-
Chicago Online Learning Summit Reflections
On December 9th, 2015, the Learning Design team attended the 2nd annual Chicago Online Learning Summit, hosted by DeVry University’s DV X Labs at the digital startup coworking space 1871. The summit included presentations by industry leaders and pitches from up-and-coming educational technology startups.…
-
Planning for Accessibility: January 2016 Online Learning Webinar
The first Online Learning Webinar of 2016 focused on accessibility. In Planning to Write for Accessibility, Christine Scherer and Krissy Wilson demonstrated a number of simple steps that designers and developers can take to make course sites more accessible. They demonstrated how screenreaders work and how to use functions that already exist within Canvas to…
-
Winter Quarter 2016 Begins Today!
Happy New Year and welcome back to all our faculty, students, and staff. Winter Quarter 2016 starts today, with over a hundred sections of online courses being offered across multiple SPS programs. Included among these programs are several courses in our revised Medical & Health Informatics (MHI) program, including MHI 414, Emerging Federal Regulation & Policy.…
-
Choosing a Web Conferencing Solution
Northwestern Information Technology recently introduced Blue Jeans, a web conferencing platform that integrates with Canvas. Blue Jeans is now available in all Canvas sites at Northwestern. Faculty in the School of Professional Studies can choose to either use BlueJeans or Adobe Connect for web conferencing, based on the needs of their course.…
-
Seeing Differently: Designing for Students With Colorblindness and Low Vision
Lots of minute decisions govern color selection in design. What colors show allegiance with a university or college? What colors highlight the most important information in an infographic? What colors best distinguish between different types of data? One question that is rarely asked is, “Are these colors accessible?” Who Benefits?…
-
OLC Collaborate Chicago Conference Reflections
On November 19, the SPS Distance Learning team attended the Online Learning Consortium (OLC) Collaborate Chicago Conference, hosted at Rush University. The conference included several panels on subjects like regulation, learning analytics, and competency-based education, and breakout sessions that dug into a specific factor of each panel topic.…
-
Video Strategy: December 2015 Online Learning Webinar
The first session in a series of video-related Learning Webinars took place on December 2, 2015. It was hosted by Aaron Bannasch and William Guth and attended by many SPS faculty and learning designers. Aaron and William gave a tour of the Video How-To Guides page, which is a central resource for anyone using video in…
-
The Value Of A Weekly Wrap Up
Helping Students Navigate Your Course Over the past few weeks, the Distance Learning Team has published multiple posts about items to include in your courses to help students navigate them successfully. In her post It’s Not Just A Reading List: Adding Context to the Resources In Your Course, Instructional Technologist Jackie Wickham discussed the importance…
-
Welcome to Elizabeth Lemke & Krissy Wilson, Learning Designers!
The SPS Distance Learning team is very excited to welcome two more new team members: Elizabeth Lemke and Krissy Wilson. They will both be working as Learning Designers, helping faculty outline, design, and build online courses. Elizabeth comes to our team from Wiley Publishers, where she worked with Instructional Designers to build online course materials…
-
Welcome to Dr. Reba-Anna Lee, Director of Online Program Development
The SPS Distance Learning team is very excited to welcome Dr. Reba-Anna Lee to the team as our new Director of Online Program Development! In this role, Reba-Anna will oversee our team of Learning Designers, lead our faculty training program, create systems to evaluate course quality, and guide online program development.…