guidelines should also inform the design and implementation of AI literacy education to ensure it is accessible, flexible, and inclusive for all learners.

It is important to understand that AI is a tool and not a solution.  When using this tool with the guidance of the principles of Universal Design for Learning, they can help create more effective learning environments. One should always be cautious with AI applications and use them responsibly. When doing so, they offer several fecund options for education.

Intelligent Agents in Brightspace

Intelligent agents in Brightspace are not really “intelligent” or GenAI.  Instead, they are rule-based automation tools that monitor learner activity and trigger targeted actions, such as: personalized feedback, or reminders. There are two key actions intelligent agents can do:

1. Change user roles (permissions) and (un)enroll users (Administrator level access required)
2. Instructors can email students alerts based on a triggered rule (Instructor level access)

Intelligent Agents as Instructional Agents

Intelligent agents can help put teaching plans into action automatically so they can immediately reach students, keep them engaged, reduce repetitive tasks, and use course data to guide your teaching in online or hybrid classes. This seems like a lot, but essentially in Brightspace they offer actions that can be automated by conditional statements.

Create and Employ an Agent

You can create an Intelligent Agent by:

1. Going to Course Tools on the NavBar and selecting Course Admin
2. Scroll Down to the Communication tools and select “Intelligent Agents” 
3. Select “New Agent”
4. The New Agent will have 4 features:
1. General: The Basics
1. Give the Agent a Name (Required)
2. Give the Agent a Description
3. Select a Category (Optional – you may need to make one using “Add Category”)
4. DO NOT Select “Agent is enabled.  Only do this once the agent is ready to be deployed. You may want to test your agent first.
2. Scheduling: Do you want this to be something done daily or once?
1. NOTE:  Student patience is fragile. Be careful not to overdo it!
3. Criteria: What triggers the action?
1. Who is affected by their roles:
1. It is best to choose all in the Classlist.
2. Using specific roles requires care.  You could email other course instructors or librarians (folks with roles other than students).
2. Take Action or Activity
1. Select warnings for late log in activity by either:
1. Brightspace Log-on
2. Course log-in (this is best)
3. Release Conditions: This is a vast list of options.  Some include:
1. Not posting in a discussion section
2. No Quiz Attempts
3. Scoring Below or above a number on a Quiz
4. Not visiting a content page
4. Action: 
1. Occur only once or (caution) repeatedly
2. Send Email” select the box 
1. Be sure to make the email informative.
2. OPTIONAL: Replacement Strings can personalize your message.
5. Save and Close

If you enabled the agent, it will run when scheduled. In addition, you can enable the agent from the list.

If you want to run it right now, select the agent’s chevron and select “Run now”.

What are Replacement Strings?

“Replacement strings” are bits of code entered into automated emails for personalization.

Use the following replacement string in the “To” address field to send the agent email to specific recipients: {InitiatingUser} – The user (student) who performs the actions necessary to satisfy the agent's criteria.

 

What replacement strings can I use in the subject and message? 

Here are several recommended replacement strings to consider using:

• {InitiatingUserFirstName} - The first name of the initiating user.
• {InitiatingUserLastName} - The last name of the initiating user.
  
  
• {LastCourseAccessDate} - The date the initiating user last accessed the course.
• {LastLoginDate} - The date the initiating user last logged in.
  
  
• {OrgUnitStartDate} - The start date of the course. (Access to the Brightspace course)
• {OrgUnitEndDate} -The end date of the course. (Access to the Brightspace course)

*Replacement strings are case sensitive!  Be sure to use them exactly as they are shown, else you could look like uncaring automaton or an idiot to the recipient. *

Example of a Message with Replacement Strings

The following text with replacement strings:

Dear {InitiatingUserFirstName},

I see that you did not log into the you course, {OrgUnitName}, last week. I hope everything is okay.  If there is an issue, do not hesitate to contact me to see what we can do. Please remember that regular participation in course activities is essential for success in this course. You can get back on track by first logging in to the course as soon as possible.

Looking forward to your return to the course,

Professor Wolf

This will look like:

Dear John,

I see that you did not log into the you course, PSY222-73 DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY, last week. I hope everything is okay.  If there is an issue, do not hesitate to contact me to see what we can do. Please remember that regular participation in course activities is essential for success in this course. You can get back on track by first logging in to the course as soon as possible.

