Ohio State is in the process of revising websites and program materials to accurately reflect compliance with the law. While this work occurs, language referencing protected class status or other activities prohibited by Ohio Senate Bill 1 may still appear in some places. However, all programs and activities are being administered in compliance with federal and state law.

Activities and Assessments

Discussion

Enabling students to learn with and from each other by talking or exchanging text directly is an extremely powerful tool for learning. Fortunately, there are many tools available to enable these kinds of interactions.

  • Carmen (Zoom, Discussions, Student Groups): To meet with students, and enabling students to meet with each other, for threaded multi-media posts that you can asses using Speedgrader and rubrics, and for assigning students to groups.
  • Hypothesis: This tool enables students (and you) to add annotations to PDFs, open web resources, and JSTOR articles and then reply to each others' annotations.
  • Microsoft Teams: This tool enables complex interactions, featuring teams, channels, and chats, as well as built-in synchronous video meetings. The set up can be substantial, and grading does not automatically transfer to the gradebook.
  • Any non-OSU-approved tools (e.g., PackBack, Discord, Slack)
  • Social media (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, TikTok): In addition to data/privacy, accessibility, and other concerns, students generally prefer to maintain separation from their personal and educational online lives.
  • Any non-OSU-approved Alternative: Tools that have not been vetted for security, privacy, accessibility, and terms of use and for which students cannot receive help from university and college support teams should not be used at Ohio State.

Quizzing

The value of online quizzing is sometimes underestimated, but it is possible to design learning activities that go well beyond simple objective memory testing.

  • Carmen Quizzes: This tool enables instructors to build quizzes featuring about a dozen kinds of questions, question banks (which enable randomization), instant feedback, and other powerful features.
  • TopHat: This polling tool enables instructors to incorporate multiple types of questions into presentations, then rapidly share summaries of student responses. Recently added features enable the creation of asynchronous presentations and polling/quizzing activities.
  • H5P: This tool makes it easy to create a wide range of interactive widgets, ranging from individual quiz questions through matching activities and beyond, which can then be embedded within other learning materials such as Carmen Pages. NOTE: Due to licensing restrictions, it is not possible for instructors to create H5P content directly, but the ASC ODE office will be happy to create materials on your behalf.
  • Microsoft Forms: For informal, ungraded questions, creating a simple form or survey can be a useful way to gather information.
  • Microsoft Qualtrics: For informal, ungraded questions, creating a simple form or survey can be a useful way to gather information.
  • Approved Publisher Tools: There are a number of publisher platforms (both etextbooks and homework systems) that have been vetted and approved for university use. These are mentioned in the following resource. When considering online textbooks and supporting tools, we strongly recommend meeting with our office early in the process.
  • Proprietary Quizzing Tools (e.g., Quizlet, Articulate, Mentimeter)
  • Any non-OSU-approved Alternative: Tools that have not been vetted for security, privacy, accessibility, and terms of use and for which students cannot receive help from university and college support teams should not be used at Ohio State.

Analysis and Lab Activities

There are multiple tools designed to provide guidance for students while they complete a complex set or sequence of steps.

  • (social annotation) Hypothesis: This tool enables students (and you) to add annotations to PDFs, open web resources, and JSTOR articles and then reply to each others' annotations. You could pre-seed a document with specific questions for students to consider or answer. Or you could ask students to annotate their journey through the logic of a complex argument.
  • (data) LabArchives: This tool is designed specifically to enable any researcher (novice to professional) to gather and manage data in a secure, reliable, time-dated platform.
  • Carmen Quizzes: If time-limits are removed from a quiz, it can be used to guide complex activities by alternating the use of explanatory text items and various kinds of questions, including file-upload questions, if students need to take notes beyond typing into Carmen.
  • Virtual Desktop: This tool makes it possible to provide students with a remote, online operating system that can be pre-loaded with files and/or software -- and which simulates a more powerful computer than many students have access to -- making it possible to provide rare or expensive tools for students to complete complex activities.
  • Ohio Supercomputer Center: The OSC provides online tools and educational materials to support data-intensive learning activities, including such things as statistical analysis and data visualization using the R suite.
  • Any non-OSU-approved Alternative: Tools that have not been vetted for security, privacy, accessibility, and terms of use and for which students cannot receive help from university and college support teams should not be used at Ohio State.

"Papers"

The word "papers" is in quotation marks here both because there is no paper on the internet and because, as a result, the number of kinds of thing a student might submit to demonstrate their learning is a very large number.

