I don’t know why this picture… it’s kind of a bright space right? It was a melting chunk of ice in a spring bulb that was coming up.
This week was primarily focused on Brightspace. We had our two training sessions which were very helpful. I’ve been playing in my DEV course and enjoying it so far. I really like some of the options for creating content. I’ve made a couple of modules with sub-sections and add to them as things come up. I have created a few outcomes for myself of things I hope to be able to do when I’ve completed my modules.
The options for ‘elements’ are nice. I like how easy it is to add in tabs and accordions. Elements also offer some nice features for pull quotes and blockquotes. They include lists and tables as elements but those can also be created using the text editor so I want to see if that makes any difference – I think the display might be different because plugging an ordered list in as an element creates big green numbers. I imagine the editor will not as it won’t be attached to a style sheet (?) we shall see.
I want to practice customizing the banners – I was able to embed an image in a tab element but ran out of time trying to figure out the banner. I don’t see an easy ‘replace image’ but I know it can be done.
There was an article in Ken Steele’s (Academica.ca) newsletter that caught my eye: Students with Disabilities concerned over loss of online learning. There are links to articles about it at U of A and UVIC
The U of A article is more about practices adopted during the pandemic than a loss of online learning but both address student concerns related to delivery and assessment practices.
I got my PD paperwork sorted out for the OE Global conference next week. It took me a while to find a schedule. Since it’s global some of the webinar events are not going to be in a practical time zone for me to attend live. I don’t know how much I’ll be able to take in but I’ll spend some time this weekend to see if I can figure that out.
I often refer to September as ‘all bets are off’ for scheduling my time and that’s how it’s been. October should see a little return to ‘regularly scheduled programming’. I can now see Margaret’s calendar so I can get an idea of when she’ll need to be in the office. I know we’d both like to have set work days for the most part but things come up and we can share the space accordingly.
Next week in and around the OE conference I’m going to spend more time in Brightspace and do some work getting my PD plan together and coming up with some CTLI deliverables. I’m looking forward to the certificate training to see how it’s structured and to work through tasks set by someone other than me.