As a College of IST faculty member, you are receiving this email to help assist you with Canvas and online learning.
Welcome to the College of IST Learning Design eNewsletter
April 2018
Canvas Updates
The latest release from Canvas happened April 21st. Not all of the updates may apply to Penn State’s usage of Canvas at this moment in time, but we like to keep you updated on what’s happening with Canvas and what you may be seeing or seeing soon. Of note, quoted from Canvas:
Rich Text Editor: Word Counter
The Rich Content Editor displays a word counter within the editor browser window. This change can help users know how many words they have typed in a discussion, page, assignment text entry, or other content location where the Rich Content Editor is supported.
The word counter calculates the number of words entered into the editor. A word is considered to be a single string of characters typed together without using the spacebar.
The word counter only displays for the user creating content in the Rich Content Editor. After the content is saved, the word counter is no longer visible unless the content is edited. Additionally, the total word count is not visible to any other user.
More information on the latest release, please visit Canvas directly.
Join Us for Our Next Online Teaching and Learning Meeting
Please mark your calendars and join us on Friday, April 27th from 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
The meeting will happen via Zoom: https://psu.zoom.us/my/agarbrick Please contact Amy Garbrick, Gary Heberling, or Fred Fonseca with questions or agenda items. You may access recordings to past meetings by visiting:https://psu.box.com/s/uoi9p1wtnbf6eamu2hclz6gq3fvickxw.
Summer 2018 Semester Starts Soon
The Learning Design staff have been hard at work preparing for Summer 2018. Here is a rundown of upcoming dates for World Campus courses:
- By April 23rd: The Course Template is copied by us into your section.
- Around April 30th: We ask that faculty send a welcome letter to their students.
- By May 7th: Your section is published (by us) so students can view it during IST’s Preview Week
- May 14th: First day of class!
We appreciate the time and efforts of our faculty members and look forward to another semester!
TLT Faculty Community Opportunity
Teaching and Learning with Technology (TLT) put out the following notice regarding a new faculty-related community:
Faculty Learning Communities (FLC) is a faculty led professional development program for tenure track and teaching faculty at any Penn State campus, who are interested in forming small communities where they can work with a group of peers for an academic year towards a shared goal. The focus will be on bringing together faculty with a desire to explore a shared idea, concept, or interest area that is related to teaching and learning. TLT Faculty Learning Communities proposals are being accepted from now until May 11, 2018. FLCs selected for funding will be announced the week of June 4th, 2018.
For more information, please visit: http://sites.psu.edu/psutlt/faculty-learning-communities/