Looking forward to your return to the course,

               Professor Wolf

Strategically Employed Intelligent Agents are Powerful

Using Intelligent Agents in conjunction with Conditional Releases can create powerful rule-based tools that can engage students, provide immediate feedback, and otherwise help add a more personal touch to your class.

For example, Intelligent Agents can:

• Send reminders to students who have not logged in recently,
• Congratulate learners who perform well on assignments, or
• Provide additional resources when students struggle with course material (via email link).

These automated messages help maintain communication, encourage engagement, and support student success without requiring instructors to manually monitor every course interaction.

See the D2L Community Resource for more on setting up Intelligent Agents

Video Note in Brightspace

 

You know that short video increases student engagement, however you do not have the finances or time to purchase complex video creation software.  Getting a video production crew on a teacher’s salary is just not possible.  How can one take advantage of video in their online courses?

What if I told you that there is a tool that can easily create short video clips for your online course, embed the clips, and automatically generate closed captions?  Ensuring that the experience is accessible, the tool generates transcripts automatically.

How to use Video Note

Video Note can be accessed by using the “Insert Stuff” icon.

When selected you have to option to:

• Record live using your web camera or
• Upload a premade video.

Remember to keep the video short, or you will lose the attention of the viewers.

Remember to give the video:

• a name,
•  description,
• select the video’s language and
• select “Automatically generate captions from audio”.

Select next to review and insert (or re-record).  The video will be in embedding into the web page. Video Note will even keep your video in your course – so there is no commercial access or issues with social media!

 

There are so many uses! Video Note can be used in any editor in Brightspace and is excellent for giving feedback when grading.  Use it in the feedback section so students will then be able to easily click on the video with one click when viewing their grades – increasing their likeliness to review the feedback!

 

Other video editing tools and transcript tools can cost you thousands of dollars.  Video Note cost nothing – and can be paid in four small payments of $0.

I only want Audio

What if you do not want video, but only want audio, can you embed that with Video Note?  Yes.

Whatever your reason, be it being an international spy or that you just want to remain faceless, you can use Video Note to upload audio.  Simply select the audio only feature or upload the audio file, and Video Note can create an interactive player that proves captioning and transcripts.

Inclusive Teaching, Synchronous Sessions, and Auto Captions

Since the Lockdown the use of videoconferencing can no longer be denied as a key part of online education.  Whether you are teaching a synchronous course, a hybrid, holding virtual office hours, or providing a sense of community with an optional introduction in an asynchronous session, you will need to select a video conferencing tool the suits your needs.  But which one?

 

Collaborate in Blackboard and Bongos Virtual Classroom in Brightspace are free and are conveniently embedded inside the LMS. However, not everything that is free, such as the flu, is good. Both of these free applications refuse to provide automatic captioning.  They do ‘claim’ to have captions provided you arrange for a transcriptionist to transcribe them in real-time. Free and not toxic at all!

But why should I care if I do not have any deaf students?  First, in many cases you are not aware of all of your students’ disabilities. One in ten college students report having a disability and this should not be ignored.  Second, The American Disabilities Act requires organizations to provide accessible online content and missing captions is frequently cited in ADA lawsuits.  Don’t be that guy - meet WCAG standards.

Captions expand your audience and increase their engagement often in unexpected ways.  In 2022 50% of US citizens surveyed stated they use captions ‘most of the time’.  The study also revealed that 70% of members of Gen Z (ages 11-25) frequently use subtitles. They are a growing demographic of students, and they will expect captioning. 

Luckily, you can easily provide captioning in video conferences by using MS Teams.  When you enter a meeting, you merely select the “more’ feature on the menu – its symbol is three dots.  Go to “Language and Speech” and select “Turn On Live Captions”. Now you have live captions. You could also do this by selecting “Accessibility” and turning on the Captioning tab.  This is an individual feature, so all your students can access it and use it privately.  A similar feature exists in Zoom.

Live captioning also helps you be more inclusive by assisting ELL students or offering translations for non-English speakers.  MS Teams, as well as Zoom (with the Wordly App add-on), not only offer real-time captioning, but language translation.  Once the captioning is on in Teams, select the three dots on the top right corner of the captions bar.  This will offer the following options:

1.       Change the spoken language.  This is handy when your class is not in English.

2.       Translate the captioning language. Yes, this feature can translate your session into more than 30 languages. This helps level the bar for ELL students who may have difficulty understanding their second or third language in the online environment.

