When it comes to online course design and facilitation, course announcements are often treated as a “nice to have” supplement to instruction, taking a backseat to things like the syllabus, module overviews, and learning pages. Those pages contain valuable information, but announcements offer an opportunity to share content while making personalized connections. However, students often overlook pages that do not appear to contain value to them, including announcements. There's an art and science to crafting valuable announcements that students will want to view. Planning, organization, and frequency play a role in leveraging announcements to be more than unappealing check-ins that students ignore. Here are some effective ways to use announcements to weave student success and a culture of learning into the narrative of your course. Increase Your Presence One of the most common criticisms of online education is the lack of instructor presence. Particularly in large-scale courses, stud...

Do you know what sources your students are using to get their information? Do you feel you're on the same page with students about factual information, whether for current world issues or simply the information shared in class?  Can you determine what is real or what is fake? Will your students be able to? This week's webinar focused on building digital media skills with your students.  Presented by Kristy Roschke , Ph.D, Managing Director of the news Co/Lab at the Cronkite School, and hosted by Joshua Caulkins , Assistant Director of Undergraduate Programs in the School of Life Sciences, this presentation is timely to our current situation, with misinformation being shared every second.  Digital Media Landscape & Media Literacy At the start of her presentation, Roschke explained that with an increase in consumers of news and the opportunity to create media, we are headed further down the path for misinformation. Yet, when everything looks the same we relax into ...