Teaching Tools

Digital Tools for Washington College Faculty

Teaching Tools

Below you will find a list of tools and ideas you can use to enhance teaching and learning in the classroom and beyond.  Remember that there are thousands of tech tools out there - Educational Technology can help you find the right one for your unique pedagogical needs.  Contact Nancy Cross [email protected] or Raven Bishop [email protected] to schedule a consultation so we can help you find just what you are looking for!

Assess student understanding in real time.

Turning Point clickers and easy-to-use polling software provide enhanced tools to engage with your students and identify their understanding. TurningPoint gathers detailed reports for meaningful, decision-making data important to you and your students. 

Did you know?

There are a number of smartphone apps that work like clickers including Poll Everywhere, GoSoapbox, Kahoot! and others.  Need help selecting the right tool for your classroom?  Contact Educational Technology to help you get started!

Lynda is transitioning to LinkedIn Learning

Lynda.com is transitioning to LinkedIn Learning beginning Fall 2019.  LinkedIn Learning has the same great content as our current Lynda.com subscription, and it will provide a more personalized experience. We will still have access to the extensive video library of engaging, top-quality tutorials that can help anyone learn business, software, technology and creative skills to achieve personal and professional goals. The service will continue to be available 24/7/365 for all Washington College faculty, students and staff

 Our assigned subscription upgrade date is on or around August 19, 2019. After the upgrade is completed, you’ll receive an email from Washington College via LinkedIn Learning to activate your LinkedIn Learning account. The upgrade will not impact any activity currently in progress in Lynda.com-learning activity and history will be transferred to LinkedIn Learning during the upgrade.

The following video has more information on activating your LinkedIn Learning for the first time.  It is worth noting that you do not need a LinkedIn account to use our Washington College LinkedIn Learning subscription- information about activating your LinkedIn Learning account without linking to your LinkedIn account can be found at the beginning of the video.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION 

Ramp up research with  qualitative and quantitative insights.

Enable students to conduct any type  of research and collaborate with classmates and professors. With Qualtrics, students and faculty can perform ad-hoc research and quickly uncover data for everything from class projects and field studies to graduate dissertations and capstone projects.  

Did you know?

Not only does Qualtrics teach students how to research, but italso allows faculty to run complex studies, publish their findings, and deliver their insights to the world.  Need help getting started? 

CHECK OUT THE QUALTRICS HELP GUIDES

Take learning to new heights with easy-to-use video editing.

Empower students to demonstrate their learning through the powerful medium of digital video. With iMovie, video editing becomes easy and accessible.  Just choose the clips you want to use, insert titles, add effects, and create a full soundtrack with powerful tools that are as simple as drag and drop. iMovie even supports 4K video for stunning cinema-quality films.

Did you know?

Educational Technology offers support at all stages of a digital video project.  From an “Intro to Digital Video” workshop to “Editing Basics” and beyond, our team is here to support learning through digital video experiences.  We provide the training, equipment and guidance to help make these projects a success!  

Take video further with Final Cut Pro.

Help students express their learning through video further by allowing them to use the tools the pros use.

Did you know?

The Paramount film Whiskey Tango Foxtrot starring Tina Fey was cut entirely in Final Cut Pro. London-based Trim Editing cuts award-winning campaigns for massive brands including Nike, Audi, and Honda.  By scaffolding learning sequences that help students advance their technical skills, not only are course learning outcomes met, but students gain technical skills in leading software platforms that will serve them across industries. 

Leverage data visualization to give students new insights. 

Tableau Software helps people see and understand data. Tableau allows students to quickly analyze, visualize and share information.  

Did you know?

With tableau, anyone can analyze data with intuitive drag & drop functionality. No programming, just insight. Students can combine multiple views of data to get richer insight to push their research further.

Assess student learning in a zip!

ZipGrade turns your phone or tablet into an optical grading machine similar to a Scantron. It reads free-to-download answer sheets in multiple sizes. Provide instant feedback to students by grading exit tickets, quizzes, and formative assessments as soon as they finish.

Did you know?

We all know that formative assessment helps faculty make informed instructional decisions.  Now, with ZipGrade, formative assessment can happen on the fly, leaving more time for analyzing student data instead of gathering it.  

Your whiteboard just got a whole lot better!

Educreations turns your iPad into a dynamic whiteboard.  Explain concepts the way you would by drawing them out on the board and recording your narration as you go along.  Import documents and pictures from your Photo Library, Dropbox and Google Drive. Display a custom map. Insert any webpage. Snap a photo or search the web for the perfect image, right within the app.  Finished videos are automatically saved to your Educreations account and are instantly ready to be viewed online and shared with others. You control who can see what.

Explain Everything is an easy-  to-use design, screencasting,  and interactive whiteboard  tool with real-time  collaboration that lets you  animate, record, annotate,  collaborate, and explore  ideas, knowledge and understanding. Explain Everything provides teachers and students an opportunity to share thinking, reflect upon knowledge building, and assess both products and processes of learning. Available for iPad, Chromebook, Android, and Windows Devices.

Did you know?

You can share a collaborative whiteboard with students with AwwApp, a free web-based collaborative whiteboarding app.  You can even embed an AwwApp whiteboard in Canvas by clicking "Invite" then "Embed via iFrame".  Just copy the code and embed it in Canvas using the html editor

Another way to make whiteboard videos-use YOUR favorite app and record on iPad.

Recording Whiteboard Lectures with an iPad

You can record your iPad screen with audio using the onboard recording feature built into the iPad, you just need to turn the record feature on and enable the audio.


 

Professors should be able to use any notes/drawing app they like to do the demo.  Notebook apps like Evernote, Notability, Awwapp, Paper by 53, even PowerPoint or Google Slides will work. Videos can then be uploaded into the Studio tool in Canvas where they can be easily closed-captioned. 

Did you know?

Faculty can request an iPad from Educational Technology by emailing Raven [email protected] or Nancy [email protected] .   We do not have styluses or Apple Pencils to lend, but you can purchase an inexpensive stylus from Amazon or even the Dollar store. 

Augment learning!

The MERGE Cube allows students to hold a 3D model in their hands!  Upload any 3D file to the Object Viewer app and students can view an artifact, cell, human heart, etc. in their hands and manipulate it as though they are actually holding it. 

Students can design their own 3D content and use the MERGE cube to “place” those designs in the real world! You can use the cube to visualize what imagined objects will look like in real space.  Design a theater set or a public sculpture.  Compare two protein structures side by side.  The sky’s the limit!

Did you know?

Do you need students to see something in 3D?  Search for and find the perfect 3D model in Sketchfab then embed it in Canvas using the html editor.  Students will be able to see the object from all sides by clicking and dragging it and can view it in detail by zooming in! 

 

Virtual Reality (VR) in the classroom-now anybody can create VR! 

CoSpaces is a virtual reality (VR) creation platform that features easy drag & drop tools so that students and faculty can create immersive VR experiences without having to learn complicated programming and coding skills. 

Create virtual tours using Google Tour Creator, a free online 360 tour creator.  Create tours using built-in Google Street View maps or create your own 360 images using the Google Street View app.  When your tour is finished, embed it in Canvas for students to interact with! 

Did you know?

You don’t need a fancy headset to view VR content!  Most VR created with the apps above can be viewed using a tablet or smartphone as well as embedded into a website.  Educational Technology can help you incorporate emerging technologies like VR and AR into your classroom in a way that supports, enhances and showcases student learning. 

Learn more about 3D Models & Virtual Tours