This post summarizes the September 2024 Explore Generative AI tools: Microsoft Copilot and Zoom AI Companion session facilitated by ATSS . During the session, ATSS consultants presented an overview of the two AI tools, Microsoft Copilot and Zoom AI Companion - available to all UMN faculty, staff, and students - and explored use cases. Key Takeaways Our session goals were to: Understand the basics of Microsoft Copilot and Zoom AI Companion Explore how both platforms can be used in education through examples and use cases Zoom AI Companion What is Zoom AI Companion? Zoom AI Companion is a University-vetted opt-in suite of AI tools that enhance the in-meeting and post-meeting experiences. Meeting hosts (i.e., instructors) can generate: In-Meeting Questions Meeting Summary Smart Recording How is it used? By default, the Zoom AI Companion is set to OFF; users can change their Zoom settings to opt in. AI Companion works best if you are logged into your UMN Zoom account ; it does poorly if...

Academic Technology Support Services (ATSS) partnered with Instructure , the parent company of Canvas, to conduct a usability study on some of Instructure’s most recent updates to the Canvas Discussion tool. The study aimed to understand user experiences to implement changes and/or improve training.  Usability partnership & study process Since 2015, the University of Minnesota academic technology teams have conducted usability studies to understand how instructors and students use different learning technologies. This work is carried out with internal and external stakeholders such as University of Minnesota academic technology leadership, the academic technology community , and our learning technology vendors. For this study, the Canvas Discussions tool was selected for two reasons: Instructure was redesigning the tool, and it’s used in approximately 25% of University of Minnesota academic courses as shown in the graph below. Discussions are heavily used in those courses: as o...

This post summarizes the August 2024 Use FeedbackFruits Tools for Peer Learning: Basics session facilitated by ATSS . During the session, ATSS consultants presented an overview of the four FeedbackFruits peer learning tools and explored how to create a FeedbackFruits assignment in Canvas. Session participants completed a FeedbackFruits assignment as a student. Key Takeaways Introduction to FeedbackFruits The University of Minnesota is in year three of its license with FeedbackFruits. While UMN licenses four of FeedbackFruits tools , our session focused on the two tools that most directly support peer learning:  Group Member Evaluation Peer Review Set up and use FeedbackFruits in Canvas Because FeedbackFruits is integrated into Canvas, some considerations should be kept in mind so that students are not confused by the information they see in Canvas compared to what they see in FeedbackFruits. A few important notes about FeedbackFruits assignments: You will start by creating a Canvas...