September Professional Development
Create different types of questions for variety and interactivity in your exams. Set up your quizzes to be administered easily and efficiently. See how to review your students’ results and manage their participation within quizzes.
- Wednesday, September 3, 3:00-4:30 p.m. (Bring Your Own Laptop, Room 106 South Hall) (Registration)
- Thursday, September 4, 3:00-4:30 p.m. (Bring Your Own Laptop, Room 106 South Hall) (Registration)
- Friday, September 5, 10:00-11:30 am (Registration)
In this workshop, we will demonstrate how to link and share videos and files stored in Stream and OneDrive to your Moodle Courses. We will show you how to share content effectively and efficiently.
- Wednesday, September 17, 10:00-11:00 a.m. (Registration)
- Friday, September 19, 10:00-11:00 a.m. (Registration)
NOTE: A rule by the Department of Justice Rule published in April 2024 requires that ALL university content be accessible by APRIL 24, 2026. This will include all course documents shared with students.
Join us in this workshop to learn how to create accessible documents in Word and Adobe Acrobat. We will also discuss accessibility in other Microsoft applications, such as PowerPoint and Excel.
- Monday, September 8, 10:00-11:00 a.m. (Registration)
- Wednesday, September 10, 3:00-4:00 p.m. (Registration)
- Thursday, September 11, 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. (Registration)
Would you like an easy (and free) tool to make your lecture presentations more engaging to your students? PowerPoint is equipped with valuable tools to record lectures and add video to any presentation. In this workshop, you will learn how to record using PowerPoint and how to share your videos with your students. We will also demonstrate how to ensure that Stream generates closed captioning to ensure accessibility.
- Monday, September 15, 10:00-11:00 a.m. (Registration)
- Thursday, September 18, 3:00-4:00 p.m. (Registration)
In this workshop, we will demonstrate some of the tools of Clipchamp, a free video editor that is part of Microsoft 365 and now integrated into Stream. Topics discussed will include an orientation to working with the timeline, bringing media files into the program, cutting pieces of video, adding transitions, and screen recording within Clipchamp. We will also demonstrate how to export video out of the program and upload it to Stream to add captioning and share with students.
- Wednesday, September 24, 3:00-4:00 p.m. (Registration)
- Thursday, September 25, 3:00 4:00 p.m. (Registration)
In this workshop, you will be introduced to best practices for choosing and creating video resources and implementing them in your course. We will also cover how to ensure that your video content is accessible for all learners. To earn a badge for completing this workshop, you are required to submit a short video that is accurately captioned to verify your competence with the material. ** It is recommended that you complete either PowerPoint Recording or Clipchamp prior to this workshop, unless you already know how to use a video creation tool.
- Tuesday, September 30, 3:00-4:00 p.m. (Registration)
Applications
NSU provides a variety of applications for faculty, staff, and students. Use the links below to learn more about how to use these programs.
Webex can be used to host private meetings and is also the application available in many of the video conference-enabled classrooms.
Access your Webex account for the first time by going to the Webex page, clicking “Sign In” and entering your NSU email address. Your account will be automatically created. To log in to Webex, you will use the same username and password that you use to log in to your computer and other NSU systems.
NSU licenses Microsoft 365 for faculty, staff, and students. This includes, but is not limited to, the following:
Adobe Creative Cloud Training Page
NSU licenses Adobe Creative Cloud for faculty and staff. Adobe Creative Cloud includes, but is not limited to, the applications listed below.
To log into Adobe Creative Cloud from your work computer, find the Adobe Creative Cloud application that has been installed by ITS. Open the app. From within the app, you can choose to install applications to your computer. You can have Adobe Creative Cloud applications on up to two machines, but you can only have one instance open at a time.
Video Content
Video has become a vital part of online education. Videos created by the instructor alongside third-party resources provide visual direction or explanation of a course, assignment, or specific topic. Watch the videos below to learn how to share third-party videos in your courses as well as how to create and manage your own video content.
