It’s been a year and I miss blogging. Writing takes much more time and energy than it used to, but I’m still determined to publish on my site again. I’m coming to terms with the fact that I need to start walking before I run, as is evident since I’m producing way too many unfinished posts. 🙃 They just always become too large and complicated for me to finish and publish. I’d like to tackle those post again, but for now I need to start small.
Health
I’m doing great! Especially all things considered. We can have virtual coffee if you want to talk more.
Work
I’ve been working on ways faculty can host MOOC-like courses per some grant requirements. We are a Canvas school so I’m approaching this challenge from that point of view. From 6 possible approaches, I’ve narrowed down 3 feasible options that fit our situation:
Canvas Catalog – EX: Baylor.catalog.instructure.comCanvas Network Courses – canvas.netOpen Enrollment OU Canvas Course- Host Moodle through OU Create – Likely too much work.
- Develop a course Website through OU Create – Also likely a lot of work, but a solid fallback option.
- Use “Free for Teachers” version of Canvas. – RECOMMENDED.
I have more notes and thoughts on this if you are interested. Would love to have virtual coffee!
I’ve also been thinking a lot about the below twitter conversation from my friend John and future projects related to goblin.education:
@sarahlw6 @KeeganSLW What if we had groups at multiple colleges each playing GOBLIN as fac dev at the same time this summer? Each group is playing a different but interrelated story. Only through cooperation across schools can the overall campaign be successful.
— John Stewart (@JohnStewartPhD) April 21, 2019
Life
I’m headed to Avengers: Endgame tonight to celebrate craniotomy surgiversary! Celebration also necessitated a 3 day weekend. 🙂 I can’t wait!
What I’m Reading
About to finish Star Wars Aftermath by Chuck Wendig!
Next I’m going to start Specials by Scott Westerfeld AND Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari!
Have a wonderful weekend everyone! 🦔
Can you talk more about the MOOC requirements? Would you build each in a standalone Canvas (free-for-teachers) account? I’m curious why you don’t consider using the built-in public courses option?
Hey Brian!
Yes, let’s talk about these MOOCs. One requires the possibility for interactions between open students and the students enrolled in the for-credit course. Another looks to be more about making the information publicly available. And I need them to be as little amount to work/upkeep as possible. 🙃
I’d love to use the built-in public courses option. However, my understanding after meeting with our IT department is that it’s problematic because it adds to our Canvas user count. It sounded like there were contract implications with the total number of Canvas users at our University. That’s the main reason I’m planning to recommend the “Free for Teachers” option for these instructors to host their MOOCs.
Thoughts? (We can continue this conversation via twitter messages if you prefer?) 👍
Ok, that makes more sense. The way I read it was for more internal use, which would eliminate the Canvas user scale problem. I’m trying to push some of our PD into the public Canvas courses for our teachers on site, but haven’t had much luck yet (for several reasons).
I’ve not played with the free-for-teachers version, but I would hope that most of it is on par with the paid accounts through the university. If you’re looking for a static export, rather than a fully-functional course for public display, you may want to consider the HTML export option. The only catch is that you have to structure the course in Modules.
+1 for the free-for-teachers version. I use it to backup and store some of my Canvas work. Will hold on to that account between gigs if the need arose. The main difference for the free version that may impact folks is the file storage is capped at 250MB.
Thanks fo the HTML export reminder. I’ll consider that while I’m wrestling this challenge. Luckily all courses I work with are module based. 👍
Let me know if you discover the right push for your PD through public Canvas courses. It’s something I’d love to see. 🙂
Well done! I’ve been following your blog. Btw, I watched Endgame last weekend here – was brilliant. All the best Keegan!
Thanks Bowen! It was pretty brilliant. Not flawless, but SO MUCH PAY OFF. 🙂
Have an awesome week!
Hey Keegan, so good to see the blog up and running again. Take your time, it’s good to have your thoughts in the world. I’m glad End Game was great – I loved it.
Thank you! Writing again has been extremely beneficial. I need to recover my writing ability so I’m excited to practice. 🙂