Good morning,
If you’ve been reading these newsletters for a while—the archive spans back to 2021, and even before then, I was sharing a newsletter under a different name—then you’ll notice that topics come up with regularity depending on the ebb and flow of the semester. Today, I’d like to mix it up a bit and share not only a timely tip, but also offer some food for thought with a recent Edutopia article as the starting point.
Let’s begin with the tip: the Roll Call Attendance assignment!
As you’ve been taking attendance in Canvas for the ten-day report, a new assignment will have appeared on your Assignments page called “Roll Call Attendance.” This assignment is a record of attendance writ as a ratio of missed and attended classes, scored out of 100 points. Many faculty have found this assignment unhelpful, as it doesn’t allow for flexibility in having a certain number of missed classes or in having a different grading scale.
To get rid of the assignment, you can either remove it from the final grade calculations or make it “Not Graded,” which deletes the assignment altogether. To find out which option fits your class best, check out this previous newsletter issue, which includes additional info and step-by-step instructions.
Now, let’s look at a recent Edutopia article, entitled “5 Essential Tech Talks to Have With Students.” While author Paige Tutt specifies K-12 classrooms, I found the concepts discussed to be thought-provoking.
The first talking point is on AI. We discussed AI at length at the Fall Faculty Workshop, and in the 2024-2025 academic year syllabus statements, there was a suggestion of including a statement on AI use in your classroom (like these sample statements). If you didn’t include a statement, it might not be a bad idea to discuss expectations with your students before your first big papers and written assignments are due. There is some information on understanding AI in the AI guide I shared in August.
The second point, that of cell phone use in the classroom, suggests a need to determine how to incorporate devices if they aren’t outright banned. There are ways to use cell phones for brief polls or for QR codes that work well to enrich the classroom. For example, both Slido and Padlet allow for anonymous or semi-anonymous polling and Q&A, and you can create visual displays of student responses through word clouds or padlet slideshows.
Of the three remaining points, two feel most relevant to our campus: that of using technology to build deeper connections to curriculum and that of digital citizenship. For an example of intentional technology use, students could create media artifacts to visualize their learning through Canva, indicating understanding in a different way than through a written paper. As far as digital citizenship goes, it’s vital given that nearly all our students will take at least one online class!
Our students have differing levels of technical knowledge. It can be challenging to integrate tools that may be new or that have a learning curve. I created a workshop for students on organizing files and folders that might be a useful resource. I’ve linked a recording on the library website and on the student edtech page. Feel free to share!
The link is on the sidebar under “Student Workshops.”
I hope you found today’s newsletter helpful or interesting or both. While I can’t guarantee you a tech tip every week this semester, it’ll always be a Tuesday. Until then!
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