The translation tool is not as good as an interpreter. For example, ‘Warming the cockles of your heart’ does not mean to “heating the mollusks inside your cardiac organ”. However, the translation feature is a handy tool when you need something. It is effectively an electronic dictionary/translator to assist your students.

Remember, not all instructional technology is the same, and this definitely applies to video conferencing applications.  Choose one that has auto-captioning and translations.  It is not only more inclusive and accessible but demonstrates your commitment to being so.   

References

Adelson, B. (2021) Google Translate has “an alarming capacity for miscommunication and error, ” U.S. federal judge decides. Bromberg.

Amin, F. M., & Sundari, H. (2020). EFL students’ preferences on digital platforms during emergency remote teaching: Video conference, LMS, or messenger application? Studies in English Language and Education, 7(2), 362-378.

BOIA (2023) Gen Z More Likely to Use Captions When Viewing Video Content. Bureau of Internet Accessibility.

Patil S & Davies P. (2014) Use of Google Translate in medical communication: evaluation of accuracy BMJ 2014; 349: g 7392 doi:10.1136/bmj.g7392

Kaliyadan F, & Gopinath Pillai S. (2010)The use of google language tools as an interpretation aid in cross-cultural doctor-patient interaction: a pilot study. Inform Prim Care 18:141-3.

National Center for Education Statistics. (2018). Table 311.10. Number and percentage distribution of students enrolled in postsecondary institutions, by level, disability status, and selected student characteristics: 2015–16 [Data table]. In Digest of education statistics. U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences. [Retrieved 2022]

United States v. Ramirez-Mendoza, 4:20-CR-00107 (M.D. Pa. Oct. 1, 2021)

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) (2018) Success Criterion 1.2.4 Captions (Live) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1. [Retrieved 2023]

Wormeester, Veron (2020) Hoe toegankelijk zijn videoconferentietools? iBestuur Online. 

Youngs, Ian (2021) Young viewers prefer TV subtitles, research suggests. BBC News Nov 15.

Zajechowski, Matt (2023) Survey: Why America is obsessed with subtitles. Preply

Using Ally to be an Instructional Ally

 When you are an ally, you are someone who promotes and aspires to advance the culture of conclusion through intentional, positive and conscious efforts that benefit people as a whole.  You foster relationships based on trust and accountability with marginalized individuals or groups.  This requires that your effects not be self-defined and that your work is recognized by those who you are seeking to ally with. One such way of doing accomplishing this is to adopt inclusive teaching practices.

 

Blackboard Ally is a tool that can assist you on your path to promote inclusive practices. This platform tool scans for inaccessible content and offers advice for faculty on remedying inaccessible content. Besides contributing to courses accessibility, the tools also promotes principles of Universal Design for Learning, by offing students’ alternative formats to the content within the course. Impressively, it does this while being architecturally agnostic, i.e., Blackboard Ally works in D2L, Moodle. Canvas as well as Blackboard Learn.

 

Content is reviewed and a gauge illustrate how accessible it is.  Those with a low rating will appear in red while highly accessible content will have a green color.  Only faculty see this gauge and selecting it will provide the specific issues, if any, with the content and solutions to fix those issues.  This can help guide faculty through developing a perfectly accessible course.

 

Another feature of Blackboard Ally that helps promote inclusion is that alternative content option it provides students.  At a click of a button, students can have the content presented to them in various modalities, including: Tagged PDF, Beeline Reader, or MP3 Audio.  This can not only benefit students with disabilities, but all students can choose the modality the best suits they way the need to learn.  Likewise, Blackboard Ally can translate material in over 75 languages.  This can be very helpful to any student wishing assistance because English is not their first/preferred language.

Tips for Virtual Instruction

Teaching online poses several challenges for instructors, such as managing to keep or increase student engagement in a traditionally sterile environment. It has always been a challenge to leveraging instructional technology to motivate and inspire student interest.  The rapid pivot to virtual instruction due to the pandemic has exacerbated this issue, as now many instructors are still learning a new medium of instruction while working at engaging students.

The following guide is a collection resources that can both help online instruction as well as enhance traditional or hybrid instruction.  Included is a collection of standards, such as our guides to maximizing instructional technology and design to make teaching more accessible and effective.  The guide also includes collections of tips for using PowerPoint, YouTube, and Podcasts that can be harnessed to enhance instruction.

The guide is designed for your convenience.  Selecting the number on the tab on the home screen will take you directly to the category. Each tip is hyperlinked to a webpage or video to assist you quickly. You can select the arrowhead on the bottom right to return to the home screen.

