 So here we are, the last Tuesday of the Fall 2020 semester… Let’s face it, just the fact that you are still here (and reading my Tuesday message) is a major win! There is no teaching tip from me to you this week; instead I wanted to offer kudos to you, one and all, for surviving one heck of a year.
But as I was watching the first “Ditch Summit” video this morning (see last week’s Tech Tuesday post), one thing that stood out to me was the suggestion that perhaps it is time for us to gravitate toward the notion of thriving, rather than merely surviving, in this COVID-and-beyond environment. The more I considered it, the more I realized how much evidence there has been among my CGCC colleagues of growth (personal and professional), dedication to students and their learning, and continued excellence in spite of – or perhaps because of – the pandemic. So, I hope that you’ll allow me to share just a few of the positives that I’ve observed over these last nine months:
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 Soooooooo… 2020 has been a long haul for all of us, and the last thing you are thinking about right now is professional development, but how often do you get the opportunity for a FREE Teaching Summit with dozens of available video presentations? And it all takes place over Winter Break, so you don’t have that old “I’m so busy… classes… students… meetings…” hanging over your head – you can just kick back and enjoy!
 This week we had a whole lotta fun reading your Letters to Santa, sharing CTLA Staff Favorites (software, hardware, hi-tech, lo-tech and even a little no-tech). We talked tech, and tech-based teaching and productivity solutions!
 This week's tip is short and sweet: take advantage of the resources on the CTLA website!
The Center for Teaching, Learning & Assessment at CGCC is constantly striving to include new and relevant resources to support our faculty. If you haven’t visited lately, you should – the home page is laid out so as to make it easy for you, the instructor, to find the help that you need at a glance!  This week, The CTLA's own Kali Andrews, Instructional Designer, joined us to share one of her favorite tools - Padlet! Kali shared the basics of setting up Padlet, strategies/activities, two ways to include your live Padlet discussion wall within Canvas, and her thoughts on free (Padlet Basic) vs. paid (Padlet pro).
 Are your students burned out on discussion boards? This afternoon everyone will have a chance to meet the newest member of the CTLA Team, Instructional Designer Kali Andrews! Kali will be sharing a favorite tool of hers AND mine... Padlet!
 This week, two of our faculty members graciously volunteered to share their favorite webconferencing platforms for teaching: Webex Teams (Fanny Silvestri) and Zoom (Marie Huntsinger).
You all know that I am the biggest advocate ever for free tools, but this week I want to share one of the most-used tools in my arsenal, which did in fact cost me about $30 - TechSmith's SnagIt.
A lot of software companies these days work on a subscription basis, but the $29.99 education price pays for a license, not a periodic subscription fee (you will need to provide proof that you are an educator in order to take advantage of the education pricing). I use SnagIt pretty much on a daily basis, for many tasks:
 This week we looked at recommended practices when creating presentation slides, AND gave three awesome resource sites for you to find ready-made slide templates! There are basic slide decks, slide decks for games, hyperdoc slide decks - you name it, you'll be able to find it!
This week's post is in response to a question that I received recently about the best hardware to use for recording. Anyone who knows me will be able to guess my response: "It depends!"
 This week we were joined by guest presenter Chris Reider, who shared his use of FlipGrid within the Canvas LMS for his classes. Watch the 47-minute video below to find out why Flipgrid is such a favorite for Chris, how he uses it with his students, and how to directly integrate Flipgrid into Canvas.
 Just so everyone knows, I won't be posting next week. Also, in lieu of a Live session next Tuesday afternoon, we encourage you to peruse the prerecorded sessions! DID YOU KNOW that the LOL content can be helpful for ANY class, in ANY teaching modality? Yes, we had fun with the name, but there are useful tips and tools for any instructor, whether they are teaching synchronously, asynchronously, hybrid, or - eventually - face-to-face. Click on any of the session icons below to watch the recording!
 This week we followed up on last week's Webex Breakout Sessions by investigating activities and strategies (with a heavy emphasis on the use of Google Jamboard) for small groups in Webex! This 33-minute video contains ideas and resources so that you and your students can get the most out of Breakout Sessions.
 This week's tip is short and sweet - want to have some fun with fonts in the easiest way possible? Try cooltext.com! This 3-minute video shows how simple it is to create eye-catching banners and titles for documents, slides, Canvas pages, and more.
 This week in LOL, we collectively made our first foray into Webex Breakout Sessions! As this feature has only been "live" for Maricopa Webex Meetings for about 2 weeks, there are still some questions we may not immediately have the answers to - but if you do have questions after watching the video, be sure to use the "LOL Suggestion Box" form to let us know, and we'll try to find the answer(s).
Small group activities... online?
Institutions of higher education around the world are providing their faculty with resources for online instruction that is active and engaging - read on for ideas, tips, tricks, and recommended practices.  This week we had our first official LOL Guest Presenters! Dr. Scott Adamson and Dr. April Ström joined us this week to share their course redesign for the unexpected move from face-to-face math classes to the Asynchronous Online Environment (AOE).
 This week was our first ever "LOL... Some Good News Edition." We had live guests AND good news shared via email, conversation about tools, student engagement, instructor presence, creative workspace hacks, and more!
 Remote teaching can turn into an expensive gig. But do you know who is always on a tight budget, and really knows how to think outside the box? Teachers, that's who! Laptops, webcams, document cameras... working from home can be effective, but it also takes work and often some specialized equipment. That gets expensive - and even if you don't mind spending the money, the demand is very high so it can be a challenge to get hold of the hardware that you want. Fortunately, there are a lot of clever (and determined!) teachers out there, and luckily for us, they share on social media!
Let's take one example that the CTLA has been fielding questions about - the document camera. No doc cam? No problem!  The topic for this week's LOL session was "Keeping Students Engaged & Accountable." We had a conversation about student engagement and accountability, and demo'ed Pear Deck, an interactive slide presentation tool. Pear Deck has both a free and premium version,
and currently has a 90-day Premium trial available to educators! Yesterday was another awesome LOL session with our CGCC faculty - I'll send everyone the link to the recording as soon as I'm done editing!  If you’ve never watched John Krasinksi’s “Some Good News” on YouTube, you really need to – in the wake of the COVID pandemic outbreak last spring, he sat in his home office and offered some desperately needed balance to all of the bad news that was everywhere by seeking out and sharing Some Good News! He broadcast stories of first responders, spread joy by holding virtual prom and virtual graduation for the Class of 2020, brought together everyday heroes with their personal heroes, and generally created a sense of connectedness to his audience in an unprecedented period of social isolation.
 There were some updates (dare I say, improvements...?) to Webex in the last few days, and your faithful CTLA staff are working hard to create resources that will bring you up to speed on the new features that are available! But for today, I just wanted to help with one existing feature that looks a little different this week - the "mute/unmute" buttons!
 Jen researched and gathered lots of resources to share with everyone, and shared the Top 3 Tips that she discovered. Watch the recording to discover 3 Tips for Survival this semester!
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© Chandler-Gilbert Community College, 2025.