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Justin Smith ’17, PhD, Publishes Scholarship

by | Jul 10, 2024 | Staff

Justin Smith ’17, PhD, assistant professor of English and Black Studies at Randolph-Macon College, is the author of “Subjective Limits of Imagination: Race, Gender, and Sex in the Archives,” an essay included in the expanded and revised 10-year anniversary edition of Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives (Routledge 2024).

In May, he presented a paper entitled “Monsters and Gods: Naturalist Racial Constructions from Stephen Crane to Richard Wright,” as part of a panel sponsored by the African American Literature and Culture Society at the annual meeting of the American Literature Association in Chicago.

At Canisius, Smith majored in English and creative writing, contributed articles to The Griffin, served as an editor for Quadrangle, and wrote a creative all-college honors thesis. Mentored by Dr. Jennifer Desiderio, he presented an Ignatian Scholarship paper analyzing Clotel, William Wells Brown’s 1853 novel about enslaved daughters of Thomas Jefferson. After graduating summa cum laude, Smith earned first an MA then a PhD at Penn State.

At Randolph-Macon, he’s taught Introduction to African American Literature, Hip Hop and American Literature and African American Modernism.

You can read his full academic profile here:

https://www.rmc.edu/profile/justin-smith/

Submitted by: Mick Cochrane, Professor, English

Summer Online Faculty Development Course

by | Jul 10, 2024 | Staff

Canisius University Logo

The OFDC (Online Faculty Development Course) offered by COLI is for full-time and part-time faculty, whether new to D2L, or experienced with technology for teaching. This five-week mini-course prepares instructors to teach online and hybrid courses. The OFDC provides many practical tips for teaching online but more importantly, helps faculty explore new pedagogies for active learning, social presence, and community in courses on the internet.

Additionally, the updated OFDC offers insights on what Regular and Substantive Interactions (RSI) are and how to incorporate RSI into your courses. It also includes information on Panopto, Canisius’s new video content management system, how it works, and how to best fit Panopto into your courses.

The OFDC can help professors craft engaging, interactive online experiences for students, either for all-online courses, or hybrid courses that feature limited use of the classroom.

Over the summer, we will be offering two courses:

OFDC A: Monday, May 20 -Friday, June 21

OFDC B: Monday, July 8th-Friday, August 9th *NEW DATE* July 15 – August16

To RSVP, please check out the Faculty Development Opportunities Wiki Page.

Stay tuned to the COLI Blog and the Dome for more sessions!

Submitted by: Tyler Kron-Piatek, Instructional Designer, COLI

ScreenPal Phased Out

by | Jul 10, 2024 | Staff

Due to rising costs and reliability issues, the Center for Online Learning and Innovation ended our subscription for ScreenPal (formerly Screencast-O-Matic) on May 14th, 2024. Please see our original post here for more information.

In short, while ScreePal had been a great toolset, new tools have appeared since we initially subscribed. These tools are more capable, reliable and, in some instances, better integrated into D2L.

Faculty can record videos using a variety of options:

  • Panopto is built into D2L, and provides a web-based recorder and simple editor for making cuts. We find this is the most efficient solution for most faculty and staff, and it can even be available to students in classes.
  • Mac users have QuickTime and iMovie.
  • PC users can try Clipchamp, a Microsoft Product.
  • OBS (Open Broadcast Software) and Adobe Premiere Pro are advanced options for recording and editing, respectively.

Additional tips, tutorials, and information can be found on the Web-Based Video for Teaching Wiki page.

Submitted by: Tyler Kron-Piatek, Instructional Designer, COLI