 

You might want to download the guide for whenever you want to explore new options on a raining day.  Alternatively, it may give have answers for you when you need for assistance. An interactive tabbed Powerpoint like this can also easily be build and use to present your own lessons as well.  

Recorded Webinars - Instructional Technology

Are you moving to virtual learning during the pandemic or want to improve you online presence?  If you are like most teachers, you are pressed for time and attending training or webinars are not a viable option. Luckily, most webinars can be recorded. 

Below are recorded webinars on Blackboard training and other instructional technology that you can access on your own time:

Advice:  Selecting fullscreen allows for better viewing (see far right corner).  You can also download this presentation in PDF format.  Be sure to select the links to launch the recorded webinar.

Items in Blackboard

In Blackboard there are several ways to create content. An Item offers a ‘flat’ presentation of content that allows users to see the content without having to click to another page and, more frustratingly, have to click to go back the top menu.

What are the advantages of an Item?

Some advantages include:

• Items can offer quick information, like module objectives or advice, that can help students
• Items allow you to insert a title, descriptive text, and file attachment. This is a great way to offer instructions or supply context to the content – such as an attached file.
• Items are developed with the content editor. Thus you have the same freedom as other content tools

How do I make an Item?

An Item can be created by:

1. Selecting Build Content
2. Select "Item"
3. You will have to add a title and will be presented a content editor. Thus it is capable of anything the editor offers, such as links or embedded video.
4. You can also attach a file
5. Select “Submit” and you have an Item.

Recommendations

Best practices for using Items include:

• Items are best when short and share a brief message. More detail can be supplied in a Blank Page.
• The content editor, which allows: embedding of web 2.0 tools, video, audio, images, hyperlinks and more, is a powerful tool. Tragically, this is often overlooked. Be sure to use it wisely to best meet your objectives.
• Items display at the top level, and do not open like pages in Content Folders. Used correctly, they can offer insight to navigation, act as an abstract, or offer quick access to a link, video or file.
• Items allow for information to be included with files. If you want to add context about an attached file or hyperlink, you can include instructions about the content you are sharing with the students with an Item. The Link and the File feature do not offer such an elegant solution.
• If you have only one page for a content section on the menu, consider using an Item for easier navigation. Less clicking makes for happier students.

Warning:

As a rule, you want to be careful with the size of your Item. If your item is too long, it may distract students and make it harder to navigate the course. It is important to avoid the ‘scroll of death’ by creating long content dumps with Items. Your Items should not impede student navigation and being able to quickly review the entire course at a glance.

Follow these tips and your course can offer items that can improve your students’ success.

Creating a Shareable Document that Demonstrates Universal Design for Learning Principles

Sometimes you want to create a document or presentation that can show your great content designs the employ principles of Universal Design for Learning and be able to share it with colleagues who may not be able to access your Learning Management System.  A PDF is a great way to do this. 

How do you accomplish this?

Word, PowerPoint, and many other Microsoft products feature the ability to save as PDF and preserve hyperlinks and other media (such as images).  If you format the documents, to include hyperlinks, they will remain active when the document is accessed via a machine with online connectivity. 

How can I do this with a web content document?  

In word, you can follow some simple steps.

1. Copy the text (and paste into a Word Document)
2. Be sure hyperlinks are included.
3. Add images (and be sure to add descriptions).
4. If you have embedded media, you can easily opt to add a screenshot of the embedded image (such as the video).  You can then add a description and a hyperlink in case the viewer chooses to select the image.
5. Use the Accessibility Checker to make sure the document is accessible.
6. Then save the file as a PDF while preserving formatting.

You should note that PowerPoint offers several similar options.

Now all you need is a little practice and you can create PDFs with hyperlinks to web-pages, as well as supplementary multimedia. You can email the files to students or colleagues. Finally, if you are emailing the content and using MS Outlook, you will have much of the same functionality as Word.  This means you could even compose the email message to include multiple representations of the content. You may notice that offering your content in more formats may increase the number of people who engage in your content. This is just an added perk of having a document to share that uses Universal Design for Learning Principles.  

Video Introductions and Your Course

Taking an online course can be intimidating and the environment can seem cold and impersonal.  Students can feel that they are on their own navigating a morass of information where the solutions to their questions is difficult to find. Ironically, this also can apply to a traditional face-to-face course.

