Zoom Online Exam Proctoring Demo

 Posted on March 23, 2020  |  1 minutes  |  161 words

We’ve been getting questions from instructors who would like to use Zoom to conduct online exam proctoring, for up to 800 students. I mean. Golly. That’s just not a great idea. Aside from the philosophical issues involved with using a videoconferencing tool to surveil students during an exam, there are technical issues. How would 800 streams of video be recorded? How would that be viewed? Also. The video feed isn’t necessary trustworthy. [Read More]
work 
zoom  video 

How to Turn Off Attention Tracking in Zoom Campus Accounts

 Posted on March 23, 2020  |  1 minutes  |  118 words

An article by Mehreen Kasana on Input Magazine made the rounds, talking about the “attention tracking” feature in Zoom, and how creepy and invasive it is. It is. But it can also be disabled for any account - and if disabled for a campus account, it can also be locked out for all users. — "Whether you have Zoom account or not," the company's privacy page states, "we may collect Personal Data from or about you when you use or otherwise interact with our Products. [Read More]
work 
zoom  privacy  video  demo 

On preparing a university for a COVID rapid shift to online teaching

 Posted on March 22, 2020  |  6 minutes  |  1098 words

With the COVID pandemic still picking up steam in North America, all universities had to make a rapid shift to online teaching as campuses were closed. Mine was no different. We’d been talking about possible pandemic planning since mid-february, but at the time it was all speculative and seemingly so far in the future. Things started to get real around March 11, 2020. There were local cases of COVID (although all travel-related), and it was time to start moving classes online - or cancel the semester outright. [Read More]
work 
ucalgary  learning technologies  covid 

Intro to Curriculum Links

 Posted on March 3, 2020  |  2 minutes  |  260 words

One of the major projects our team1 has been working on for the last couple of years is the University of Calgary’s Curriculum Links application. From the project website overview: It’s an application that supports curriculum design and review - an entire program can be designed before it’s submitted to a faculty for approval, allowing for pre-flight testing of the program. Do all of the claimed program-level outcomes get incorporated appropriately? [Read More]
work  video 
taylor institute  curriculum links  yuja  video  curriculum mapping 

Combining Section Feeds and Filtering the Homepage in Hugo

 Posted on January 10, 2020  |  3 minutes  |  439 words

I’ve been setting up my website, and had things working pretty much exactly how I want them. But, I’d been struggling with how to properly separate content on the website while combining content in the main site feed. The main reason is to be able to have things like /reflections to separate week-in-review reflection posts without overwhelming the homepage with weekly posts that would make all other content that I post on less than a weekly cadence be lost in the noise. [Read More]
general 
hugo  rss  blog 

Joining the TRU Digital Detox program

Joining the TRU Digital Detox program

 Posted on January 3, 2020  |  1 minutes  |  91 words

I’m following Brian’s lead, and signing up for the TRU Digital Detox program that will run throughout January 2020. I’m not sure my health plan covers the cost of a full rehab, so this will hopefully serve to help nudge me toward thinking about my relationship with online technologies. Brenna Clarke Gray has been setting up some really interesting work in her new role at TRU (and, really, the whole TRU Open Learning team is doing some seriously awesome work). [Read More]
general 
brian lamb  brenna clarke gray  tru 

Moving beyond the LMS as platform of content consumption

Moving beyond the LMS as platform of content consumption

 Posted on December 23, 2019  |  6 minutes  |  1124 words

I’ve had the opportunity to work with leaders from various faculties, to develop work plans for developing communication/support, inventory, and procedures that are involved in providing and integrating learning technologies into courses. There are a few themes that keep coming up (paraphrased): we need to be led by pedagogy, not technology our tools shape what we do with them campus platforms are designed for the institution, not the people within our processes for requesting/implementing new tools can be prohibitive and stifling Looking at Brightspace, our campus LMS1 is automatically available for use by every course, in every faculty. [Read More]
work 
learning management systems  d2l  brightspace  LTAC 

2019 media log

 Posted on December 21, 2019  |  5 minutes  |  1040 words

I didn’t really track my media consumption in 2019 - most of this was pulled together from watch history in various platforms, and from memory. So, likely huge gaps in there. My non-work reading was pretty sci-fi focused - I need to branch out a bit there, maybe after book 9 of Expanse comes out…

Anyway. Here’s most of the media I consumed in 2019.

[Read More]
general 
movies  tv  books  media 

On 2019 and looking forward to 2020

On 2019 and looking forward to 2020

 Posted on December 20, 2019  |  7 minutes  |  1332 words

2019 was a year for the record books. Looking back, it was basically a constant stream of life-altering challenges (many of which were profoundly unbloggable), but we got through everything and are thriving as we go into 2020. Looking back at 2019… I went through chemo. But, I made it through and am now stronger than I’ve been in years. And, when it does come back, I know that we have a plan in place and that it works. [Read More]
general  personal 
reflection