Tools for Students to Submit Work (and for You to Grade It)

Tools Students Might Use to Create Work that They Will Then Submit

  • Microsoft Office [Word, Powerpoint, etc.] (traditional text): Office tools have been and remain the standard default for student work. One recent development is that students can now share links to the file, rather than uploading a copy of the file.
  • u.osu.edu (blogging, websites): Based on WordPress, u.osu.edu enables students to create an entire website, including multimedia pages and posts, and to manage the sharing of that site, whether with you, other students, and/or anyone on the internet.
  • LabArchives (data/research): This tool is designed specifically to enable any researcher (novice to professional) to gather and manage data in a secure, reliable, time-dated platform.
  • Adobe Express (infographics, webpages): This tool enables students to develop multimedia, ranging from simple images through complex web pages, without needing to know any special skills of editing or coding.
  • ThingLink (interactive images, diagrams, infographics, etc.): This tool enables students to annotate images by adding interactive "hot spots" that can display explanatory material ranging from plain text through video and multimedia.
  • Almost Anything in the Toolset: With a few exceptions, students have the same access to approved tools as staff and instructors, so anything that can be used to generate stable material (a file or a stable hyperlink) can be used by students to create "papers."
  • Universal Design for Learning: When feasible, avoid specifying a specific tool or format for an assignment beyond what is necessary for student learning. For example, rather than a Microsoft Word document, request a discursive response; instead of an image, request an artifact. More open assignments benefit students with disabilities by preemptively enabling them to choose the medium that is most effective for them.
  • Any non-OSU-approved software suites (e.g., Google Documents)
  • System-specific tools (e.g., Pages or Notepad): Since students use a variety of devices, it is important to avoid requesting that assignments be completed in tools that are only available in one system, such as Microsoft Access or the Apple Office Suite.
  • Any non-OSU-approved Alternative: Tools that have not been vetted for security, privacy, accessibility, and terms of use and for which students cannot receive help from university and college support teams should not be used at Ohio State.

Presentations

Public speaking and other demonstrative and performative skills play an important role in learning and can provide very valuable information about the status of students' learning. Online contexts provide a wider range of possibilities than the relatively straightforward situation of in-class presentations, so it is especially helpful to distinguish between a) the tools used to create the presentation media and b) the channel(s) whereby students share their presentation with you and their classmates.

Most Suitable Tools for Presentation Materials

  • Microsoft Powerpoint: Microsoft PowerPoint remains the primary and most widely known tool for organizing text and multimedia to accompany spoken presentations.
  • ThingLink (interactive images, diagrams, infographics, etc.): This tool enables students to annotate images by adding interactive "hot spots" that can display explanatory material ranging from plain text through video and multimedia, which can be a very effective format for asynchronous presentations.
  • Adobe Express: This tool enables students to develop multimedia, ranging from simple images through complex web pages, without needing to know any special skills of editing or coding.

Most Suitable Tools for Presentation Channels

Alternatives to Consider for Presentation Materials

  • u.osu.edu (blogging, websites): Based on WordPress, u.osu.edu enables students to create an entire website, including multimedia pages and posts, and to manage the sharing of that site, whether with you, other students, and/or anyone on the internet.
  • Dynamic presentation tools (e.g., Prezi): Tools that add motion, multiple layers, multiple levels of perspective, and other innovations are especially challenging to make usable by people with disabilities. In addition, vendors often violate privacy and/or ignore security or charge for use.
  • Any non-OSU-approved video hosting platforms (e.g., YouTube, Vimeo)
  • Non-video platforms (e.g., OneDrive, Carmen Files): Sharing video over the internet requires specialized software, and most file storage options are not equipped to do it well. Carmen also allows very limited storage space, so should not be used as a primary lecture or video solution.
  • Any non-OSU-approved Alternative: Tools that have not been vetted for security, privacy, accessibility, and terms of use and for which students cannot receive help from university and college support teams should not be used at Ohio State.

Portfolios

Asking students to produce compilations of work completed at multiple different times, either as an ongoing and unfolding project or as a retrospective way to re-examine and re-use earlier work, is a very powerful learning opportunity, and the durability of files created and submitted via online tools makes this kind of work easier than in traditional settings.

  • PebblePad: This tool is purpose-built to enable students to compile multiple assignments completed in other systems (especially in Carmen) and to organize and analyze that work in novel ways.
  • u.osu.edu: Based on WordPress, u.osu.edu enables students to create an entire website, including multimedia pages and posts, and to manage the sharing of that site, whether with you, other students, and/or anyone on the internet. Those pages and posts can easily be composed of or contain work submitted elsewhere.
  • Adobe Express: This tool enables students to develop multimedia, ranging from simple images through complex web pages, without needing to know any special skills of editing or coding. While very elaborate portfolios might become confusing, Express would be ideal for 1-2 courses' worth of assignments.
  • OneDrive: For portfolios with very complex content and/or where the viewing and navigational interface is less important, OneDrive can provide a useful alternative.
  • Any non-OSU-approved Alternative: Tools that have not been vetted for security, privacy, accessibility, and terms of use and for which students cannot receive help from university and college support teams should not be used at Ohio State. (e.g., Google Documents, LinkedIn, public blogging software, badging tools)