The UMBC Instructional Technology Update is provided by the Division of Information Technology for students, faculty and staff. If you have questions or need help, please consult the Blackboard Help FAQs or directly at www.umbc.edu/blackboard/help. You can also contact the Technology Support Center at 410.455.3838 or submit an RT (Request Tracker) ticket via the myUMBC Help Menu or directly at my.umbc.edu/help.
HEADLINES
What's New
Training & Professional Development (recording archive)
Ultra Essentials: Jan 23-27 (every day at noon; recordings available)
Class Synchronous Web Conferencing Demo for Faculty (Jan 24 & Jan 26)
In Case You Missed It: Recordings & Tips
Course Prep Checklists
Other DoIT & UMBC News
]]>DoIT is pleased to announce the availability of Poll Everywhere, which now includes the ability of students, faculty and staff to login with their UMBC credentials. Many UMBC faculty are already leveraging Poll everywhere in their teaching. Through the Fall 2022 term, nearly 2,000 students have participated in at least one Poll Everywhere activity.
Poll Everywhere is an audience response system that presenters can utilize in both face-to-face and online courses instead of traditional, physical clickers. There will be no cost to members of the UMBC community to use this platform.
Poll Everywhere is web-based and can be managed both through a web browser or through the Poll Everywhere application. Poll Everywhere allows you to ask questions of your students, collect their responses by inviting them to respond through a website or phone text link, and share their collective responses in a variety of formats that update in real-time for everyone to see. It encourages all students to engage with learning content in an interactive way, using a tablet, laptop or mobile phone. Poll Everywhere questions can be launched from a browser or integrated in slide presentations such as Google Slides or Microsoft PowerPoint. Questions and results can be shared with other colleagues as well. Additionally, Poll Everywhere can be used during synchronous, online class meetings since no other hardware is needed, and the response system integrates with Blackboard allowing instructors to assign points and grade responses.
Please note that on Jan. 15, 2023 all existing Poll Everywhere accounts with a UMBC email account will be updated to require UMBC SSO access and that instructors and students will need to access Poll Everywhere via UMBC Single Sign On (SSO). Instructors will need to submit an RT ticket to request UMBC presenter access.
DoIT will host a 1-hour Clicker Faculty Coffee Break and Town Hall on Wed. Dec. 14th from 10-11 to discuss:
the PollEverywhere Pilot including myUMBC login & converting free accounts.
Turning Point (now Point Solutions) pricing & proposal
Next steps
Please also join a 1-hour Poll Everywhere training and demonstration on Thursday Jan. 12th from 12-1 for an introductory training session to learn how to:
Navigate the presenter dashboard
Create and present activities
Collaborate with teams
Generate reports
Integrate Poll Everywhere in slide presentations
DoIT has prepared a FAQ collection on Poll Everywhere including a getting started checklist for instructors. In addition, please follow our myUMBC group for upcoming training on Poll Everywhere.
As always, if you have any questions about teaching, learning, and technology at UMBC, please consider the following options:
]]>