Good audio is crucial in keeping someone watching your videos. Without audio quality, it might be impossible to get your message across. We recommend buying an inexpensive microphone headset to easily increase the quality of your audio.
While recording video of yourself isn’t strictly necessary, it engages the viewers on a personal level and increases their retention of the information presented. You probably have a high-quality camera nearby right now! Your phone likely has a better image quality than your laptop webcam or even an external webcam. Getting a small desk tripod will make filming on a smart phone much easier. Getting a tripod with a built-in light will improve the quality of your video drastically as well. We recommend using the back facing camera when filming, though this can make it difficult to tell if you’re still in frame.
Creating videos for your courses adds a personal touch and ensures that the video content is relevant for your specific classes. Lectures, introductions, and explanatory videos are all engaging and valuable for online courses. PowerPoint is a good tool to record video lectures for your classes. It is already installed on your office computer and is simple to use.
Follow the instructions in this video to start recording: PowerPoint Recording Demo
More Resources:
Record a Slide Show with Narration and Slide Timings (Microsoft Help)
If you want to take your video content a step further, editing them in a basic or professional video editing software can be a great way. NSU faculty and staff have access to a wide variety of options for video editing. Below are just a few of the many options available.
Now that you have a video recorded, upload the video to OneDrive to share it within Moodle. Stream is the video creation and management tool through Office365. It is fast and easy to upload directly to Stream or to create videos within Stream. You can also use Stream to add closed captioning to your videos.
More Resources:
Stream (on SharePoint) Support
Closed Captioning Videos with Stream
There are two ways to share videos from an outside source: link the video using the URL or embed the video with the embedding code.
For more detailed instruction on how to share a third-party video with your students, watch this video: Connecting 3rd Party Videos to Moodle.
Course Design
Electronic Learning offers one-on-one support for your course building and teaching needs. We can help with anything related to creating content and setting up your courses. Email elearning@nsula.edu any time to ask a question or set up a Webex meeting with one of our staff.
Course Development Checklist includes a summary of elements necessary for a quality online course.
NSU offers a Moodle template, which includes placeholders for common course components, as well as graphics to get you started. If you would like the template to be added to a course shell, request the template when your development shell is created.
Elements of a well-designed course:
- Module overview – Download this template to create consistent and clear module introductions.
- Learner support links – This is a list of student resource links that you can share with your students.
- Course Overview and Introduction – Include these elements in your course to ensure that your students are oriented and ready to begin learning.
- Writing Objectives – This handout introduces some basic information on writing measurable objectives.
- Assessment and Measurement – Think about these ideas as you create the assessment plan for your course.
- Rubrics – Reference this document to create rubrics that clarify expectations and ensure that grading is consistent.
Quality Matters is an organization dedicated to ensuring the highest quality in online courses. NSU us a QM-subscribing institution, and much of the advice we give regarding creating online courses is based on the QM rubric. As a member of the faculty or staff at NSU, you have access to a wide variety of resources on the Quality Matters website, including workshops that require payment, free webinars, and tools to help you build and assess your online courses. You will need to create your account the first time you visit in order to access all of the resources.
- Effective Discussion Forums: This is a collection of references that highlight best practices for creating dynamic asynchronous discussions.
- Meeting QM Standards: Creating a Syllabus Template (QM webinar; requires login)
Informal Course Reviews
If you’d like feedback on an online course you’ve developed, you can request an informal internal review using nationally recognized Quality Matters (QM) standards.
-
Complete the Alignment module (Moodle): Email elearning@nsula.edu to be enrolled in the asynchronous Alignment module and build your Course Alignment map.
-
Submit a Review Request: After your alignment map is done, complete the Review Request form.
-
Send Your Materials: Email your Course Alignment document and Review Request form to elearning@nsula.edu. Initial reviews typically take 4–6 weeks. Get Feedback & Revise: You’ll receive detailed notes, especially on any standards not yet met—revise and resubmit. Northwestern State University
-
Earn the Badge: When your course meets the standards, you’ll receive the Quality Online Course badge.
