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Innovators Archives

Innovators in Online Learning	Session Date and Time
Accommodating Other Students with Disabilities: Beyond the Need for Screen Readers -Jane Jarrow, DCCOL - Disability Compliance in Career and Online Learning	This webinar occurred on Thursday July 8, 2010	View Archived Webinar!
When we speak of accommodating students with disabilities in online classes, our first thoughts always turn to the highly text-based nature of online learning and making sure that students who are blind/visually impaired, or those who are dyslexic, have an alternative means of accessing material that other students will read on their screen. But there are other online learners with disabilities who can also benefit from careful prior planning and innovative implementation by instructors. This session will discuss the needs of - and solutions for - students who are deaf/hard of hearing, those with significant physical disabilities, and students with attention problems. Explore the pros and cons of transcripts v. captioning, learn more about how and why students with mobility impairments sometimes struggle in an online environment, and discover how the organization of your class may impact on how it is received and processed.
Innovators in Online Learning	Session Date and Time
June Innovators – 2010 Lesson Challenge Winners! -Richard Foster -Marilyn Larsen -Michelle Leavitt -Derek Weber	This webinar occurred on Wednesday June 16, 2010	View Archived Webinar!
The second annual SoftChalk Lesson Challenge was a huge success! We received over 60 submissions! With so many extraordinary lessons and courses submitted, it was hard to choose only four winners, and now you can see these wonderful lessons and courses, and hear from their authors. Best K-12 Lesson Title: Basic Arithmetic: Decimals Author: Marilyn Larsen, College of the Mainland Best Higher Ed Lesson Title: Introduction to Dental Terminology Author: Richard Foster, Guilford Technical Community College Best Corporate Lesson Title: Swine Flu (H1N1 Influenza) Preparedness Author: Michelle Leavitt, NetLearning, a part of Cengage Learning Best Full Course Title: BIOL 133: Principles of Microbiology Author: Derek Weber, Raritan Valley Community College
Innovators in Online Learning	Session Date and Time
SIRIUS – Interactive Content (with avatars!) for a National Audience -Patti Levine Brown, Professor of Communication, Director Project DELTA -Peter J. Shapiro, Ph.D., Director of Creative Learning Services, The SIRIUS Project	This webinar occurred on Thursday, May 13, 2010	View Archived Webinar!
SIRIUS, a Florida State College at Jacksonville strategic business unit, provides materials in two areas: First, it provides online faculty development programs that help faculty become proficient in creating and teaching interactive, online and hybrid courses. Secondly, the project develops and provides general education credit courses nationally that are highly interactive and creative for face-to-face, hybrid, and fully online learning. SIRIUS courses are developed by faculty teams and designed with the latest customized learning technology tools including avatars, custom character development, and an abundance of multimedia and interactive learning tools. These courses are already being used nationally by a number of institutions. SIRIUS is also supported by Project DELTA, a recent $728,000 FIPSE grant awarded to facilitate the dissemination of the faculty development program and beta testing of the SIRIUS courses throughout higher education. SIRIUS is looking for colleges whose faculty are interested in participating in this higher education consortium to test these courses.
Innovators in Online Learning	Session Date and Time
e-Notes: integrating Course Content with SoftChalk -Derek Weber, Department of Biology, Raritan Valley Community College in New Jersey	This webinar occurred on Thursday, April 29, 2010	View Archived Webinar!
e-Notes combine the picture viewing capabilities of PowerPoint Presenter, the text constructing capabilities of Microsoft Word, and the media deposition capabilities of a Learning Management System (in this case, WebCT/Bb VISTA). To make this easy I, of course, used SoftChalk. These e-Notes include a chapter summary with embedded images and hyperlinks and related videos/animations hosted by sites like YouTube. Also embedded are instructor-developed virtual lectures that simulate a traditional lecture. At the end of e-Notes, students are able to assess their learning using instructor designed quiz poppers. Using this strategy, instructors can truly build a course that streamlines their material and provides a personal touch that is often lacking in online courses.
