ITG Training Session Descriptions

Creating Accessible Documents

Making your documents digitally accessible is easier than you might think! In this session, we will walk you through best practices for creating and formatting digital documents across various word processing platforms, such as Google Docs and Microsoft Word. You’ll learn how to properly format text, images, and hyperlinks; as well as how to choose the best format for your document or communication. (Please note that PDF accessibility is covered in a separate workshop.)

Creating Accessible Videos

Did you know that Emerson faculty have access to powerful tools and resources for providing students with captioned videos? This session will provide you with an overview of the options available to you for making your videos accessible. You will learn why captions are important, how to distinguish between good and not so good captions, where to find content with high quality captions and/or transcriptions, and how to create and edit captions for your own videos using Panopto.

Improving Your Canvas Accessibility Score

What’s the deal with those little red and green meters that appear with your media in Canvas? How can you design your course's online elements to be as inclusive as possible without waiting for students to request accommodations? In this session, we’ll cover running the Canvas Accessibility Checker on your Canvas pages, using the Ally tool to improve images and documents, reading your course's Accessibility Report to discover issues, and cleaning out unnecessary files. These techniques will not only improve your Accessibility Report's overall score, but also help you meet Emerson's guidelines and bake digital accessibility into your course design.

Improving Your PDF Accessibility

They may look professional, but PDFs tend to be the least accessible format of digital document for students using assistive technology. In this session, you’ll learn best practices for scanning documents, how to add searchable text and metadata to existing PDFs, and the basics of using tags to create a logical reading order for screen reader software. We’ll also go over the Ally tool in Canvas which alerts you to problematic PDFs and offers alternative formats. Although we won’t cover every aspect of the complex PDF remediation process, this workshop will help you take the first steps toward selecting and creating PDFs that don’t present barriers to learning.

Canvas Basics

This session will focus on the most efficient and effective ways to build a course in Canvas at Emerson. The ITG team will walk you through how to get your Canvas course up and running using 5 easy steps. Whether you’re new to Canvas or have been using it for years, this session has something for you.

Canvas Quizzes

Have you been wanting to use the Quizzes tool in Canvas but have been afraid to try? Perhaps you just haven’t had the time to sit down and learn how to use it. This session will walk you through the mechanics of building both low and high stakes quizzes. We will also discuss some creative ways to use the Quizzes tool to achieve your learning objectives.

Improving Your Canvas Accessibility Score

What’s the deal with those little red and green meters that appear with your media in Canvas? How can you design your course's online elements to be as inclusive as possible without waiting for students to request accommodations? In this session, we’ll cover running the Canvas Accessibility Checker on your Canvas pages, using the Ally tool to improve images and documents, reading your course's Accessibility Report to discover issues, and cleaning out unnecessary files. These techniques will not only improve your Accessibility Report's overall score, but also help you meet Emerson's guidelines and bake digital accessibility into your course design.

Introduction to Your Canvas Gradebook

This one-hour Zoom session is geared toward beginners, but Canvas users of all experience levels are welcome. After this session, you'll be able to build a Canvas gradebook that reflects the grading scheme in your syllabus, enter grades and feedback using the gradebook and SpeedGrader, and manage the release of grades to students.

Tech Therapy

Tired of adding due dates one assignment at a time? Of having to relink every semester’s syllabus manually? Of needing to delete all your past announcements? What other parts of Canvas, Zoom,  Panopto or Wordpress drive you crazy? In this 60-minute session, you’ll get the time to air your  grievances with your peers and then kvetch as a group with moderator Christopher Connors, one of the resident Instructional Designers, and fellow salty-person. Sometimes, whining about what gets your goat can lead to discoveries that there are others who have already solved that same problem! Sometimes. Bring your sass and sense of humor, and be prepared to share some great successes in teaching the last few semesters as well! Adult beverage not required (though, honestly, is probably recommended).

Tidying Up Canvas to Help Students Stay Organized

One recurring theme we hear from students is that things are hard to find in their Canvas courses. Faculty also tell us that they're not always sure how to arrange their Canvas courses in a way that makes sense to them and their students. Join time management specialist Jodi Burrel (Associate Director, WARC) and Canvas tamer Natalie Hebshie (Associate Director, Online Learning) as we help you see Canvas through your students' eyes and walk you through some simple tweaks that could revolutionize your Canvas experience for you and your students. We'll focus on the elements of Canvas that give you the most impact for organization and time management: the Assignment, Calendar and Syllabus tools.

Making the Most of Modules

Are you getting emails from students asking where to find course material? Looking to control the flow of your course? In this session, we will discuss how using modules can help you structure your course to suit your organizational style while allowing students to effortlessly find and use your course materials. All levels of Canvas experience welcome! 

Panopto Basics

Take your courses to the next level with Panopto! Join us for this session on Panopto Basics; we’ll cover the following topics:

• Recording your video using Panopto
• Trimming your video in Panopto’s video editor
• Embedding your Panopto videos into your Canvas course
• Setting up video submission assignments and discussions in Canvas

This 1.5-hour training session will be in a workshop format, meaning that part of the time will be dedicated to instructor-led demonstration and explanation, and part of the time will be dedicated to hands-on work to practice using Panopto. The hands-on work will include having participants record their own short videos using Panopto, trim the video, and embed the video in a discussion response in our ITG Faculty Development Canvas course.

Advanced Panopto

If you’ve been using Panopto and want to step your game up, come to this workshop! We will go over workflows on what to do when:

• You recorded your screen but didn’t mean to
• You want to make a video quiz!
• You would like to insert a YouTube Video into your video presentation
• You would like to change the thumbnail image on your video
• You want to share your videos/folder outside of Canvas
• You want to use Panopto’s web-based recorder
• You want to combine different videos clips in Panopto

Feel free to come with a pre-recorded video in Panopto we can try out these workflows on.

Building Community: Low-Stakes Tasks

Looking for some concrete ways to foster community during the online components of your course? If you’d like to tune-in to your students’ needs to give them a sense of agency or get students to care about each other’s interests and projects, you’ve come to the right place. Join Adam Engel (Instructional Designer) and Tina Dent (Assistant Director of Teaching & Learning) as we discuss using low-stakes tasks like formative feedback and collaborative pre-writing to build community in your classroom, wherever it may be.

Building Community: Gamification

Want to spice-up your asynchronous Canvas activities? Hoping to avoid the dreaded “Zoom burnout”? Join Adam Engel (Instructional Designer) as we explore some fun, creative ways to motivate your students as they navigate your course content...and how designing online learning activities can be like building a Dungeons & Dragons adventure. Personal experiences and strategies are welcome and encouraged!

Premiere Rush

If you’d like to edit your lecture video beyond basic trimming in Panopto, join us for a 90 min hands-on workshop on Premiere Rush. Premiere Rush is a user-friendly video editing software that everyone at Emerson has access to through Adobe Creative Suite. We will go over how to:

• Cut between different clips
• Record voice-over
• Insert cards/titles
• Reduce background noise
• Add graphic elements to your video

Tech Therapy

Tired of adding due dates one assignment at a time? Of having to relink every semester’s syllabus manually? Of needing to delete all your past announcements? What other parts of Canvas, Zoom,  Panopto or Wordpress drive you crazy? In this 60-minute session, you’ll get the time to air your  grievances with your peers and then kvetch as a group with moderator Christopher Connors, one of the resident Instructional Designers, and fellow salty-person. Sometimes, whining about what gets your goat can lead to discoveries that there are others who have already solved that same problem! Sometimes. Bring your sass and sense of humor, and be prepared to share some great successes in teaching the last few semesters as well! Adult beverage not required (though, honestly, is probably recommended).