Technology can connect us like never before. But with infinite possibilities comes many challenges in making suitable and judicial decisions about best fit – what technologies will be the best solution for instructors, course contexts, and students? This guide maintains that:
- Less is more – stick to a limited number of tools and technologies and simplify wherever possible.
- The Learning Management System (OnQ or other LMS offered by your Faculty) is the single best technical solution for course management.
An e-Learning tool is defined as any digital technology mediated through the use of a computing device that is deliberately selected to support teaching and student learning. The offers educators a framework, with criteria and levels of achievement, to assess the suitability of an e-learning tool for their learners' needs and for their own learning outcomes and classroom context.
Our recommendation – use OnQ or your Faculty Learning Management System. It’s got everything you’ll need in one place, there’s lots of support across campus, and it’s most likely that your students will be familiar with the platform because of its widespread use at Queen’s.
- Work with educational and tech supports within your Faculty to get a course site started.
- Use foundational tools such as Announcements, Content, and Assessments.
- For details about onQ support, visit the onQ Support website.
Beyond the Basics
Build on the foundations you’ve established within onQ or other LMS and slowly add a select number of technologies to creatively support your teaching and student learning. If you have a specific area of your teaching you want to enhance with technology, visit the CTL’s Educational Technology Tools site. Here are a few additional ideas:
- Course communications
- Add media to course communications.
- Add videos to weekly announcements. Develop a graphic syllabus using
- See the Communications Guide for more information on communicating with students generally.
- Student engagement
- Add increased opportunities for active learning by using technologies that support collaboration, practice and rehearsal.
- See the Student Engagement Guide for more information on active learning strategies.
- Content delivery
- ​​​​​​​Use technology to add polished, engaging features to your course content delivery.
- Edit recorded videos to add features like additional text and images.
- Add media such as graphics and images to your onQ content pages.
- Assessment
- ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Expand options for creative engagement in assessments.
- See the Assessment Guide for a range of ideas.
Creative Commons License
The Transforming Teaching Toolkit by the Centre for Teaching & Learning, Queen’s University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.