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Department of Information Technology
Professor Goedert

Faculty Resources for Teaching with Technology

 

Teaching continues utilizing the classroom directory has been created, complete with an inventory of available technology, floorplans, and photos of classrooms. The Teaching, Learning, and Technology Center has helpful tips on leveraging simple technologies to keep your class on schedule.

A catalog of workshops is available to help faculty prepare for their courses and utilize different technologies to enhance learning. To register for a workshop, visit the university event calendar.

All course materials, assignments and assessments are housed in the University's learning management system. The live synchronous sessions can also be facilitated in Microsoft Teams. Both a Canvas course shell and a Team is created for every course session offered at the University. 

Communicate

Conduct class in real-time with Microsoft Teams and use Canvas to send emails or announcements.

Create Materials

Record a lecture with Echo360, hold online exams with Honorlock, and create documents with Microsoft 365.

Post Materials

Post documents, videos, assignments and more to Canvas. Create discussion boards, tests, and quizzes.

Advising

Instructions for accessing student PIN information and ARC tutoring support information.

Library

Remotely access library resources, e-books, and subject guides or speak with a librarian for your research needs.

Workshops

Workshops are available to help faculty utilize different technologies to enhance their courses.

Communicate with your Students

Microsoft Teams

Create an interactive online classroom with Microsoft Teams. Teams supports group conversations, video conferencing (up to 49 screens), virtual breakout rooms and the ability to chat and share files. A team is automatically created for all courses. The instructor will need to manually enable the feature in the teams section in the app. A short video is available to explain the activation process.

In a Teams classroom, instructors may start the class session from the Microsoft Teams panel in the room. Those in the room immediately see and hear students joining remotely. Both faculty and students can share their screen remotely, minimizing the need for handling any cables to connect to classroom technology.
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In a Standard classroom, the instructor may schedule the recurring meeting in Teams. In the room, there is no Microsoft Teams computer panel, the instructor may join the Teams class on her/his laptop and shares the material to all remote participants screens simultaneously. In order to display in the physical room, the instructor connects to the projector/screen using Airmedia/Solstice (if available) or with an HDMI cable. Students are also able to share their screens/content with the entire class via Teams.
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The Microsoft Teams software may be accessed via the web, desktop versions for Windows and Apple Macintosh platforms, as well as Apple and Android mobile devices.

Announcements

Once you’ve created and/or posted your materials, you can notify your students that new course content has been posted. You can link to your materials from inside this announcement, regardless of whether the materials were uploaded to your course site or if they are an external recording. Use Canvas Inbox or Announcements.

Create and Manage Online Exams

Honorlock

Honorlock is a browser-based online exam proctoring tool that integrates with the University's Learning Management System. The platform is easy to use and hosts a number of built-in features to prevent cheating, such as search and destroy, mobile device prevention, and browser guard.

You create your exam in Canvas like you usually would, and Honorlock collects the information needed to set up the test. When you’re ready, you turn on proctoring and decide which features you’d like to use.

Once your students have taken the test, certified test proctors review the exam session and notify you of guideline violations. All of this means that you can spend more time teaching and less time focused on proctoring exams.

Additional Tools

SPSS

Students and faculty are eligible to receive a license of SPSS under the university campus site license for instructional, academic, and non-commercial academic research.

How to request SPSS:

SPSS Tutorials

Mathematica

Mathematica offers an interactive classroom experience that helps students explore and grasp concepts, plus gives faculty the tools they need to easily create supporting course materials, assignments, and presentations.

Request Mathematica

Mathematica Tutorials

Qualtrics

Qualtrics, accessible via PirateNet, allows you to collect and filter large amounts of data. Data can be analyzed for myriad reasons, providing instructors will insight and individualized feedback. Specific rules can be used per question to look for intended information. Unlike Microsoft Forms, Qualtrics is a more advanced survey tool with much stronger capabilities. It is best used to survey a medium to large audience. For more information on Qualtrics, please visit the Qualtrics help page or speak with your instructional designer.

