Technology Instruction Tools

Course Management Tools

Canvas

Canvas is the learning management system (LMS) used by Columbia faculty to manage their courses. Canvas allows for students to access and engage with course materials, such as course syllabi, assignments, resources, grades, and other materials. The college’s Canvas website is located at canvas.colum.edu.

Academic Technology offers ongoing training sessions that cover a variety of topics essential to learning the many features of Canvas. To check current sessions offered for Canvas trainings, you may view Academic Technology’s training sign up page.

There is 24/7 Canvas support available through the Canvas website. Users must sign-in and refer to the help icon on the Canvas home page to reach a Canvas representative through chat or phone support.

Through Team Dynamix, faculty and staff can also request support for outstanding issues where technical assistance is necessary.

The Academic Technology team may be reached at canvaslms@colum.edu.

Course Templates

Academic Technology has made several course templates available to assist instructors in building their courses within Canvas. Options for templates include a full 15-week course, an 8-week course, as well as a single course module. Instructors can choose from an Online course template or the Hybrid and face-to-face template.

Each template provides a structured layout of a Canvas course and includes a Getting Started section to inform students how the course works and weekly pre-built modules. Each weekly module within the template includes an Overview Page, a choice of a variety of content pages, along with a weekly assignment, discussion forum and a practice quiz.

These templates have been posted to the Canvas Commons for all instructors to access. Instructors can go to the Canvas Commons to import a course template into one of their courses, and then proceed to fill the templates with their own content. Templates can be previewed in the Commons before they are imported into a course. Academic Technology has created the following instructions for instructors on how to import course templates from the Canvas Commons into their courses.

importing-academic-technology-course-templates-from-commons.pdf

If you have any questions, contact Academic Technology at canvaslms@colum.edu.

Qwickly Attendance

Qwickly is an attendance taking tool that can be used within Canvas courses. With Qwickly, multiple attendance taking methods are available. Instructors can choose to use a feature that allows students to check-in on the Canvas Student app or a browser for their class attendance. Qwickly also allows an instructor to clearly view holistic records of student attendance, as well as total counts of absences within a course. To learn more about Qwickly attendance, visit Academic Technology’s page for Qwickly.

Learnings Tools Interoperability (LTI)

Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) is the practice of linking external content, resources, and applications to learning platforms. One of the benefits of using Canvas is the variety of LTI tools that can be incorporated into courses. Academic Technology has been an assortment of LTI’s available to help enhance the experience of a Canvas course.

LTIs currently available in Canvas include Auralia & Musition, Big Blue Button, Cengage Learning MindLinks, GoReact, Khan Academy, LibGuides, McGraw Hill Connect, Microsoft Office 365, NoteFlight, Panopto, Pearson MyLab & Mastering, Pearson Revel, Vimeo, Wiley Plus, YouTube, and Zoom. For assistance and support with using LTIs, please contact Academic Technology at canvaslms@colum.edu.

Course Materials

Library Video Streaming Resources

For information on streaming video collections such as Kanopy, including how to embed videos into Canvas, see the Library’s Streaming Video guide.

Library Research Guides

Research guides are curated by librarians to highlight and provide access to resources for specific disciplines and courses.

Zotero

Zotero is a free, easy-to-use reference management tool to help you collect, organize, cite, and share your research sources.

LinkedIn Learning

LinkedIn Learning is the premier online training resource for anyone seeking exceptional, current and relevant software training. Whether you use it to supplement your learning in the classroom or to teach yourself an entirely new skillset, LinkedIn Learning is a truly invaluable resource available to the Columbia community. Just log in to Office 365, click on the LinkedIn Learning link in your applications list to get started.

This instructional guide will demonstrate how to find LinkedIn Learning within Office 365.

For login assistance, please contact Technology Support by phone at 312-369-7001 or by email at technologysupport@colum.edu Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Publisher Applications

Academic Technology has made integrations available in Canvas with multiple textbook providers. This includes McGraw Hill, Cengage, Wiley, and Pearson. If you would like to use any of these textbook providers within your Canvas courses, contact Academic Technology at canvaslms@colum.edu for assistance.

Through Team Dynamix, faculty and staff can also request support for outstanding issues where technical assistance is necessary.

