Digital Innovation Projects

• 9:00am- HS 1001: Keynote: MicroSoft Representatives – Dr. Stephanee Stephens & Darren Clay
  • Integrating MicroSoft tools and the LMS to empower student learning experiences.
• 10:00am- HS 1001: Building Community in Asynchronous Online Spaces - Dr. Jennifer Dail, Professor of English
  • This presentation will explore strategies for building community with students in asynchronous online spaces. Framed in culturally responsive pedagogy, the presenter will share strategies that have proved effective in building community among and with students in the online graduate program. The session will highlight specific strategies from required courses in the English Education program and general strategies for working with and supporting a large group of doctoral candidates at various phases of their post-coursework program.
• 10:00am- HS 2206: HIPs for Student Success - Dr. Yi Jin, Associate Professor, School of Instructional Technology Innovation
  • In this presentation, Dr. Yi Jin will describe the learning theories that guide her online teaching and how she utilizes high impact practices in her online courses to facilitate student success. She will showcase her online course design, implementation, management, assessment, and further development and redesign of the courses. She will also share the instructional strategies used in her online courses to promote adult learners’ learning, as well as the innovative technologies she integrates for student engagement.
• 11:00am- HS 1001: Online Synchronous: Testing, Connecting and Student Success...Oh My!- Dr. Susan Hardy, Senior Lecturer of Data Science and Analytics
  • Over the last 4 years, Susan has been developing resources and presenting at events ways she uses to increase engagement in her online synchronous classes. Suggestions start in the syllabus with clear expectations and the right choice of words, continue through the weekly classes, and end with her creative way of proctoring an online final that makes the final a learning experience as well as an assessment. Join her as she shares her compilation of resources and invites the participants in her presentation to add to the conversation.
• 11:00am- HS 2206: Prompt Engineering in Your Classroom- Dr. Jeanne Law, Professor of Enginlish, Director of Composition
  • With the emergence of generative artificial intelligence (gen AI), educators face major questions about adapting instruction and assessment. Whether you're an AI skeptic or enthusiast, this presentation will equip you with an ethical framework and practical strategies to integrate AI as a collaborative tool for enhancing instruction. We'll discuss research findings on how over 1,000 college students are using AI in their academic and professional lives. Join us as we shape the future of higher education in the AI age!
• 12:00pm- HS 1001: Keynote: Faculty as Learning Scientists - Dr. Anissa Vega
  • Keynote and lunch.
• 1:00pm- HS 1001: Student Engagement in Expandable Online Graduate Courses - Dr. James McCafferty, Associate Professor of Criminal Justice
  • Educational engagement is a critical part of student learning and success. This presentation will review engagement strategies used in an expandable online graduate cybersecurity course. I will discuss the challenges and rewards of building an online community with students through various virtual events. I will also review management within the expandable course model and how my team and I are able to engage with over 120 graduate students in seven-week courses. Finally, I will report the results from a survey that was administered in Fall 2023 to measure student perceptions of the engagement initiatives used in class.
• 1:00pm- HS 2206: Getting Comfortable on Video - Tyra Burnton, Senior Lecturer of Marketing
  • Do students watch your videos? Do you feel like you are talking to yourself, and no one is listening? This presentation discusses how to make your class videos better and more engaging for your online asynchronous class. I’ve been podcasting and producing live video streaming for years and can help you develop strategies to get comfortable behind a microphone and in front of a camera. It is possible to connect and engage with students through video.
• 2:00pm- HS 1001: Supporting Faculty by Sharing High Quality Course Designs in the Distinguished Course Repository - Dr. Kim Loomis, Professor of Science Education and Faculty Fellow for Learning Sciences
  • KSU faculty have developed numerous exemplary online and hybrid courses. Acknowledging the need to catalog, recognize, and provide access to these courses, the Distinguished Course Repository (DCR) was developed to serve this purpose. The DCR is in an online journal format, created to facilitate the sharing of excellent course designs and best practices of experienced faculty with their peers, including late and new hires. Access to the DCR impacts student learning by supporting their ongoing success with the adoption and implementation of distinguished course templates that exemplify effective course design, instructional strategies, assessments, opportunities for student engagement, and course management. 
• 2:00pm- HS 2206: The Sophistications of Scaffolding Student Success in Online and Hybrid Courses: Content, Structure, Pattern, and Response - Dr. Rochelle L. Harris Cox, Senior Lecturer, Department of English
  • In this presentation, Dr. Harris Cox examines scaffolding in online and hybrid spaces as a set of sophisticated practices in content, structure, pattern, and response that generate opportunities for student and teacher innovation and success in reading- and writing-intensive courses. She discusses applications of these four scaffolding practices, and the digital moves that support them, as well as the benefits for course participants, which include student engagement, HIPS in online courses, scaling course projects, a more humane management of grading; and a greater ease of course revisions and updates.

