Resources
Use the following resources to navigate University Learning Platform tools that might be useful in your teaching. If you notice that we’ve missed some valuable resources, please let us know because we continuously update the list! And, if you’d like to share your experience with a resource or tool, please do so on the AHC Learning Commons blog.
Teaching with Technology Tuesdays
Do you want to use various types of technology in your teaching, but just aren’t comfortable asking how to get those technologies to work for you? If so, join others like yourself on Tuesday mornings for Teaching with Technology Tuesdays! Visit our blog for upcoming sessions as well as archives of past topics. Check it out for useful handouts, videos, and technology tips.
Web 2.0 Tools
Wikis
A wiki is a type of Web site that allows a group of people working together to easily add, remove, and edit content they are collaboratively developing. The term wiki also can refer to collaborative software that facilitates the operation of such a Web site, or to an on-line encyclopedia such as Wikipedia.
Blogs
A blog (web log) is a frequently updated Web site with journal-style entries that display in reverse chronological order. You can organize entries by date or topic. Blogs are useful for cataloguing an experience (e.g., a long project), documenting fieldwork experiences in a diary format, and for soliciting feedback and dialogue from readers. For more information, visit FAQs.
UMConnect Meeting
UMConnect Meeting enables faculty and staff to conduct online courses and meetings individually from their desktop computers, communicating from multiple points in real time. During an online meeting, presenters in a meeting can display content such as graphics and presentations, broadcast audio and video, interact using chat and whiteboard tools, and gather real-time feedback through polls.
U of M Office of Information Technology (OIT) Bookmarks (Delicious)
OIT has created this site to provide you with a common place to share recommendations and build an ever-expanding list of UMN-recommended technology tools. This site is intended to be a rich resource for easy access to cutting-edge tools, and a platform for you to recommend your latest discoveries to others. Click for more information.
Video-Conferencing
Does the cost of travel or lack of time ever stop you from inviting a nationally-known expert to teach in your class? How about the difficulty of including a faculty member from another campus in a meeting, or conducting face-to-face interviews with out-of-town job candidates?
Our video-conferencing services can help you make those important connections in your classroom, in the AHC Learning Commons, or in a conference room.
More Tools to Enhance Your Courses
Interactive Scenario Builder (ISB)
Create an interactive scenario without any programming experience! The ISB automatically generates online simulations of interpersonal interactions that you easily construct! Use the ISB to provide students with low-risk practice and experience interviewing patients, communicating with teams, or developing and demonstrating their own case studies.
ePortfolio
ePortfolio is a secure Web site at the University of Minnesota for entering, saving, organizing, viewing, and selectively sharing personal, professional, and educational records.
iTunes U
University of Minnesota iTunes U is a dedicated space in the iTunes software for U of M audio and video content. Within iTunes U instructors can share course lectures, supplemental course content, guest lectures, field work notes, and much more, with students enrolled in their courses. It’s also possible to add content from events, speakers, student groups, or other campus activities. The University has two iTunes U sites; one is restricted to community members and requires an x500 id, and the other is available to the public. Click for an orientation to iTunes U.
Rubrics
Rubrics provide students with clear assignment expectations and grading criteria. AHC Learning Commons staff can assist you in developing and implementing rubric assessment tools for both online and face-to-face courses.
UMConnect Presenter
The University's UMConnect (formerly Macromedia Breeze) servers offer a convenient and cost-effective way for you to provide courses and programming to students on multiple campuses.
UMConnect Presenter is a PowerPoint plug-in that allows you to capture both the audio portion and PowerPoint slides of a live presentation in order to archive it and make it public over a Web site. Users can include quizzes and self-tests and can embed Flash animations and video within a recorded UMConnect presentation.
Wimba
Wimba creates synchronous and asynchronous voice recordings for use in WebVista and Moodle. Some learning applications include audio-based threaded discussions, an ability to practice dictation, audio-chat tools for small-group student assignments, and can provide both peer and instructor feedback via audio.