Innovators in Online Learning	Session Date and Time
Training Educators to Build Courses that Meet Quality Matters Standards -Lisa C. Young, Ph.D., Scottsdale Community College -Laura Ballard, M.Ed., GateWay Community College -Julie Magadan, M.Ed., Phoenix College	This webinar occurred on Wednesday, March 24, 2010	View Archived Webinar!
This presentation will share the experiences of three colleges that collaborated on the development and implementation of a training series to provide professional development to faculty who wanted to develop online or hybrid courses per Quality Matters (QM) standards. The four part training series used SoftChalk and other practices to provide information on the QM rubric while modeling best practices aligned with the QM standards. The presenters will demonstrate the lessons created with SoftChalk, provide information on why they chose SoftChalk, how they organized and developed the modules, as well as information on how the training was received.
Special Partner Webinar	Session Date and Time
Blackboard and SoftChalk - A Partner Webinar	This webinar occurred on Wednesday, February 17, 2010	View Archived Webinar!
In this partner webinar see how SoftChalk works with Blackboard to: -Create web lessons that are professional looking, provide assessment learning activities and quizzes (crossword puzzles, hot spots, drag’n drop, slide shows, true/false, multiple choice – and much more). -Search digital repositories by Keyword and easily bring the discovered media into a lesson. Media can be brought in from Open repositories; Subscription based repositories and institutional repositories. -Integrate web-based widgets right into the lesson. These third party widgets, from thousands of public and private sites, integrate polls, surveys, blogs, video, wikis and many more learning objects. And with Blackboard Learn the finished lesson is imported into your Blackboard course with the literal click of a button.
Innovators in Online Learning	Session Date and Time
Acceptable Use Policy – Training an Entire Organization Online -John Robinson, Director Training, Development and Instructional Resources, Northside ISD, San Antonio, TX	This webinar occurred on Wednesday, February 24, 2010	View Archived Webinar!
The Northside Independent School District educates its staff of 13,000+ on the proper use of the resources they have been granted access. The goal was to create training modules that would allow thousands of district employees with different learning styles to take the required training within a specified timeframe at anytime and anywhere with optimal retention. Until recently this Acceptable Use Policy training lacked the integration of the creative element they were seeking. And most multimedia elements needed to accommodate the different learning styles had to be abandoned due to the excessive hours needed for design and support. Over the years their content hadn’t changed much, but the vehicle used to deliver the content has. Currently they are using Moodle and that helped to solve one delivery problem. An additional challenge was to make sure that every PC being used within the school district saw the same thing. They needed an application that was easy to use, enabled creativity with minimal tech-support and could be integrated with Moodle. And SoftChalk provided that solution. The session ends with a Q&A.
Innovators in Online Learning	Session Date and Time
Creating Accessible Lessons for Students with Disabilities Using SoftChalk -Jane Jarrow, Principal, DCCOL - Disability Compliance in Career and Online Learning	This webinar occurred on Thursday, February 18, 2010	View Archived Webinar!
This webinar will discuss how SoftChalk provides both the support and the mechanisms to insure that online lessons are accessible to all students, including those with disabilities, from the start. A series of questions will be addressed: o Why are we having this conversation? (What are the legal mandates that require access to online learning opportunities? Is just having the right technology enough?) o How can I tell whether my lesson is fully accessible? (How does a review of the functional limitations created by disability help to guide the creation of accessible lessons?) o How does SoftChalk make it possible/easy/fast to take control and construct an accessible lesson from the start? (What tools are built into SoftChalk's that allow me to build in accessibility?) o Where can I get more information? (What's this about a “virtual open house” to explore a new resource regarding accessibility of online learning?) The session will end with a Q&A period.
Innovators in Online Learning	Session Date and Time
SoftChalk – the Perfect Tool for Engaging Instructors, Students, and your Kids -Jessica Street, Consultant for Broward College, Educator, Student, and Mother	This webinar occurred on Wednesday, January 27, 2010	View Archived Webinar!
