Similar to professionals in many fields, ATSS staff members are in the process of exploring generative AI tools to support our work as instructional designers and academic technologists. We recently delved into the NOLEJ platform to investigate how it might be used with materials from instructional development sessions facilitated by our team. The guiding questions we used for our exploration included: What are the platform’s privacy and terms of use, and how do they inform what content we would upload? What types of content can be uploaded, and what can be done with it? How might this platform enhance our professional development offerings? How might this platform inform our instructional design workflow/practice? Tool Overview NOLEJ is a generative AI tool marketed to K-12 and higher education instructors and instructional designers to create and deliver interactive course content. The way it works is that the user uploads a file with lecture content in a video, audio, or text fo
Navigating the digital landscape of higher education can be both exciting and daunting. Recognizing this challenge, staff from University Libraries and academic technology departments across the University of Minnesota system provide knowledge about start-of-semester tasks and course planning assistance to incoming and returning instructors and TAs through the Canvas Clinic. The Canvas Clinic is held at the start of each semester and provides one-on-one personalized assistance for instructors and TAs. Topics include setting up course sites, creating activities and assessments, and integrating media or other course resources into Canvas. Participation at the Canvas Clinic is typically higher during the fall semester. The chart below depicts the number of participants over the past five academic years. Key Features One-on-One Support: Instructors talk through their questions individually with knowledgeable staff. Technical Troubleshooting: Recognizing that technology can disrupt the t