Instructional Technologies Blog

Earlier this semester, Instructional Technologies teamed up with Erin Mahoney-Ross, a Canvas expert from Instructure, to deliver a series of webinars on selected Canvas topics. The topics were carefully curated to help broaden faculty’s awareness of Canvas’s tools and capabilities, as well as help provide a better understanding of the student experience on Canvas. If you missed the live webinars, we’ve prepared “on-demand” webinar recordings that are available to you at any time. Grab your

It’s been a few months since we last posted to the blog, but we know how hard you’ve been working to get Durham Tech’s first Fall Semester on Canvas off the ground! We’d like to thank you for all the thoughtful questions you’ve sent to us over these past few weeks and months at canvashelp@durhamtech.edu, and we encourage you to continue to send your questions to that email address. Hearing what has been on your minds regarding using Canvas and setting up your courses has underscored for us the

With the new semester just days away, we can feel it in the air – everyone is working super hard to be ready to teach on Canvas. The list below can help you make sure you have critical items covered. 1. Set up the required Course Entry Quiz Starting this summer, all instructors must use a standard, pre-written Course Entry Quiz in their online and hybrid/blended courses on Canvas for determining student entry into the course. Instructors must import the standard Course Entry Quiz into their

Instructional Technologies is busily preparing for the upcoming transition from Sakai to Canvas. In this post, we provide some quick updates on where we are in the process and a heads up about more information that will be coming your way soon. What’s happened so far Here’s a quick summary of what Instructional Technologies has been doing in January and February… Setting up and configuring Canvas for Durham Tech. Integrating Canvas with Durham Tech’s student information system (Colleague) to

Instructional Technologies is pleased to announce that Durham Tech has selected Canvas as its learning management system to replace Sakai. Please read on for details about how this decision was reached and plans for making the transition from Sakai to Canvas. Why is Durham Tech leaving Sakai? Sakai has served Durham Tech well for 10 years. However, due to the large number of institutions leaving Sakai, we’ve become concerned about its future viability. Also, newer systems offer a more modern

In our very first blog post, Why Durham Tech is Evaluating Alternatives to Sakai, and What to Expect, we shared that a Learning Management System Evaluation (LMS) Task Force had been formed at Durham Tech and that its charge is to carefully review Moodle and Canvas to determine which of these two learning management systems will best meet the needs of Durham Tech’s students and faculty. Over the past few weeks, the LMS Task Force began its work by first deciding upon the evaluation measures it

In our second blog post of Fall 2022, we are working to keep you informed about evaluating possible alternatives to Sakai. In late August, we sent out a survey targeted at employees who teach Durham Tech courses using Sakai. The purpose of this survey was to get honest and focused feedback from those who serve as instructors. Because moving to a new learning management system can bring up all different types of reactions, we wanted to make sure instructors had an opportunity to voice their

Welcome to the new Instructional Technologies Blog. The Instructional Technologies team created this blog to keep instructors informed about technology tools at Durham Tech and best practices for using them with students. Enter your email address in the box on the right and click subscribe to be notified each time a new blog article is posted! In the 2022-23 academic year, our blog will focus on an important project that greatly affects faculty and students – specifically, the project to