Category: Inclusive EdTech Use

Use educational technology to strengthen equitable learning and bridge the digital divide.

Informed Student Participation in Class Recordings

Reading Time: 4 minutesThis teaching tip offers suggestions for helping students understand the way a course may use and distribute recordings.  It explains the recording features of Zoom and Teams and provides suggestions for supporting students in choosing their level of participation in recordings created by either service.  Consider Consent and Privacy  Conestoga’s privacy team has provided information on consent and privacy for MS Teams...

Open Educational Resources (OER): OER Support at Conestoga

Reading Time: 3 minutesWhat is OER? Open Educational Resources (OER) are one aspect of Open Educational Practices (OEP) underpinned by pedagogies like constructivism, critical digital pedagogy, and social justice (Cronin, 2019; DeRosa & Jhangiani, 2018; Lambert, 2018). Through the lens of OEP, OER are developed by centering the needs of marginalized students and aims to create resources for the classroom that are accessible,...

Active Reading Strategies for Digital Readers

Reading Time: 10 minutesLearners will score lower in a comprehension test of a digital text compared to a paper text. Why might this be? Often, digital readers do not transfer effective reading habits from paper-based reading to digital reading. Learners may read more shallowly on digital media, and do not effectively practice summarizing, note-taking and mental processing skills that they are more accustomed...

Starting Teaching with Texidium

Reading Time: 4 minuteseTexts are digital textbooks provided by publishers, and are an integral component of many courses and programs at Conestoga. These digital textbooks are provided to students through eConestoga, and can be read and studied through the Texidium app. Often, educators are the most influential factors in learners’ success with digital texts, and your use of the text will inform and...

Icebreakers for Your Zoom Classrooms

Reading Time: 4 minutesIn the era of synchronous online learning, it is important to create a community of learning. Using icebreakers can foster communities, promote positive teacher and student relationships, and lay the groundwork for classroom interaction (Serembus & Kemery, 2020). Studies in pedagogy encourage teachers to use icebreakers in their classes. The following icebreakers are quick and easy to run both in...

Read & Write Gold

Reading Time: 2 minutesRead&Write is a literacy toolbar that helps students enhance their reading, writing, studying, and research skills. Commonly presumed as a type of assistive tech, Read & Write is unique in that it is available to all students at Conestoga. This app can support a variety of learning, studying, and research habits. By using Read&Write, students can proactively develop their literacy...

Optional and Occasional Student Webcam Use

Reading Time: 3 minutesThis tip shares some information about why students may be turning off their web video cameras (webcams) during synchronous classes, how to monitor learner presence without webcams, and strategies for promoting engagement with optional and occasional web cam use. Reasons Students Turn WebCams Off In The Conversation, Tabitha Moses (2020) lists five reasons why many students are keeping their webcams...

Necesito OER

Reading Time: 3 minutesThis post was written by Dr. Rita Palacios, faculty at Conestoga College about experiences in writing and creating Open Education Resources (OER) for courses. In Search of OER for Language Teaching As a language teacher, I’ve always had to work with language textbooks, which tend to be expensive and a bit rigid in their overall approach to language. Most language...

Live Caption a PowerPoint Presentation

Reading Time: < 1 minuteIf your teaching entails portions of PowerPoint presentation, you can use live captions to provide a more accessible experience for learners. The narration will only work as long as you’re showing PowerPoint presentations, but adding in Q&A slides and using the Remote Presentation Template will help make presentation portions more accessible to many learners.