QM is a widely adopted framework for quality assurance in online learning. NSU is a QM subscriber through the Louisiana Board of Regents, giving faculty access to QM tools and resources.
Moodle
Northwestern State University uses Moodle as its learning management system. This platform is designed to provide educators, administrators and learners with a secure and integrated system to deliver online courses. On this page, you will find tutorials to help you navigate through the different functions Moodle has to offer. Live presentations are also available to assist educators with course formatting, quizzes, and gradebook settings. These presentations currently include Moodle Basics, Creating Quizzes in Moodle, and Managing Your Gradebook. We routinely offer these sessions through WebEx.
Tutorials
Resources
Tech Toolbox
The Tech Toolbox is a monthly newsletter produced by the Office of Electronic Learning & Global Engagement (Electronic Learning). It covers new upcoming technology, professional development, and other tools for course improvement and productivity. If you have an idea you would like to see in future Tech Toolbox newsletters, contact us!
Workshops
To earn a badge for professional development, attend a professional development workshop offered through Electronic Learning. Some workshops will require the completion of an assignment before the badge is awarded. For example, after a faculty member attends the Rubrics workshop, they will be required to submit a rubric for evaluation. After the rubric passes evaluation, the badge for the Rubrics Workshop will be awarded. The badge will then be sent to the faculty’s NSU email address. To accept the badge, click through the email and create an account on the platform. The badge will be added to your library and can be shared to multiple social sites and portfolios. Learn more by reading this resource on Sharing your badges from Canvas Badges.
Various workshops are offered each month, and current schedules can be found on the Upcoming Sessions page or in Messenger every Monday. If you are interested in a workshop and it is not on the schedule, contact us and we will work to schedule it soon!
Accessibility
What is “Accessibility,” and how do we achieve it? The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Education defines accessibility as meaning “when a person with a disability is afforded the opportunity to acquire the same information, engage in the same interactions, and enjoy the same services as a person without a disability in an equally integrated and equally effective manner, with substantially equivalent ease of use.” In this way we must ensure that the content provided in online classes is available to all learners. Whether that is by adding alternate text to images, or closed captions to videos, there are quick and effective ways to create accessible content for your courses. This page addresses common accessibility issues within course resources and how to ensure that online courses are accessible for all learners.
Documents come in multiple file types from multiple programs. Commonly used programs such as Word, PowerPoint, and Adobe Acrobat all have ways to ensure that the documents you create are accessible for all learners. Visit the pages linked below to see how to use the accessibility tools in Word and Acrobat:
Images within documents that present valuable information should have alternate text. This ensures that students using screen readers can read a description of the image and benefit from the content. Alternate text should be a short statement no longer than one or two sentences that describes what is pictured and why it is valuable. WebAIM’s alternative text page includes valuable information about why to use alternate text, as well as practical tips for writing useful alternate text. Below are instructions for creating alternate text within various document programs.
Using heading styles in Word will create a visual structure within documents and change the formatting of the text to identify the role of the information within the document for students using navigation tools or screen readers. Additionally, you can easily change the formats of the heading styles to match the document style you prefer and add an interactive table of contents to further aid document navigation. For more information, see this resource from Microsoft Support:
Descriptive links are hyperlinks added to text that serves as a description for the link location. Pasting the full URL into a document is an accessibility issue, as the address will be read letter by letter by a screen reader. Additionally, screen readers can isolate all hyperlinks in a document to help students easily navigate to resources. Using descriptive language will help all students recognize the purpose and destination of links.
To make a link accessible in Office, follow the steps below:
- Write out a description of where the link will go.
- Highlight/select the descriptive text.
- Right click and choose the Link option in the menu.
- Paste the link in the Address space.
Ensure that the text you are hyperlinking is not “click here” but rather something that identifies the destination of the link.