This presentation will show how SoftChalk is used to enhance both the professional and personal work of this designer, instructor, student and mother. As an instructional designer she uses SoftChalk to create content that trains faculty to design, develop, and deliver online courses. As an instructor, she creates professional-quality interactive lessons for her students. As a doctoral student, she produced an award-winning tutorial using the product. And as the family historian, she uses SoftChalk to house videos of her children. During the presentation, selected lessons from each of these roles will be demonstrated, and the presenter will discuss methods for incorporating interactivity to engage your audiences.
Special Partner Webinar	Session Date and Time
SoftChalk and Merlot - Content Creation, Search and Publish	This webinar occurred on Tuesday, December 1, 2009	View Archived Webinar!
The partnership between MERLOT and SoftChalk focuses on simplifying the process of finding and integrating MERLOT digital content into media-rich lessons created using SoftChalk; and allowing SoftChalk authors to streamline the process for publishing learning materials into the MERLOT repository.   During this 45 minute presentation we will demonstrate SoftChalk and highlight the use of the MERLOT media repository and SoftChalk’s Media Search Tool.  The Media Search Tool allows SoftChalk users to search for and integrate MERLOT educational materials into SoftChalk-authored content. SoftChalk’s Media Search Tool, a component of SoftChalk’s authoring system, allows educators to easily create interactive learning materials.  The session ends with a Q&A period.

Innovators in Online Learning	Session Date and Time
The Importance of Learning Style Pathways -Trish Trifilo, Assistant Professor of Biology/Director of On-Line Learning Holland School of Sciences and Mathematics Hardin-Simmons University	This webinar occurred on Tuesday, November 17, 2009	View Archived Webinar!
In this presentation the presenter will discuss the results of her study that shows a significant improvement in both learning and satisfaction for learners who followed a pathway that matched their learning styles - then demonstrate possible ways to incorporate instructional strategies, based on these pathways, into lessons using SoftChalk. This study investigated the effects of following learning style pathways on learning and satisfaction in an online biology laboratory for non-science major undergraduates. Results of the study show a statistically significant improvement for students following their pathways that matched their learning styles compared to learners who failed to do so This presentation will include a description of learning pathways, dominant and subdominant styles, and related instructional strategies. And also show how SoftChalk created content can be used to optimize learning and satisfaction. A Q&A session will conclude the presentation.

Special Partner Webinar	Session Date and Time
Using SoftChalk & INTELECOM to Create Media-Rich Online Content -Cheryl Chapman, Instructional Designer/Faculty/Consultant	This webinar occurred on Tuesday, November 3, 2009	View Archived Webinar!
This 45-minute presentation introduces SoftChalk and the INTELECOM Online Resources Network® - a digital repository of more than 3,000 captioned videos. We will demonstrate how to use the Media Search tool in SoftChalk to find and embed topic-specific videos from INTELECOM directly into an online lesson. A Q&A session will conclude the presentation.

Innovators in Online Learning	Session Date and Time
Create Online Courses that Meet Quality Matters Standards -Sharon Rifkin, Broward College, Florida -Samita Ghoshal, Lone Star College, Texas -Diane Jackson, Training Manger, Quality Matters	This webinar occurred on Thursday, October 22, 2009	View Archived Webinar!
Quality Matters, through a FIPSE grant, developed a set of forty specific elements, distributed across eight broad standards, by which to evaluate the design of online and hybrid courses. These standards help to design the layout of a course, making sure it is optimizing student learning. SoftChalk provides the unique opportunity to build rich, interactive content material in compliance with these Quality Matters (QM) Standards. Using SoftChalk, the QM rubric can be applied to meet the required standards easily and effectively.  These standards include: accessibility, defining learning objectives, student engagement, and course navigation (to name a few).  During this presentation we will describe the standards and show examples of how SoftChalk can be used to meet them.  A Q&A session will end the presentation.
Innovators in Online Learning	Session Date and Time
Teaching Educators How to Teach Online using SoftChalk Lessons -Sharon Rifkin, District Director, e-Learning Programs/Faculty, Broward College, Florida	This webinar occurred on Tuesday, September 22, 2009	View Archived Webinar!