Microsoft Forms

Microsoft Forms, accessible via PirateNet, is simple to use, works on any web browser, and comes with themes and question branching. Microsoft Forms collects responses in real time and automatically provides charts to visualize your data. Best of all, exporting to Excel lets you use the full power of Excel for customized, in-depth analysis. For more information, visit the Microsoft Forms help page or speak with your instructional designer.

Post your Materials

Posting to Canvas

After creating your materials, log in to Canvas, access your course, and upload the materials into the course. Next, you can create a Page or an Announcement and link to the files you have uploaded, along with some contextual material.

  • Getting Started with Canvas
  • Upload Documents, Files, Images, Video, etc.
  • Create and Edit Assignments
  • Grading Assignments
  • Create Tests and Quizzes

Posting Videos

You can link videos from LinkedIn Learning, YouTube, Vimeo, or other publicly-accessible video sharing sites to your course. Once you’ve uploaded a video or selected a pre-existing video that can serve as learning material for your lesson, copy the video’s URL and share it with your students inside your Canvas course.

If you have used Echo360 to capture your lecture, then you can copy the link to the recording and post it inside Canvas to direct students to that recording.

Group Discussions

To promote active learning and engage students in an asynchronous environment, you may wish to use the Group Discussion feature in Canvas. Simply post a prompt(s) and invite the students to lend their input, and/or respond to other student’s posts. Using Group Discussion, combined with clear instructions (due dates, netiquette expectations, etc.), can pique student’s interest in a topic and make them feel a sense of ownership in the material under discussion.

Learn more about setting up discussion forums.

Additional Resources

Advising Information

Students may need help in selecting courses, so we are asking our faculty advisors to be flexible and exercise care to respond to students with their questions about courses. If there are specific times when they can meet via Microsoft Teams or via a phone consultation, please give them guidance on how to contact you. An advisor toolkit is also available. This toolkit provides advisors with easy to find information about campus resources.

Compass

Advisors can record their advising notes in Compass. Questions should be directed to the Academic Resource Center at [email protected].

Instructions for Accessing PIN Information

  • Log in to PirateNet and click on the “Student Profiles for Advisors” app. This can be accessed by all advisors on and off campus.
  • Advisors can look up a student by name or Student ID Number for a term. To obtain registration PINs for the upcoming semester, Fall 2020 should be selected as the term.
  • Once a term and student have been entered, ‘View Profile’.
  • Student PINs are stored under Registration Notices located on the far right side of the screen

Some students have not engaged previously in online coursework. When you transition to the online format, please be very clear to students about how to access the course information and assignments. We have been getting questions about whether the classes are “meeting” at the same time as they would on campus. Be clear about when assignments need to be completed because some students may be in a different time zone.

Library Resources

Remotely access library resources, e-books, and subject guides or speak with a librarian for your research needs. Visit the Library Resources page to learn more.

Register for Workshops

Workshops are available to help faculty utilize different technologies to enhance their courses. View and register for all upcoming events and workshops. 

Looking for more Assistance?

The Teaching, Learning and Technology Center (TLTC) provides a number of resources available to faculty to enhance teaching and learning. If there is a tool or a resource that you would like to review further or would like to implement in your courses, please contact the Instructional Designer assigned to your department. If you experience technical issues and require assistance, please contact the Technology Service Desk at [email protected] or (973) 275-2222.

The Instructional Designers serve as a primary point of contact for all faculty technology projects. Each Instructional Designer is assigned to specific departments, Schools and Colleges within the University.

Contact Liaisons

Video and Webcam Tips

  1. Lighting your face more brightly than the background makes it easier to see you.
  2. Computer mics pick up lots of ambient noise, so keep your mic muted until you're ready to speak.
  3. Do not sit or stand close to a wall. There should be some separation between yourself and your background.
  4. If recording video, shoot in landscape orientation.
  5. Use a tripod or prop your phone/tablet on a table. It will be best if the phone is secure during shooting.
  6. Use the rear facing camera, not the selfie camera. The rear facing camera produces higher quality video.
  7. Do not use the digital zoom on your phone. Digital zoom crops the image, resulting in a loss in quality. Physically move the camera closer for the best results.