Collaboration Tools

Office 365

Office 365 is used on campus to access email, calendars, as well as an assortment of Microsoft applications that are used for document and digital workflow management, as well as collaboration. All faculty, staff, and students have Office 365 accounts. Comprehensive training resources for Office 365 are available on the Office 365 Training Resources page, which includes detailed Microsoft training documents and LinkedIn Learning tutorials.

Online Collaboration Tools

Online collaboration tools such as Miro, Mural, Padlet, etc. can be an effective means to facilitate ideation, collaboration, group work, project management, and research mapping. Online collaboration tools are not specifically supported by Columbia College Chicago, but many have free access for educators.

Online Visual Collaboration Tools – facilitated by Jessica Jacobs, Associate Professor, Business and Entrepreneurship

The pandemic has made an indelible impact not only on higher education, but all work environments. In this workshop, Jessica Jacobs, Associate Professor, Business and Entrepreneurship, will demonstrate how she plans to use online visual collaboration tools (e.g. Miro, Mural, Padlet, etc.) in her remote courses this fall. These tools can be an effective means to facilitate ideation, collaboration, group work, project management, and research mapping. They are also the tools many professionals use for these same purposes in their industries and fields. Jessica will provide a range of examples and offer plenty of time for discussion and Q&A.

Creative Software

Adobe Creative Cloud

Adobe Creative Cloud is a modern creative platform for designing stand-out experiences across devices and customer touchpoints. The Adobe Creative Cloud applications are available to all faculty, staff, and students, and are accessible through Office 365. This instructional guide will demonstrate how faculty, staff, and students can access the Adobe Creative Cloud within Office 365. Comprehensive training resources for Adobe Creative Cloud Applications can be found on Information Technology’s website. This includes detailed Adobe training documents, as well as all-inclusive LinkedIn Learning tutorials.

Video Streaming

Panopto

Panopto is a lecture capturing and streaming service for audio and video-related content that includes many interactive features. Panopto fully integrates with Canvas courses and offers a central place to house digital assets, which can include Zoom cloud recordings, lecture recordings, screen capture recordings, as well as other audio or video recordings. Panopto offers key features which include screen and lecture recording capabilities, a robust video search, closed captioning, and video statistics. Video Discussions, Quizzes, and note taking capabilities are also available within each Panopto recording.

To learn more about Panopto, visit our Panopto page for training materials, help documentation, and more information regarding Panopto.

To sign up for Panopto training, visit Academic Technology's training site.

For any questions regarding Panopto, submit a Team Dynamix ticket or contact Academic Technology at canvaslms@colum.edu.

YouTube & Vimeo

Video resources can be found on YouTube or Vimeo. Instructors can use the YouTube and Vimeo tools within Canvas to embed videos into their course. Create a new page, select the YouTube or Vimeo tool, and pick a video to embed.

As a reminder, for video files that you have created, you may upload them to Panopto and then post it to your Canvas course.

Web Conferencing

Zoom

Columbia College Chicago has made Zoom Pro accounts available to all faculty, staff, and students. Zoom is a video communications tool that allows you to host video conference calls with your students, fellow staff members, and classmates. Features such as screen sharing, white boards, polling, chat, and captioning make Zoom a robust choice for remote communication, collaboration, and online lecture delivery. Zoom is also integrated within each Canvas course, which allows for instructors to schedule meetings directly from their Canvas courses for students to join. To learn more about Zoom and how to access your account, schedule meetings, and secure meetings, visit the Managing Zoom Meetings section of this site.

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is a collaboration tool in the Office 365 suite that features instant messaging, video conferencing, file and notebook sharing, among other collaborative elements.

This introductory course for Microsoft Teams shows the essentials of using Teams, starting with basic setup, creating new teams, and joining existing teams. Topics covered include how to use the chat feature, scheduled meetings, create impromptu meetings, and sharing files in Teams.

This Microsoft training document for Microsoft Teams also gives a basic overview of the application.

To learn more about Microsoft Teams, visit the Microsoft Teams section of the Information Technology site.

Zoom and Microsoft Teams Comparison

Academic Technology has created a Zoom and Teams comparison chart to provide a comprehensive comparison of the features available within Zoom and Microsoft Teams. You may use the following document to learn more about what features each tool has to offer.

Zoom and Microsoft Teams Comparison Chart