Course Management Systems
Moodle
Moodle is a course management system the University provides for Web-based learning materials and activities. Moodle’s tools emphasize group work, collaboration, communication, sharing, and reflection through polls, discussions, wikis, and glossaries, to name a few.
WebVista
WebVista is another course management system provided by the Univresity for Web-based learning materials and activities. Students use WebVista to access their courses and participate in learning activities via the Web. If you’re already familiar with WebVista, click to view their instructor support site.
AHC Resources
Interprofessional Education and Resource Center (IERC)
The IERC provides state-of-the-art facilities and educational development services for assessing and improving health sciences students’ clinical skills in an interdisciplinary setting. Click to learning more about services and programs such as the Standardized Patient Program, how to request a simulation, and design services for the creation and implementation of assessments such as objective structured clinical exams (OSCEs), group OSCEs (GOSCEs), and structured clinical instruction modules (SCIMs).
Sim Portal
SimPORTAL (Simulation PeriOperative Resource for Training and Learning) is the primary simulation training “portal,” or point of entry, for the procedurally oriented departments within the Medical School at the University of Minnesota. It provides space, equipment, technical and logistical support for educational activities involving technical skills and team training via simulation.
U-Wide Resources
Center for Teaching and Learning
The Center’s mission is to enrich the professional growth of faculty, instructional staff, and teaching assistants through programs, services, and resources that promote significant learning experiences for students. Click to learn more about their faculty programming, workshops, tutorials, and resources.
Creating a Collaboration Site
A collaboration site is a Web page within the myU portal that you create, customize, and share with whomever you choose. Collaboration site features include version-controlled file sharing, polling, a resource library, and a list of members with contact information.
Digital Campus
Check out the Digital Campus if you’re looking for the single location to access information about the University’s online programs and courses, continuing and professional education offerings, personal enrichment, and opportunities for K-12 students.
Digital Media Center (DMC)
Digital Media Center services include:
- Emerging Academic Technology
- Evaluation and Research
- Faculty Development Programs and Consultation
- Training
- Usability.
Find It
Find It links provide students with a direct URL to E-Journal articles to which University Libraries subscribe. Click for instructions (PDF). You can also access the Find It FAQ here.
myU
MyU is the official University of Minnesota Web portal and the entrance to the University’s online community. It serves as the foundation of the UMN Learning Platform, the integrated system of technologies that students use to learn, that faculty use to teach, and that the University uses to administer academic programs.
NetFiles
Everyone at the University is allocated 5GB of file space through NetFiles, a file storage application with collaboration and sharing features. NetFiles allows you to access your saved files anywhere you have Internet, replacing the need for a portable flash drive. You can save any file type to NetFiles including music, UMConnect, and photo files.
Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL)
The Technology Enhanced Learning group provides strategic leadership in the area of academic technology at the University of Minnesota. Their goal is to enhance teaching, learning, and outreach activities on campus, around the state, and online. You’ll find that their site is a blog with useful information about technology enhanced learning.
1-HELP Technology Services for Faculty
Find answers to your technology questions such as connecting to the internet when away from campus, technical support and training, and much more.
University Technology and Training Center (UTTC)
UTTC provides online and face-to-face courses and training for a wide variety of software, teaching, and learning tools offered by the University.
Music
RoyaltyFreeMusic provides music and sound effects for colleges, universities, and other education related types of establishments at no cost. By participating, your staff and students will be able to use our award-winning music for a variety of non-profit educational projects such as background music in theatrical productions, tech-based programs, film, television, PowerPoint presentations, web sites, and many more.
Delicious/utools
eTEACH: University of Wisconsin-Madison
Free Open Source Software For Us
OpenLaszlo | the premier platform for rich internet applications
Check out the AHC Learning Commons on Twitter, iTunesU, and YouTube.
Downloads
Web Skeletons:
Free WebVista templates
Teaching with Technology: Tips
Oct 13, 2008 Lunch and Learn: MyU