• 9:00am- HS 1001: Keynote: Apple Representatives
  • Innovations from Apple can play an important part in impacting student success through facilitating effective teaching and course management. Apple does not permit recording of presentations.
• 10:00am- HS 1001: Open Educational Resources - Ms. Chelsee Dickson, Scholarly Communications Librarian
  • Open educational resources (OER) are often misunderstood. Adopting, adapting, or creating OER not only saves students money but also allows them access to course materials on day one of class. Attend this presentation to learn what OER are (and what they are not), their benefits to students, and how Georgia leads the charge in open education.
• 10:00am- HS 2204: Using Operant Conditioning Principles to Improve Online Learning: Perspectives from an Animal Trainer - Dr. Allison Martin, Associate Professor of Psychological Science
  • The principles of operant conditioning are equally applicable whether you are teaching a dog to sit or teaching a student a different writing style. As a researcher in captive animal management and training, I learned how to make reinforcement as efficient as possible to shape complex behaviors in a variety of species. When I transitioned to a faculty position, I applied the same operant techniques to my teaching. In this presentation, I’ll highlight how I incorporate principles such as motivating operations, contingency, and reinforcement timing and schedules into my online courses to foster student engagement and success.
• 11:00am- HS 1001: Promoting Student Success with uHoo Analytics – Professor Cristen Dutcher, JD, Clinical Associate Professor of Business Law
  • A description of the presenter's use of uHoo Analytics and implementation of the tool to promote student success through easy identification of at-risk students, troubling assignments, and even difficult assessment questions. Best practices shared on how to use uHoo Analytics for your students' success, too.
• 11:00am- HS 2204: Communicating our Mathematical Thinking Online - Dr. Ben Sloop, Clinical Assistant Professor of Mathematics
  • Success in mathematics requires more than calculating correct results. It’s equally important that students can communicate their problem-solving process in writing using standard mathematical notation. This session explores strategies for helping students explain their mathematical thinking in writing while using digital courseware that oftentimes only evaluates students’ end results.
• 12:00pm- HS 1001: Keynote – DLI’s Show (off) and Tell Session - Ms. Brichaya Shah and Jason Rodenbeck
  • Keynote and lunch.
• 1:00pm- HS 1001: Transformative Tech Tools: Improving Student Engagement Through Industry-relevant Assignments - Sarah Johnson, Senior Lecturer of Communication
  • What happens when undergraduate students explore the power of visual communication with the help of transformative tech tools? The answer: students gain both practical knowledge AND industry-desired skills that have the potential to create change far beyond the campus. In this presentation, Professor Sarah Johnson will share how she transformed a theory-based visual communication course into a hands-on, interactive learning experience where students became empowered content creators.
• 1:00pm- HS 2204: Introduction to uHoo Training- Kim Loomis, Faculty Fellow for Learning Sciences, Milya Maxfield, Senior Instructional Designer, and Julia Fuller, Interim Executive Director of DLI
  • Come to this workshop and complete the Intro to uHoo Analytics Training to receive a Souvenir Badge. Completion of this in-person training will position faculty to access and complete three additional training modules in Owl rain, to earn additional microcredentials including a Digital Certificate suitable for evidence of supporting student success using uHoo Analytics. This session was a replication of training available through links on the uHoo Analytics webpage. Please visit to sign up!

The 2023 My Digital Experience: A Show and Tell Conference took place on March 2nd and 3rd in a hybrid format.  This year, we were happy to host presentations by MicroSoft and Apple as well.

Links to the videos and descriptions of the presentations are below. Please note that due to their restrictions, we are not able to share the Apple presentation.