This session will show how Broward College provides the necessary professional development to educators wishing to teach online.  Through a series of online classes and workshops, Broward has realized their need to properly train and ‘certify’ educators that do online teaching.  SoftChalk can provide exciting and interactive activities that include content, video tutorials, links, learning activities and assessments that satisfy learning outcomes. During the presentation you will see demonstrations of the content Broward has created.
Innovators in Online Learning	Session Date and Time
Creating Interactive Math Lessons for Online, Hybrid, and Traditional Courses -Marilyn Larsen, Associate Professor, College of the Mainland	This webinar occurred on Thursday, July 23, 2009	View Archived Webinar!
Marilyn will show how you can use SoftChalk to ensure that students are actively engaged in the learning process. Marilyn will show how SoftChalk has provided an easy-to-use platform to design visually appealing, interactive and engaging lessons to meet all learning styles. You will see almost all of what SoftChalk has to offer in ways of activities, text poppers, hyperlinks, quiz ideas and tables. The lessons also demonstrate the effective integration of third party media. While the content is math, all disciplines will benefit from this presentation. The presentation will end with a Q & A session.
Innovators in Online Learning	Session Date and Time
Modernizing Student Orientations - Making them Interactive and Measurable -Erich Hochmeister, Training And Development Specialist Edison State College in Fort Myers	This webinar occurred on Thursday, May 19, 2009	View Archived Webinar!
Join Erich Hochmeister as he describes how the college solved the communication hurdle for first time online students. How were students going to learn how to use the Learning Management System? How do instructors measure if students are accessing the materials and grasping the concepts? The answer: incorporating the media with Soft Chalk. SoftChalk provides an easy to edit orientation module complete with the ability to embed the many interactive flash activities that the college created. The result: A modern, interactive, and measurable orientation module. Participants will review the processes and see the end result. A Q&A session will follow.
Innovators in Online Learning	Session Date and Time
Creating Interactive Engaging Lessons for Online High School Courses -Yvonne Caples, Project Facilitator Virtual High School, Clark County School District	This webinar occurred on Tuesday, April 14, 2009	View Archived Webinar!
Faculty and a Curriculum Task Force at Virtual High School in Las Vegas, Nevada are working to develop lessons for a variety of content areas using SoftChalk as the tool. Yvonne Caples, Project Facilitator for their Virtual High School will show how SoftChalk has provided an easy-to-use platform to design visually appealing, interactive and engaging lessons. You will see examples across different curricular areas that show a variety of activities and strategies to reach high school students in a virtual environment. We will look at lessons developed in English Algebra, and Personal Wellness (PE equivalent) to see how SoftChalk can enhance the presentation and interactivity in three very different core subjects. The presentation will end with a Q&A opportunity.
Innovators in Online Learning	Session Date and Time
Developing Dynamic Material for Program Recruitment designed for Events, Presentations, and the Web -Drs. Rena Palloff and Keith Pratt Managing partners of Crossroads Consulting Group. Faculty in the School of Educational Leadership and Change at Fielding Graduate University.	This webinar occurred on Wednesday, March 25, 2009	View Archived Webinar!
Drs. Palloff and Pratt are nationally recognized experts and published authors in the area of online learning and teaching. They will discuss why the Fielding Graduate University recognized that marketing its professional development program, Teaching in the Virtual Classroom, demanded a different approach than marketing degree programs. SoftChalk became the answer to this need, allowing them to build modules for recruitment that incorporate audio, video, and graphics that are appealing to the professional adult learner. Since print material has limited appeal in this situation and leaves many questions unanswered, they needed dynamic materials that were easily edited and could be displayed on their website as well as used at conferences and presentations. They also needed to work quickly to produce materials for upcoming events. This session will discuss the development process for our SoftChalk materials and will display the end result. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. For more information about our presenters, visit their consulting group at http://xroadservices.com/home/.