One way of breaking the ice is to use short introduction videos.  A brief video can introduce you to your students as well as possibly sell the course to others. Clever authors can make the video both introduce the instructor and sell the students on taking the course. This will allow you to have an introduction video that can also be used as a promotional video for students deciding on which courses to take.

Why use an introduction video?  Studies show that students more positively about their instructor and participate approximately 20% with online content.   Even adding a photo and a video improves students’ perceptions of the instructor and the class (Russo & Campbell, 2004).  From a practical perspective the increase on your instructor evaluations offers a pragmatic reason to add video introductions. However, the video introductions help students perceive a relationship between themselves and the instructor and which students have identified as having a direct impact on their success (Jones, Naugle & Kolloff, 2008).

Is Video Hard?

There are several easy ways to create video.  One of the simplest is to just use your phone or web camera on our laptop computer.   You may notice that this is not as simple as it sounds.  Pointing a video camera at someone and shooting does not make a successful video.  Like everything in life there is a little work.  Also like everything in life, knowing successful heuristics can help you accomplish great feats in a significantly decreased amount of time.

Besides using video from a video camera, there are several web and mobile tools that allow you to create slick animations and slideshows that can be converted into video.  Add a voice over and you can have a great show.

There are several video creation web resources out there.  With technological advances, there are now great mobile apps that can offer impressive video editing.  For example, iMovie is only $4.99 and it can convert your phone or iPad into a virtual editing studio.

Feel Free to take a look at some of the videos in the playlist above.  Most were made with affordable and simple web tools.  Two were made with professional tools. Can you tell which ones?

How do I create a good introduction?

Understanding of a few key rules and process can easily get you on your way to producing excellent video introductions.  Ironically, not following these rules can also make some dreadful attempts.   One of the best things to do if you are at a college is to contact a specialists, such as your instructional designer.  They can easily get you going.

Understand that video is successful is short.  About 48% of people viewing will stop after 1 minute.  So make sure that the video is succinct, engaging and to the point.
Second, make the script first.  Rehearse a little and work on good audio.  The video will follow.

Below is a sample script.

References

Dulaney, E. (2013). Does the Credibility of the Presenter Influence Acceptance of Content in the Classroom. American International Journal of Social Science, 2(4), 14-20.

Jones, P., Naugle, K., & Kolloff, M. (2008). Teacher presence: Using introductory videos in hybrid and online courses. Learning Solutions. Retrieved on March 26, 2014 from learningsolutionsmag.com

Russo, T. C., & Campbell, S. W. (2004). Perceptions of mediated presence in an asynchronous online course: Interplay of communication behaviors and medium. Distance Education, 25(2), 215 — 232.

Widmeyer, W. N. & Loy, J. W. (1988). When you're hot, you're hot! Warm-cold effects in first impressions of persons and teaching effectiveness. Journal of Educational Psychology, 80(1), 118-121.

Creating an ePortfolio and Sharing it in Blackboard

Creating a Digital Portfolio with Padlet

Having a digital portfolio is an excellent way to document your accomplishments as well as possibly to advance your career.  You can develop a digital portfolio easily with several various digital tool.  We will specifically focus on Padlet (http://www.padlet.com ).

To create a digital portfolio with Padlet, you will need to follow these steps:

1. Collect the information you would like to share in your e-portfolio.  This could be documents (in pdf format), hyperlinks to webpages, media files and any other information.  (Now you are ready to create a digital portfolio with Padlet)
2. Go to Padlet (www.padlet.com) and create an account.  You can use either your Facebook account or a Google account for easy sign in, or just use your college email.
3. Create a “New Padlet” You will be given a choice on the format.  Select the format you think will best represent your work.  When in doubt, you should try to keep it simple so your content is best represented.
4. Time to Modify Your Padlet
   1. Name your Padlet – I recommend something obvious like “My e-Portfolio”
   2. Format your Padlet.  On the right you can select a wallpaper.  The less busy, the more professional it will look and the easier it will be able to read.
   3. Hit “Next”
   4. Select Privacy settings:
       a) Keeping it secret allows you to show your Padlet to the people you share the link with and no one else.
       b) If you want everyone to see it, select “public”
       c) You probably want to limit those who see the Padlet to only be able to “read” the Padlet and not to change the content.
       d)  Now Select “Next” – this should save and get your started.  If you want to make changes, just select the sprocket up on the top right.
   5. Now it is time to add Posts.   This is how to make a post -   Click on the plus sign area on the bottom right. This will create a white box.  In this box you can:
   •  Title the box
   • Add a description
   • Select “Add an attachment” . With the Add an attachment feature you can:            
     • share a URL
     • upload a file
     • Use your webcam for a photo  
   Now you may want to develop your portfolio and include: 
   • You contact information.  
   • Add a CV or resume, you can easily attach a document file, and we recommend using the PDF file extension.  It is a standard file format that can easily be viewed and you can save to it from MS Word.
   • Add content, you can choose how to do this from you options
   • Add as many posts as you need
   
