Skip to main content

Posts

Navigating the AI Frontier: A Review of NOLEJ through Instructional Design Perspectives

 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
Recent posts

A behind-the-scenes look at how the Canvas Clinic empowers University of Minnesota Instructors

 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

Tips for Storing Sensitive Files in Canvas

The Canvas team often fields questions about how to store sensitive files in a Canvas course. Maybe you have an answer key that you will share with students once they complete an assessment but you don't want that answer key to circulate among all students in the course. Canvas is not an ideal platform for hosting sensitive files. By default, course files are visible and accessible to all users, so placing restrictions on files plays against Canvas's nature. Combine that with a feature that is often misunderstood (Only Available with Link), and you can easily expose files to students unintentionally. Below are gotchas around restricting files and folders to students in Canvas and recommendations for regulating access to sensitive files. Only Available with Link You can place a restriction on a file so that it is only available to students who have the link. This only works in a very narrow context: the actual Files tab in your Canvas course. There, students will not be able t

UMN students' perspectives on Generative AI: November 2023 focus groups results

In November 2023, Academic Technology Support Services (ATSS) conducted focus group sessions with University of Minnesota (UMN) undergraduate and graduate students. The goals of the sessions were to: understand students’ level of awareness about Generative AI,  understand how students perceive the acceptable use of Generative AI for their academic courses, and learn how, if at all, students would like to be involved with shaping how Generative AI is used in education and shaping policies. Process In partnership with the Office of Information Technology (OIT) Usability Services team, ATSS team members: established the project goals determined recruiting criteria for participants and  defined discussion points to drive the conversations.  During the focus group sessions, the project team served as observers and documented their observations. After all sessions had been completed the team reviewed the issues and analyzed them to determine how they might inform strategies, policies, and s

Teaching and collaborating with Zoom Whiteboard

The University of Minnesota recently enabled the use of Zoom Whiteboard, a new tool for visual collaboration.  Key features of Zoom Whiteboard provides a large canvas to write, draw, mark up images, insert sticky notes, and connect ideas using lines and shapes  offers space for spontaneous, dynamic writing and annotation combines the collaborative functions and shareability that many of us are accustomed to from tools like Google Drive The Creating and Collaborating with Zoom Whiteboard video demonstrates how to create a Whiteboard and share it with others: Inclusive and Accessible Practices with Zoom Whiteboard Whiteboards are inherently a visual tool so they are an inequitable medium for people with low to no vision. As of this time, people who use screen readers are unable to contribute to Zoom Whiteboards on their own due to technical barriers with the tool. As additional layers, such as sticky notes, images, and text comments, are added to a Whiteboard, it is challenging for scre

Explore Generative AI Tools workshop

What is the role of Generative AI in...  personalized learning and time-saving approaches?  instructional design and course assistance? academic writing and research?  the ever-evolving relationship between instructors and students? These were some of the questions explored in the Explore Generative AI tools workshop held in mid-October 2023. Guided by an AI critical literacy approach, participants sought to: understand the basic concepts and technologies used by AI evaluate AI platforms/systems and their outputs for accuracy and bias consider the ethical implications of AI on societal impacts such as work, creativity, culture, politics, etc Participants were introduced to AI tools in the following four areas. Each of the areas included use cases and demonstrations of AI platforms. Writing Instruction and Support Bill Rozaitis, Education Program Specialist from the Center for Educational Innovation, discussed uses for generative AI in writing instruction. There is a growing list of act

ChatGPT in Classroom Environments - Early Adopter Experiences (Sept 2023)

Around the world, generative AI is changing how we work, how we teach, how we learn, and how we think. The rapid proliferation of AI technologies and their initial hype suggests that the future of teaching, learning and writing will require some integration and collaboration between humans and AI content generators. In these early days of AI, instructors and researchers are already encountering and exploring ways AI technologies emerge in the context of teaching and learning. On September 29, 2023, Academic Technology Support Services, the Center for Educational Innovation, and the Writing Across the Curriculum program hosted instructors from several disciplines to share their experiences using (or responding to) ChatGPT in their classrooms in Spring 2023.   Jay Coggins - Applied Economics Jay Coggins, Professor of Applied Economics, inaugurated the panel by observing that our students will likely use AI tools throughout their careers, and explained that responsible use would be a nece