Innovators in Online Learning	Session Date and Time
Developing a Professional Development Program using Best Practice -Angelique Smith and Jennyly Nevarez, Valencia Community College	This webinar occurred on Tuesday, February 10, 2009	View Archived Webinar!
Faculty and Learning Technology Leaders at Valencia Community College have developed a wide-range of professional development courses for faculty using SoftChalk as the backbone to build instructional resources. By demonstrating best-practice of how to create, implement and assess our training resources, we have increased faculty buy-in and use of SoftChalk as a means to create high-quality instructional resources and repurpose these objects with fellow faculty at Valencia and throughout the State of Florida by publishing these materials to our statewide repository "The Orange Grove". See examples of our professional development resources and several examples from our instructional faculty who have implemented SoftChalk modules into their online & hybrid courses. The session with end with a Q&A.
Innovators in Online Learning	Session Date and Time
Creating Lessons for the 21st Century Skills Framework using SoftChalk -Hampton City Schools, Hampton Virginia	This webinar occurred on Wednesday, November 18, 2008	View Archived Webinar!
Hampton City Schools is creating a Model Technology Classroom in which exemplary teachers collaborate with the Instructional Technology Resource Teacher and Teacher Librarian. Together they integrate technology into their teaching strategies and model a learning environment based upon the national 21st Century Skills Framework. In this session a model team will share professional development activities showing how to use SoftChalk as a tool for creating ‘i-21’ lessons that correlate with Curriculum Pacing guides. They will also demonstrate how teachers have access to these lesson plans, models and activities through their Learning Management System. The session with end with a Q&A.
Innovators in Online Learning	Session Date and Time
Delivering a Complete Media Package: Integrating Textbook, Ancillary Materials and SoftChalk’s Interactive Activities -Dr. Marie Maness, Brookhaven College	This webinar occurred on Wednesday, September 24, 2008	View Archived Webinar!
Dr. Marie Maness, professor of Nutrition and Fitness at Brookhaven College and a full-time online instructor, initially uses a Course Tour developed in SoftChalk to introduce student to her online course. She uses “Chapter Reviews” to reinforce learning objectives with SoftChalk self-test activities. Her fitness students’ ability to record their workouts was vastly improved by an interactive workout log created with SoftChalk. Her completed lessons incorporate images, quick time videos, PowerPoint presentations, audio, and links to the Internet. She uses SoftChalk to deliver a complete media package to her students. The session will conclude with a Q & A period.
Innovators in Online Learning	Session Date and Time
Promoting Higher Level Thinking Skills: Using Bloom's Taxonomy with SoftChalk -Lyn Hawks, Duke University	This webinar occurred on Wednesday, August 27, 2008	View Archived Webinar!
In this one hour presentation Lyn Hawks, Coordinator of Independent Learning at Duke University TIP, will show how you can you use SoftChalk to ensure that students are thinking at their highest level. Bloom's Taxonomy is a familiar framework for educators as they help students explore levels of knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, evaluation, and synthesis. Learn how the Duke University Talent Identification Program harnesses SoftChalk quizzes, activities, and hyperlinks to provide meaningful skill practice and assessment at the highest levels of critical thinking. See examples of elementary, middle, high school, and college level lessons at work. The session ends with a Q&A period. (Space is limited. Please register now for best selection!)
Innovators in Online Learning	Session Date and Time
Readers and Scanners - How SoftChalk Enhances Diverse Learning Styles -Dr. Stephen Holland, Muscatine Community College	This webinar occurred on Tuesday, April 22, 2008	View Archived Webinar!
Learn from Stephen Holland, chair of the English Department at Muscatine Community College, how designing content for online students with different learning and reading styles can be compared to the concept of newspaper layout where there are both 'readers' and 'scanners'. SoftChalk's navigation tools allow instructors to focus both readers and scanners for better comprehension of content. Using SoftChalk features such as links, sidebars, text poppers, and activities enables students to move through the lessons the way they want - and still comprehend the key points. In addition, you will see how creating content with SoftChalk makes the educators' job easier when working with a Learning Management Systems.
