We recently fo
und an issue when taking a quiz with the Lockdown Browser. An Instructor brought to our attention that a particular quiz was freezing when a student would attempt to save their answer. We later found out that the issue was more specific to how the video was being used in the quiz. Read More →
“Kanban Yoda”, by G.Dugas, is a derivative of “Do or do not… there is no try” by Christopher Michel. Both works licensed under CC BY.
The Kanban board can be a terrific Agile tool for managing group tasks. Unfortunately, many student projects are ill suited to group work. Sometimes they cannot be easily broken down into discrete tasks or, when they are, take more effort to complete than if done by a single person. Or dependencies are so strong that one task can hold up everything else until it has been completed, causing backlogs. In such cases, even a Kanban board can’t help.
I believe that an assignment must include a balance of the following key elements to be considered a legitimate group project:
Collaboration can be a powerful catalyst:
“Two heads are better than one.”
“Many hands make light work.”
“No manager ever won no ballgames.”
But optimum group performance is a function of how adaptable its members are in the face of unforeseen challenges, how smoothly they can adapt to change. So we move to the fourth pillar of our Group Project Agile Manifesto: responding to change over following a plan. Read More →
Subordinate or dependent clauses are ones that cannot stand alone. Compare with main or independent clauses, which are clauses that can stand alone. To understand this fully, you need to know the following:
Now, let’s look at some examples.
With its roots in lean thinking as pioneered by Toyota, the Agile Manifesto expresses a project management philosophy and values that have underpinned software development for the last 30+ years. In my opinion, a few simple changes to that canon make it just as applicable to a wide variety of other group endeavours, from e-Learning development to, as in my case, students in a group project environment:
Group Project Agile Manifesto
That is, while we do value the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.
What is it about group work that drives so many students batty? Let me share some of my thoughts on the subject by way of a case study. I teach an Intro to Business course whose mandatory project component requires that teams of 4-5 students work together to submit weekly assignments. We started with the whole group charter thing, defining norms, expectations, etc. But by week # 6, one week before mid-term exams, four of the five groups were almost at blows. Some members were not participating (or even showing up). The quality of submissions was, to be kind, spotty. The stronger students were upset with the group marking, feeling they were (as usual) doing most of the work. Weaker students were by and large disengaged. In short, nobody was happy (myself included). That’s when I hit the brakes, vented a bit, and told everybody that group work was suspended until after exams. Something had to change. Read More →
By Mountain Goat Software (Mountain Goat Software) [CC BY 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons
LEARN Templates are an easy way to give your course content a unified and professional look and feel. You don’t need any design or programming knowledge, all you need to do is copy and paste!
Templates are a great way to not only make your course content look good but also to give it a consistent look and feel between pages and topics. When course content has a consistent and professional look, it is easy to read and follow for students and helps them focus on the important information in your course without potentially clumsy and distracting formatting.
For years I have been talking about doing some deep analytics on RRC’s usage of its LMS. This information is valuable to the College and the Teaching Learning Technology Centre in many ways:
Fundamentally it allows us to learn from our successes and failures and use that information to embark on new paths. Read More →
Respondus is a tool that helps you create and manage exams that can be printed to paper or published directly to LEARN. Exams can be created offline using a familiar Windows environment, or moved from one eLearning system to another. Whether you are a veteran of online testing or relatively new to it, Respondus will save you hours on each project.
If you have your quizzes already in Word or some other document format, we’ve developed a guide to Respondus Formatting For Importing Questions.
Check out our how-to video section for step by step video tutorials on how to use Respondus.
RRC has a site license for Respondus, which means that you can have it installed on your work computer. Click here for the Respondus download and for the Respondus license. If you don’t have permission to install Respondus on your machine, put in a caselog with ITS to request installation.
The Respondus installer can be accessed here. You will be prompted for your admin\account, once done follow the directions located within.
If you require ADMIN access to your computer, you will have to write in a caselog in order to have Respondus installed.
Need more information on Respondus?
• Respondus Package
• Respondus How-to-Videos
RRC Polytech campuses are located on the lands of Anishinaabe, Ininiwak, Anishininew, Dakota, and Dené, and the National Homeland of the Red River Métis.
We recognize and honour Treaty 3 Territory Shoal Lake 40 First Nation, the source of Winnipeg’s clean drinking water. In addition, we acknowledge Treaty Territories which provide us with access to electricity we use in both our personal and professional lives.