   
   Congratulations.  You have completed a Padlet that acts as a digital portfolio. 

Sharing your Padlet

Once you have your ePortfolio Padlet, or any Padlet for that matter, complete, you can share it with others rather easily.

You have two options for sharing – Dynamic presentation and Static presentation. You can do either with Padlet by selecting the Share Feature. For purpose of demonstration let’s see how we can share our Padlet in Blackboard.

Sharing your ePortfolio dynamically has the benefit of harnessing the web and any interactivity it affords.  This dynamic feature usually increases user engagement, which results in people spending more time looking at your ePortfolio.  There are two ways to share your Padlet dynamically.

After we selected the Share/Export/Embed option in Padlet, we can:

Share a link to the ePortfolio.  We can do this by:

1. Selecting “Copy Link to this Padlet.”  This will copy a link to our clipboard. 
2. Go into Blackboard to post.  (You may want to have it already open in a tab)
3. In the editor in Blackboard, click in text field and press Ctrl-V (paste).  This will copy the link as text into the editor.
4. Highlight the text (click down on the button and drag it across the text)
5. Select the Insert/Edit Link button (it looks like a chain on the second row of tools)
6. Copy (Cntl-V) the link into the “Link Path” field and select “Insert”.
7. Provided you gave the post a subject, you are done.  Select “Submit” to post.

A better, or nice looking, way to share your Padlet in Blackboard is to Embed it. You can do this by:

1. Selecting Share/Export/Embed
2. Select “Embed this padlet”
3. Copy the HTML code (the first set)
4. Go to Blackboard and prepare to post
5. Once in the editor, select the HTML button on the bottom right (third row)
6. Paste (Cntl-V) the embed code into the HTML code view window and hit “Upgrade”
7. Select “Submit”

 A static presentation is always good when archiving or when faced with the possibility of not being viewed online.  It would be prudent to add a static presentation as well when sharing your Padlet.

There are two easy ways to do this with Padlet.

First you go to the Share/Export/Embed option.  You then scroll to the export section and either select “Save as image” or “Save as PDF”. Both will give you a static file that you can attach to a Blackboard post as an attachment.  You could even do this to a post that you shared a link or embedded the Padlet with HTML code.

Once you do this, you are done.

Embedding Dynamic Content

You have worked hard on your course and created some excellent content pages.  Since you know that students perform better with multiple modes of content presentation, you would like to offer some alternatives to text.  Today there are several options for including dynamic content from the web.  You could link to these sites, however, you would rather have the students have a streamlined learning experience.  You know that people are more likely to review the video before reading the text.




Besides, when you link to another site like Youtube, the students are taken out of their learning environment and subject to distractions, such as by videos of adorable cats. It is in the interest of these hosting sites to drive traffic to their site and retain it.  This is not in your interest as an instructor.

This is exactly why embedding the video in your content page better meets your pedagogical goals.  Embedding keeps students in the course and focused on learning.  Simply, embedding protects students from being distracted by those adorable cat videos. Moreover, you reduce the number of clicks to get to the content, and it common web developing knowledge that this encourages engagement.

In Blackboard, you already have the Mashup tool and it does embed the content at one level. This does not give you the same flexibility that you can enjoy when you opt to embed material by using the HTML button from the content editor.  Further, inside the content editor there is an option to access the Mashup tool. This offers the option of embedding video from Youtube, or offering a link, or providing a mashup.  While the tool does work, there is an even easier way.  Skipping this for an old-school way that will allow the freedom to select more web 2.0 options.  