Videos that you create or share in your courses and on your web pages should all be accessible. The most common accessibility feature related to videos is closed captioning. Ensure that videos have accurate closed captioning, and information is presented clearly. For videos you have created, Stream through Office365 has automatic closed captioning for videos that can be easily edited for accuracy.
Ensure that the valuable content is presented both visually and audibly in videos. While students with hearing impairments can benefit from closed captions, students with visual impairments may rely on the audio of the video to understand the information. If you find that a third-party video is not accessible, either find a more accessible version of that video, or provide an alternative resource alongside the video, such as a written transcript that reiterates the valuable information.
There are a few accessibility elements specifically related to course design to consider. First, use consistent labeling for sections or materials within your modules. For example, if you label your chapter resources as “Chapter 1 – Read” make sure that it is the same for all chapters. Including the type of resource in the title (e.g. article, video, audio file) prevents confusion as well. Some instructors go as far as to list how long videos are in the title on Moodle to ensure that students know how long they should devote to that resource. For example, “Review of Chapter 1 – Video (15:30).”
Use descriptive links on the Moodle course page as well as within all documents. Descriptive, or verbose links will be more easily read by a screen reader and will give students a better idea of what can be found on the site before they click.
To make a link accessible on a Moodle page, follow the steps below:
- Write out a description of where the link will go.
- Highlight/select the descriptive text.
- Click the Insert/Edit Link icon in the Toolbar.
- Paste the link in the Link URL space. Click Insert.
- While the text is still selected, choose the Underline formatting, and change the color of the text to blue.
Note: Moodle does not automatically change the appearance of hyperlinked text. To ensure that all students recognize that a link is present, follow these instructions all the way to step five.
Include alternate text for images on your course pages. Alternate text should be a short statement no longer than one or two sentences. On a webpage, the alternate text will not only allow screen readers to read the image but will also show if a student cannot load the image for various reasons including slow internet connection.
When adding an image to Moodle, be sure to enter the alternate text in the space marked Image Description during the upload process.
Lastly, are you letting students know about the accessibility options within all software that you are using? For a course to be considered accessible, the Accessibility Statements of all required sites and programs need to be listed in the course. Common examples include Microsoft Office, Pearson MyMathLab, and McGraw Hill. If a website or software does not have an accessibility statement, consider whether all students will be able to use that resource to complete assignments.
Instructional Resources
As we explore instructional resources they will be listed here for reference. If you have any resources you enjoy using or that you would like to share, contact us via the feedback form.
As the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation explains, OER are “teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and repurposing by others. Learn the ins and outs of using OER in the classroom and get help finding helpful resources here.
This is a list of channels that produce consistent, high-quality content on a wide variety of topics.
STEM
ASAP Science
YouTube channel with short, interesting science videos.
Bad Astronomy
YouTube channel about astronomy, space, and science.
C.G.P. Grey
Short, engaging videos on various topics, such as science, history, and culture.
How Stuff Works
Videos on subjects from science and tech to money, health, and culture.
Minute Physics
YouTube channel of short, engaging Physics videos.
MIT Video
MITs YouTube channel.
Numberphile
Engaging videos on math, statistics, et al.
Smarter Every Day
Videos that explore everything from the Amazon rain forest to social media.
Smithsonian Channel
Short videos and whole shows on a wide range of topics including science, nature, culture, and history.
Veritasium
YouTube channel with videos about science, education, and more.
Stand-up Maths
YouTube channel dedicated to explaining and demonstrating real world uses for math and statistics.
99% Invisible (Podcast)
99% Invisible is a weekly exploration of the process and power of design and architecture.
Healthcare Triage
Healthcare Triage explores current topics in the health care industry.
HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES
A History of the World in 100 Objects (Podcast)
Director of the British Museum, Neil MacGregor, narrates 100 programs that retell humanity’s history through the objects we have made.
Alternate History Hub
Alternate History Hub is a channel dedicated to exploring “what if” things had happened differently in history.