Webinar Series: Innovators in Online Learning	Session Date and Time
How Course Tutorials Promote Success, Retention, and Accountability for the Online Student -Online educator in Doctoral and Associate Degree Programs	This webinar occurred on Wednesday, March 19, 2008	View Archived Webinar!
During this presentation, Lisa Harrell, Online Course Instructor and Developer, will discuss the use of online course tutorials to increase student success, retention, and accountability. The online learner faces unique challenges as compared to the traditional classroom student. Lisa is using SoftChalk Lesson Builder to promote their success by developing online course tutorials addressing such topics as program orientations, course navigation, using course e-mail, how to access and submit assignments, participating in online discussion boards, using online libraries, using online data bases, and understanding grading rubrics. During the presentation, examples of these tutorials will be shown including how SoftChalk Learning Activities can be used effectively. The presentation will be followed by a Question and Answer period.
Webinar Series: Innovators in Online Learning	Session Date and Time
Using SoftChalk as a Tool for Formative Assessment -California State University, Fullerton	This webinar occurred on Wednesday, March 12, 2008	View Archived Webinar!
This online presentation by Dr. Lynda Randall from California State University Fullerton, will offer formative assessment strategies to provide ongoing feedback to students and to allow teachers to determine the extent to which students are gaining competence. SoftChalk was purchased as a tool for enhancing student learning in face-to-face, hybrid, and online instruction. In early implementation, Dr. Randall developed several modules that support student success with text readings and the development of competencies in critical areas. These areas of competence include developing goals and objectives, understanding brain-based development of cognition during adolescence, and creating holistic and analytic trait rubrics. Master's degree students in Secondary Education, who are currently teaching in public schools, have also developed several SoftChalk lessons. The webinar will provide a window into these lessons and their initial impact on student learning, as well as perceptions of students and faculty about the usefulness of the SoftChalk tools. The session ends with a Q&A period.
Webinar Series: Innovators in Online Learning	Session Date and Time
Students use SoftChalk to Develop Critical Thinking -Glendale Community College Maricopa Community College System, AZ	This webinar occurred on Wednesday, November 7, 2007	View Archived Webinar!
During this presentation, you will learn from Mary Jane Onnen, a full time faculty member and Faculty Development Facilitator at Glendale Community College in Arizona, how her use of SoftChalk evolved from using it as a simple testing tool to having her students create content in SoftChalk to help them develop critical thinking skills. For a Basic Reading class, SoftChalk textpoppers are used to emphasize vocabulary, and recorded text is integrated with the lesson content. In a College Reading Skills class, students use SoftChalk to create content that is then used to assess the student's summarizing and critical thinking skills, as well as grammar, punctuation, and spelling.The session ends with a questions and answer period.
Webinar Series: Special Partner Webinar	Session Date and Time
ANGEL/LessonBuilder Integration- Special Partner webinar -SoftChalk and ANGEL Learning	This webinar occurred on Tuesday, October 30, 2007	View Archived Webinar!
During this presentation, co-presented by Angel Learning and SoftChalk, we will show how lessons created with LessonBuilder can be imported into Angel. We will show how the lessons are saved, brought into Angel and how the quizzes and learning activities become part of the Angel gradebook The session ends with a questions and answer period.
Webinar Series: Innovators in Online Learning	Session Date and Time
Using Online Learning to successfully engage at-risk students -Heartland Area Education Agency, Johnston IA	This webinar occurred on Thursday, September 27, 2007	View Archived Webinar!
In this session, Gene Behrens, Professional Development and Leadership Consultant, at Heartland Area Education Agency in Johnston, Iowa, will describe how they have worked with at-risk students that have had a history of resisting reading and writing instruction. Softchalk has been used to create interactive supplemental reading and writing activities for at risk students in shelters and a juvenile detention program. The program is design to be used with a broad range of student reading and writing skills, ranging from beginning reading to middle school/high school levels. Participants will be able to see how SoftChalk's interactive activities (Seek a Word, ordering, short answer, sorting, matching, and crossword puzzles) have successfully reinforced student learning.