1) Virtual Lunch & Learn Webinar: PowerPoint as a Design Tool for Learning – March 11 | 12 p.m. – 1 p.m. 

Building on the Designing Presentations and Online Lessons with the Brain in Mind webinar delivered in Fall 2019 this session will provide practical tips for using PowerPoint to create more impactful information design. Whether you use PowerPoint to deliver presentations or as a basis for creating digital learning content for your courses, this session will share visual layout techniques for optimizing learning.

Workshop Learning Outcomes

• Briefly review of cognitive load and its relation to how people absorb information
• Explore information hierarchy and its role in conveying meaning
• Discuss key principles and elements of design
• Discuss effective ways to use text, images, and audio
• Consider best export formats to support specific teaching/learning purposes

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2) Virtual Lunch & Learn Webinar: Extend Your Teaching Superpowers with Video Tools – March 20 | 11 a.m. – 12 p.m.

Seifert (2019) suggests that recorded lectures provide flexibility that enhances student learning that leads to academic success. Utilizing videos, students are empowered to complete activities, review material, and address gaps in their learning. In this discussion, you will interact using tools that empower you to extend beyond a traditional classroom delivery. Online, face-to-face or a combination, we have a little something for everyone. Learn how educators are using screen casting tools for online office hours, snow-day classes, feedback and to extend learning beyond classroom instruction. Hear from a student their perspective of participating in a video enhanced learning environment.

Workshop Learning Outcomes

• Use online video tools to extend your teaching superpowers

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3) Virtual Lunch & Learn Webinar: Strategies to Boost Learner Engagement in the Synchronous Online Learning Environment – March 24 | 12 p.m. – 1 p.m.

Synchronous online classes require instructor and students to be present online at a specific day and time. One of the advantages of this modality is the increased students’ connection to their instructor and peers (Watts, 2016). However, often instructors integrate less effective strategies (e.g., lecturing, lack of structure) into their synchronous sessions, which decreases engagement with the course. To boost student engagement requires finding the approach of translating the best online and face-to-face strategies into the synchronous online environment. Strategies presented at this workshop offer the potential for creating supportive spaces that increase students’ cognitive engagement in the synchronous online settings.

Workshop Learning Outcomes

• Suggest appropriate synchronous online learning strategies for specific scenarios
• Create a list of instructional strategies to boost learner engagement in the synchronous online learning environment

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4) Virtual Lunch & Learn Webinar: Accessible Word Documents Made Simple – April 3 | 11 a.m. – 12 p.m.

Ontario is the first province in Canada to legislate a timeframe for the implementation and subsequent enforcement for accessibility compliance by 2025. Adhering to AODA means that college staff and faculty are responsible for keeping accessibility requirements at the forefront while creating and disseminating electronic information. Approximately 75% of the documents created by Ontario colleges are either created in MS Word or in MS PowerPoint. Fortunately, several applications in Microsoft suite have similar commands and options, thus if you know how to work with one of the applications within the Microsoft suite you can transfer that knowledge over to other applications as well. Learn how to create accessible word document in simple way.

Workshop Learning Outcomes

• Using built-in headings and styles to make documents easier to navigate
• Adding alt text to visuals and tables and creating accessible hyperlinks
• Saving files as accessible pdf documents
• Finding and using accessible word templates
• Using the accessibility checker to identify and fix potential accessibility issues

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