Simply follow these steps to embed an object into Blackboard:

1. find object's embed code (note: When working with YouTube deselect the option to show related videos)
2. copy the embed code
3. go into Blackboard (it is best to use another tab)
4. create a 1 X 1 table and right align it – or chose the alignment you want.
5. add a little buffer, say 5 spaces horizontal and vertical
6. type a large number of the same digit (222222222222222222222)
7. Select the HTML button (third row down on the toolbars)
8. Scroll and find the large number (222222222222222222222)
9. highlight it and the paste the embed code in over it
10. Select “update”
11. Select “submit” and you are done.

Now let’s take a look at embedding a different dynamic content.  Look for the Share option, and then copy the embed code.  If you follow the same instructions – creating a table with only one cell, using a string of digits, entering HTML editing mode and replacing the string of digits with the code, you will have the same effect.

Using this technique will benefit your students with seamless access to many various engaging presentations and web tools.  Minimally you can use it for YouTube videos, but you should feel free to adopt this to take advantage of the several Open Educational Resources that exist and offer embed code.

Accentuate the Positive

How to be the MacGyver of Instructional Technology

You have a mission.  You need to make your courses more innovative and interactive to engage your students and improve their learning outcomes.  You know that students react well to media that engages them and do not like to download large Powerpoint files.  Further, large blocks of text do not work well online or when presented in the classroom.

Problems you face include your department have no money in the budget to afford new software and currently you only have access to Office 365.  Of course, the large number of students to mentor and other responsibilities also impede your effort.

When presented with a seemingly impossible task, we should remember to humbly think, “What would MacGyver do?”  Specifically, remember that:

                                 What you have may be all that you need.

If you are willing to explore the web with your browser (and possibly a paperclip), you may discover that the tools you already have access may be all you need to infuse your course with innovative presentations and technology that with inspire your students.  Naturally, a sense of humor may help as well.

How to Manage This Task

We need to keep calm, open to new and creative ideas, and follow these steps:

1. Determine what is your goal (what type of instructional task do you want)
2. Are there ways the tools you already have can do this?
3. Can you acquire free tools (such as an educational account at Prezi.com)

 Once you determined what your goal is when creating a learning object, you can then break down what you need to do into smaller tasks.  In fact, you may even be able to combine the products of tools, such as images from LunaPic (a Photoshop alternative that is free) and Google Slides.  For a detailed list of various online tools see: https://elearningindustry.com/321-free-tools-for-teachers-free-educational-technology.

Once you have selected the tool, remember to:

• Break down the task into smaller manageable tasks
• Create a separate computer folder of all the assets so that in case something goes wrong, you do not lose your content.

After you create your new exciting tool, you should consider embedding it into a page in your course.  When embedded within a webpage, the experience is smoother and the student will keep his or her focus better because they have not been brought outside of the Learning Management System.

Feel free to download the following files in the above presentation to help you and remember, you should keep in touch with your school's teaching and learning specialists. 

There's an App for that

Currently most all of our students hold in their hands a device that has more computing power than we the US used to send a man to the moon in 1969.  This is not that that our students are blessed with untold wealth and technology, but that smartphones are so prevalent.  Presently over 33% of the world own a smartphone and it accounts for over 50% of main access to the internet.

The United States, like the rest of the world, has gone mobile. Over 51% of digital media is accessed via a mobile device and the average smartphone owner in the US spends 87 hours per month viewing their mobile device.  Mobile devices are the primary means of internet access for Black and Hispanic populations as well as for most lower-income families.  After 5pm, mobile technology, including tablets such as the iPad, is the most common means for individuals to access the internet.

Given this information it seems odd that most colleges not only lag behind the adoption of this technology, but actively adopt policies that discourage their use.  Phones are thought of as distractions instead of tools.  However, each smartphone is effectively a Swiss-army everything tool that gives the user flexibility like no other educational tool in the past. Most phones today standardly offer students:

• Camera
• Sound recorder
• Video camera and editing
• GPS device
• PDA
• Scanner
• Compass

They also offer the means to distribute digital files to the internet.  This means that they can otherwise capture or collect information from almost anywhere and share it with their class through a LMS or social media site.

The question is not, “Can they do this?”

The question is, “How can we use this ability for effective pedagogical purposes?”

Tools of Engagement

Instructional technology can assist you in whether you are teaching course that is fully online, a hybrid, or traditional (face-to-face).   The key is not what technology, but how it is used and if its application applies best practices to help create an effective learning environment.  

The above presentation reviews five technologies that can help in this task:

1. Clickers
2. Poll Everywhere
3. Google Slides
4. Voicethread
5. Bubble.us

 Below is an example of an embedded concept map using Bubble.us.