2020-21

Eliminate Barriers to Engagement and Assessment in a Remote Learning Environment

Presenter: Elizabeth Beeli

In this workshop, learn how graphic organizers are used for formative assessment (vocabulary learning and reading/listening comprehension) as well as engagement strategies (group brainstorming and collaboration). The workshop will focus on giving students the voice and choice they need to make remote learning engaging while developing a sense of community. 

Building on pedagogy best practices you'll leave with practical steps to facilitate active learning in a remote teaching environment while facilitating, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity. Lucidchart & Lucidspark are tools students can use to collaborate synchronously and will be highlighted in this presentation. 

Here is the information on where to sign up for a free account for faculty using Lucidchart in their course, this is more extensive access beyond the free educational license. 

Additional resources:

Lucidspark Overview & Lucidchart Templates

Using Audio to Amplify Impact and Student Voices: Adobe Audition

Presenter: Rebecca Ramsey

Creating a Flexible Foreign Language Classroom

In this presentation, you will explore some design strategies to integrate Universal Design for Learning (UDL) into the foreign language classroom.  UDL is a framework that provides educators with guidance to create a learning environment that accounts for students' variability and needs. We will also explore some digital tools including Sutori and Pearltrees that can help us provide students with an active learning environment that focuses on reflection, collaboration, and communicative competence. You will be able to: a) Identify UDL principle; b) Implement strategies to incorporate educational technologies in their current classes; c) Identify strategies to promote flexibility in their class design.

Workshop Handout

Global Learning: A Vehicle for Proficiency-Driven Student Engagement

The latest technological, economic, social, and environmental changes are making today’s world increasingly interconnected and interdependent. We, as educators, have the role to tailor our learners’ educational experiences so that they engage in more powerful, relevant, and transformational learning to meet these continually evolving demands and opportunities. In the quest to help students achieve high levels of language proficiency, language instructors play a crucial role in providing opportunities for meaningful interaction and engaging students in authentic communication. Framed around ACTFL’s three modes of communication (interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational), the webinar will provide opportunities for participants to engage in sample activities, discuss their classroom application as well as challenges associated with them. 

Workshop slides

Reach out to lead cultural and social justice activities with global communities in Bloomington and in Indiana

In this workshop, the presenter will share with the audience ideas and current practices to organize cultural and social justice activities in different languages in Bloomington and Indiana. Learn about activities that you could lead to engaging world language faculty, students, the international community, city hall, and local citizens from our city and state. Attendees will leave the meeting with names of key contacts to move forward initiatives, agencies that offer grants to fund your events, internship opportunities, and a calendar of global activities taking place in both Bloomington and throughout Hoosier land. Join us and know more about the community grants with the Indiana Language Roadmap and the national recognition with the American Councils for International Education. 

Increasing engagement through captivating visuals: Applying Adobe Stock and Adobe Spark to the language classroom

There is a saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words”... but how about a video, infographic, or mixed-media presentation?  This workshop presents several resources available for locating free and open-use multimedia for enriching your classroom activities, projects, and presentations.  Particular attention will be given to Adobe Stock’s vast online library of photos, illustrations, templates, and more, which allows you to easily locate authentic images and media for enhancing your classroom materials with no citation or other requirements.

Participants will then apply their new knowledge in a hands-on introduction to Adobe Spark, an online and mobile-compatible platform for creating spectacular visually appealing graphics, charts, videos, and social media content via an inventive and user-friendly dashboard.  With Adobe Spark’s extensive library of templates and Spark’s seamless integration with Adobe Stock, you (and your students) will feel encouraged to quickly and efficiently transform classwork, student projects, and instructional materials into engagingly individualized digital creations.

Adobe Stock and Adobe Spark are both available to all IU affiliates free of charge through IU’s licensing agreement.  This interactive workshop will demonstrate how to access the platforms from both computer and mobile devices, navigate and utilize the vast library of templates in a range of project formats, provide examples of effective in-class applications for increasing student engagement, and allow participants an opportunity to create a brief work following one of three focuses (presenting from the student perspective, preparing a flipped lesson, and creating promotional flyers).