Big Think
“Actionable lessons from the world’s greatest thinkers and doers.” Videos on everything from science and technology to culture and religion.
Biography.com
Biographies on everything from prominent historical figures to modern day cultural icons.
Freakonomics (Podcast)
Stephen Dubner “explores the hidden side of everything” from and economical/sociological side.
History Channel
Web-based information and videos on historical topics and shows from the History Channel.
Invisibilia (Podcast)
An array of topics about human behavior and how we interact with one another
The Memory Place (Podcast)
Short, surprising stories of the past, and finalist for the 2016 Peabody Award and one of iTunes Best Podcast of 2015.
National Geographic (YouTube)
Videos on science, history, culture, and more.
The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast
A philosophy podcast where each episode focuses on a short text.
PBS Video
Videos on a wide range of topics, from history to culture to science.
RadioLab (Podcast)
Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich tackle scientific and philosophical topics.
Smithsonian Channel
Short videos and whole shows on a wide range of topics including science, nature, culture, and history.
MISCELLANEOUS
BBC (Podcast)
Podcasts on everything from politics to sports.
The Bowery Boys (Podcast)
An engaging, intimate look at NYC, including its people and familiar landmarks, buildings, and streets.
C-Span Video Library
Videos from C-Span
ClassHook
ClassHook has collected video clips from movies and television that can apply to topics discussed in a variety of course types. These clips are allocated to topics and sub-topics that can be browsed. For example, the clip “Ellen DeGeneres Show: Stressed Out” is categorized under Stress > Coping Mechanisms. Videos are also tagged with letters that denote how complex the video is, and how applicable to your students it may be.
Crash Course
Crash Course is a collection of professionally produced videos covering a wide range of topics, from computer science to philosophy. Crash Course also has its own website: thecrashcourse.com.
FedFlix
Movies from the U.S. Government, including training and historical films.
Google Talks
The Talks at Google program brings authors, musicians, innovators, and speakers for talks centering on their recently published books and current culture.
iHeart Podcast Network (Podcast)
The iHeartPodcast Network is home to more than 750 original podcasts that span every category from business, sports, spirituality and technology to entertainment, family, comedy, and true crime
Hippocampus
Hippocampus is a collection of videos produced for educational use. It is designed to be incorporated into K-12 courses, but some content may overlap with lower-level college courses.
Library of Congress Teacher Resources
Classroom materials from the Library’s vast digital collections in their teaching.
The New Yorker Fiction (Podcast)
Some of your favorite authors are brought onboard to read New Yorker short stories aloud, and then get interviewed, too.
NPR Fresh Air (Podcast)
Journalist Terry Gross’ interviews from the long-running NPR show.
TeacherTube
K-12 lessons, videos, and audio for all subjects.
TED
TED has multiple channels for finding resources. The first is TED – ED, a YouTube channel that focuses on creating lessons for students of all ages. Second is the channel for TED Talks. They are short talks (18 minutes or less) on a wide range of topics that have been presented at TED conferences all over the world. These two channels are full of valuable videos.
This American Life (Podcast)
Ira Glass hosts this storytelling podcast, which feels like it’s from an early era of radio.
YouTube Education
YouTube educational videos on a variety of subjects for all levels.
By definition, engagement tools are tools used to interact with your students. Any software or program can engage students if used creatively.
Explain Everything
Explain Everything can be used as a whiteboard during class, as well as a recording software for instructional or explainer videos. Draw, insert, and organize content on the boards to share with your students.
PowerPoint Recording
Create a more engaging presentation with the free Office Mix plugin for PowerPoint. Insert questions, polls, and video into your presentation and receive feedback from viewers.
Kahoot!
Allows you to create short online games that your students can participate.
Vocaroo
Allows you to record voice messages and then generates a link so you can share within your classes.
Poll Everywhere
Use Poll Everywhere to collect feedback or organize available times for meetings.
