Winter Wonderland Webinar Series ~ Register Today!

The UB Educational Design Collaborative (EDC) has coordinated a series of workshops in response to topics departmental instructional designers, academic technologists, librarians, and faculty mentors frequently get asked about. Below is the schedule of workshop events information and links to register for each session.

Register to receive a ZOOM link to join the webinar and a link to add the event to your calendar.

This series is targeted to faculty, GA’s Adjuncts, and is open to anyone who wishes to attend.
If you register and can’t attend, you’ll receive notification when the recording is available.
Questions may be directed to ubedc@buffalo.edu

Course Design Basics 
January 14th, Noon-1pm (EST)
Jessica Kruger and Derek Farkas, School of Public Health and Health Professions
This brief workshop will help you to organize your courses for the spring semester. During this course, expect to walk away with tips and tricks on ensuring your course is easy to navigate for students and is organized using evidence-based practices. This course will discuss how to self-evaluate your course for continued course improvement.

Authentic Assessments 
January 15th, 10am-Noon (EST)
Jessica Kruger and Derek Farkas, School of Public Health and Health Professions
Want to adopt or create an authentic assessment for your course? This workshop is hands-on, working in teams to create an assignment that you can utilize next semester. By attending this workshop, faculty will walk away with assessments that can be implemented, strategies to reduce time grading, and the confidence to try this new assessment type.

Tracking Student Progress: Blackboard Analytics 
January 18th, Noon-1pm (EST)
Jessica Kruger and Derek Farkas, School of Public Health and Health Professions
Want to ensure that your students are accessing course content to ensure their success? This workshop discusses strategies to help you track students’ progress through Bb analytics to support student retention or serve as an early warning system. By attending this workshop faculty will learn about statistical tracking in UBlearns, adaptive release functions, and how to utilize these analytics to help keep your students on track.

Virtual Worlds for Virtual Times 
January 19th, 2pm-4 pm (EST)
Various Presenters from across the SUNY System
This 2-hour webinar highlights SUNY faculty and staff using virtual worlds and simulations to develop authentic learning opportunities. We will also discuss tools and platforms currently used and ones that are on the horizon that are appropriate for virtual exchange and learning in general. This event was initiated through a conversation within the COIL and VR groups on SUNY Workplace. Info about speakers and topics is located here: http://bit.ly/vr-worlds-sim

Creating Engaging Instructional Videos using Adobe Spark 
January 20th, 1pm-2pm (EST)
Steven Sturman, School of Social Work
Adobe Spark allows you to easily create instructional videos using images, text, voice overs, and music.  This workshop demonstrates how to use this free app to create engaging course videos or slideshows.  This app may also be useful for students to creatively respond to many project assignments.

Reusing Panopto Content from one Semester to Another 
January 21st, 1pm-2pm (EST)
Beth Fellendorf, UBIT
If you’ve already made Panopto recordings, we’ll go over how to share those recordings with a new group of students.

Portable Lightboard 
January 22nd, 1pm to 2pm (EST)
John Pfeffer, UBIT
This session provides information on how to create your own portable lightboard which you can use to write out equations or diagrams for live classes or recordings.  This session provides a list of materials and step-by-step instructions.

Streamlining Assessments 
January 25th, Noon-1pm (EST)
Jessica Kruger and Derek Farkas, School of Public Health and Health Professions
Want to reduce the amount of time you spend grading but still provide quality feedback for students? This workshop provides strategies to help you think of new ways to grade students’ assessments without adding hours to your grading. By attending this workshop, faculty will learn about creating and using existing rubrics and methods to break-up assignments to reduce your assessment load.

Encouraging Student Camera Use – Policies & Recommendations 
January 26th, Noon-1pm (EST)
Cynthia Tysick, UB Libraries
Tips and strategies to encourage students to use their cameras during synchronous sessions.

Streaming LIVE using Zoom, Panopto and Social Media 
January 27th, 1pm to 2pm (EST)
Beth Fellendorf, UBIT and Caryn Sobieski-VanDelinder, School of Public Health and Health Professions
This session covers using your favorite pandemic lifelines: Zoom, Panopto and social media to live-stream. This practice could be useful when working with very large groups and to reach and engage broader audiences everywhere!

Integrating UB Libraries Library Liaisons, Research Guides, and Roadmaps into Your Course
January 28th, 1pm to 2pm (EST)
Bryan Sajecki and Tiffany Walsh, UB Libraries      
The Library offers information resources for incorporation into your Blackboard course to provide up-to-date information to students in the virtual learning environment. This session helps you learn how to incorporate research guides, roadmaps, videos, databases, permalinks, research tools, and how to integrate discipline-specific information with your library liaison directly within a UBlearns course.

Engaging Students in Large Classes (faculty panel) 
January 29th, 1pm to 2pm (EST)
Jeanne Myers, School of Management and Jay Stockslader, College of Arts and Sciences
Faculty teaching large classes will share their first-hand experiences and strategies such as participant engagement, effective host controls, course design, pre-recording content, using chat assistants and more.

The UB Education Design Collaborative (EDC) consists of individuals from the university instructional support community who are dedicated to the advancement and growth of teaching and learning initiatives across UB. We would like to thank our presenters and the event planning committee from UBIT, UB Libraries, College of Arts and Sciences, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, School of Management, School of Nursing, School of Public Health and Health Professions, School of Social Work, the Center for Educational Innovation, and also faculty and staff from across the SUNY system.

To learn more about the EDC, or to join us, check out the Education Design Collaborative Website.

Cheryl Oyer, Co-Chair UBEDC
Steven Sturman, Co-Chair UBEDC