Using Audio to Amplify Impact and Student Voices: Basic skills for recording and integrating audio in language learning

With more and more learning moving online, retaining individual student (and instructor) voices in the classroom is more important than ever.  Adding audio activities is a versatile, portable, and easily individualized way of increasing relevance to students’ interests and allowing them to truly make their voices heard.  Beyond student projects, audio can be used to check student comprehension and grammar, provide review materials, explain difficult concepts, and integrate authentic native speakers.

This hands-on workshop introduces you to basic concepts for recording and editing high-quality audio in Adobe Audition, a software with robust creative capabilities and ready support by IU, that will provide you the skills you need to begin creating learning and enrichment materials and activities for your classes.  Adobe Audition is part of the Adobe Creative Suite available on all on-campus workstations, for download to your personal computer via IUanyWare, and for virtual access from any location through IUanyWare.  We will also provide tips and ideas on how to actively use audio in your teaching, through adding audio narration and notes to your slides, editing authentic audiovisual materials to tailor them to student needs, showcasing audio in modules and creating audio assignments in Canvas, and developing student-engaging activities such as podcasts, news reports, and tongue-twisters.

Preparation slides  Workshop slides

Song & Dance in Virtual Language & Culture Lessons

In this presentation, you will learn how Zulu language instructor, Dr. Betty Dlamini uses folk art in fully virtual classes without having any in person contact with her students. Dr. Dlamini will demonstrate how she breaks down song lyrics and dance motifs in the virtual classroom. She will share songs from her recently released album and show how she intentionally incorporated the needs of her language classes when writing the songs. She will also share what her students have produced as they emulate what she does with them in class.
As part of the discussion with participants, she will talk about how language instructors can create dance motifs from what is found online for the purpose of making student engagement successful and fun. As a perpetual learner, she anticipates learning something new from the participants from what they will share too.

IU Language Classes and Study abroad

Your global education starts at home! Did you know that Indiana University teaches over 80 languages? What languages can you study at IU Bloomington?
Where can you study abroad to improve your language skills?
Meet IU language coordinators and study abroad students. Discover endless opportunities with language coordinators and students at IU. 

On Socks, Chairs, and Screenshots

Performative teaching in times of online instruction is a challenge. Alternating between students working on grammar activities in breakout groups and then coming back to the main room for comparison can result in a monotonous see-sawing of cognitive exercises. This hands-on workshop will offer ideas on how to leave the two-dimensionality of the screen and engage in genuine exchanges by a) maximizing on household items and b) using computer technology for aesthetic expression.

Presentation slides

The Pedagogy of Podcasts

Whether incorporating podcasts with learner as the consumer or the creator, using podcasts in the language classroom provides opportunities to use engage with not just the language itself, but the linguistics, history, culture, etc. of the target language, resulting in an increase in knowledge of and interest in the languages they are learning. In this workshop, you will be given a brief overview of the history of podcasting, including recent listening trends, followed by a list of recommended technological tools and free or low-cost resources needed for creating a podcast. Finally, we will discuss the common podcast format types and the pedagogical implications for incorporating podcasts based on the different format types, as well as review lesson ideas and classroom assignment examples based on learner as either creator or consumer of podcast content. Watch the recording of the presentation below.

More resources

Behind the Podcast
Analysis compiled by Dr. Laura Pasquini of the recording set-ups of several higher ed podcasts. 
 
Higher Ed Podcasts
List of 100+ higher ed podcasts curated by Dr. Laura Pasquini

Google Slides for Beginners

Through this presentation, you will learn how to use Google Slides to enhance both your synchronous and asynchronous lesson plans. In this session, you will learn how to access slides, create a simple presentation using text, images, and multimedia, present, and publish your presentation. 

google slides for beginners