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Best of InstructureCon: Episode II

So, I finished watching the last of the 119 InstructureCon 2015 Sessions on YouTube today. To be honest, I didn’t watch every single one beginning to end. If I realized that the session had nothing to do with my current role as an instructor, I went to the next session. What this meant was I didn’t watch many sessions about configuring Canvas to work with my SIS. But, on many occasions, I was mesmerized by a the great presentations and realized by the end that I would never be doing any of this because I am not a tech integrator for my district. It is very interesting to see how we all work together to make learning happen in the classroom. It's a side I don't get to see very often. In the end, it's wonderful to see passionate people talk about their passion for education. So, this will not be a trilogy of reports. In the end, these are the best videos from my perspective. I can't recommend highly enough that you go to YouTube and find the sessions that speak t

Upgrading My Canvas Use

As I start looking forward to the 2015-16 school year, it's time to start upgrading. The first tool I’ll be gearing up is Canvas. Canvas is the powerful learning management system created by Instructure that my district has been using for the past two school years. I am very happy with the abilities and functionality it provides. I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface in what the system has to offer. The first year I used Canvas, it was part of a pilot program in the district. The district rolled it out to a number of different teachers and hosted its own version at the district level. I spent that summer learning all about it via YouTube tutorials and was ready to use some of the basic elements. That year, I used it only in one class. I set up each unit as a module, created online quizzes for problem sets, created assignments students could submit online, and also had students create ePortfolios. Last school year, Canvas was rolled out district wide. Th

Best of InstructureCon 2015: Episode I

ComicCon just wrapped up last weekend in San Diego. Millions of dollars were poured into this convention. The ultimate goal of was to promote multimedia properties and get consumers to spend their money when these properties are released and on products at the show. Yes, it is a”show”. The sessions at Comic Con are highly attended and pirated versions occasionally pop up on the internet to the chagrin of the studios, who financed those "one-and-done" presentations, and fans who attended those sessions. Little bits of media flow out to the lowly masses. My favorite is the one below. A very different type of convention occurred in Park City, Utah a month ago. InstructureCon is not a place where Hollywood celebrities go to build hype their latest film. At InstructureCon, the stars are the educators and designers who are on the cutting edge of learning management system (LMS) integration in education. The specific LMS they are discussing is Canvas .

Three Days in the Valley Part 3

The morning of the third and final day of PBL 101, I was feeling kind of thought full. I think you may know what I mean. You have absorbed so much new knowledge that you don't have the ability to take on more before some time this reflect and break it down. For those of you who have had a health course, think about how your liver handles alcohol in the blood. The liver breaks down alcohol in the bloodstream. But sometimes the liver can't keep up with the concentration in our bloodstream and this leads to the intoxicating effects of alcohol. I say this to point out that I was feeling a little overwhelmed coming in to the last day I'd be attending PBL World. The feeling quickly changed from overwhelmed to extremely engaged when I discovered that Alfred Solis was giving the keynote. Ok, in all honesty it occurred when I learned exactly who Alfred Solis was. A couple of years ago when I first tried to learn about what PBL was and how it tied to physics, I came across