• Learning at Real World Scale with Open-Source Development: How can we prepare students for working on industry-scale projects (without having to maintain those systems themselves)?-Nick Murphy
  • In this session we’ll discuss how to leverage online open-source development to create these large-scale experiences and better prepare our students for their future careers.
• Movie Time in the Classroom: Discussing and Improving Recorded Video Lectures in Online Courses -David Johnson
  • This presentation will discuss the use of recorded video lectures in asynchronous online courses. There are two goals. First, I will discuss how “homemade” lectures can be (should be?) better than lectures found on YouTube. This is becoming problematic given the excellent lectures widely available on YouTube and other sites. Second, I will demonstrate how the use of voice actors (with various English dialects) reading personalized lectures can engage students, particularly in my linguistics course. And I will show how the use of graded embedded quizzes (with feedback in video format) adds accountability to each lecture. 
• Microsoft Representative Presentation: Integrating Microsoft Tools and Our LMS to Empower Student Learning Experiences
  • As we know, new teaching and learning environments require tools to meet these new expectations. Learning Management Systems and Microsoft 365 have complementary strengths and when used together they provide a complete learning and engagement management system tailor-made for all learning environments: in-person, hybrid, and remote. Join us to learn how Microsoft and your LMS integrate to empower student learning experiences.
• Students-as-Partners: a Process of Engagement, Shared Reciprocal Learning and Work -Diana Gregory
  • While developing the MAAD degree in the College of the Arts, art/design faculty explored strategies to increase student engagement through a scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) framework where, as Felten (2013) recommended, students are included as co-research partners to evaluate learning and teaching. I highlight the attitudes and intentions supporting the emergence of Healey, Flint, and Harrington’s (2016) conceptual model for students-as-partners showcasing the foundational cognitive, emotional processes of students and staff within a sticky art and design curriculum (Orr and Shreeve, 2018) where trust, risk, responsibility, empowerment, and reciprocity impacted the implementation of the new online degree.
• Supporting Student Learning to Help them "Escape" -Alison Hedrick
  • As faculty, we have the responsibility of enhancing the student learning experience in an effort to help students escape (or graduate!). At the beginning of the semester, we do not want our students to feel like they were thrown into an escape room, trying to solve the puzzle of how the course is organized. However, escape room activities can be incorporated into your online and face-to-face classrooms to encourage effective communication, problem-solving, critical thinking, and collaborative work. In this session, we will discuss ways you can organize your course and create game-based learning experiences, both of which will support student success.
• Developing Assignments to Strengthen the Literacy Skills in the Online Format -Shelia Schreiner
  • To ensure that students can successfully tackle literature in and outside of their discipline, it is important for them to strengthen their literacy skills. The classic way to do this is assigning a term paper. This is time consuming for both the student and faculty. This also tends to be a high stakes assignment. In this session, I will share some of my online assignments both synchronous and asynchronous that strengthen students’ literacy skills in upper-level Biology courses. I will share some of my tips on how to make grading these assignments less time consume especially for large class sizes.
• Apple Learning Representative Presentation
  • Using the mini iPad to impact student success through effective teaching and course management.
• Organizing Your Online Class for Student Success and Enhanced Engagement -Denise Knapp
  • Attendees in this session will learn how SoftChalk can help students better understand instructor expectations and improve the visual appeal and flow of teaching materials. Denise Knapp will demonstrate how SoftChalk can be used to create weekly checklists, provide student self-assessments, and integrate instructor created and outside resources all into one weekly module. Attendees will also be introduced to instructor videos that go beyond PowerPoint to replicate in class reviews. Lastly, Mrs. Knapp will provide examples of custom widgets for the D2L course homepage that connect the students to the instructor and real-world applications of the course content.

The inaugural My Digital Experience: A Show and Tell Conference was held virtually at KSU over four weeks from early February to the first week of March 2022. At this unique conference, teams of KSU faculty and DLI instructional designers teamed up to “show (off) and tell” others about their digital experiences with innovative online or hybrid course design, implementation, management, assessment, and/or problem-solving. Conference attendees and visitors to this website have access to great ideas and resources for online and hybrid teaching, and for making face-to-face courses even more effective.

The Show and Tell Conference was unique for several reasons:

1. Presenters were teams of KSU faculty and Digital Learning Innovations (DLI) instructional designers, who have complimentary knowledge and digital experiences.
2. It was held virtually on Teams, with presentations scheduled once a week for four weeks in the spring semester. 
3. This CIA-hosted website provides access to recordings of the presentations and discussions, as well as useful resources.

• Feb 11- Session 1: Using Formative Assessments to Increase Student Engagement and Understanding Dr Ali Keyvanfar (Asst. Prof. of Construction Management) and Ms. Milya Maxfield (DLI Instructional Designer)

  • Student understanding can be difficult to gage, and the familiar "Does anyone have any questions?" query often goes unanswered in both traditional classrooms and online discussion boards; however, ensuring students have a good grasp of basic course concepts can facilitate more meaningful and engaging class activities and discussions. In addition to increasing student engagement, conducting formative assessments to measure understanding throughout the course can also allow you to clarify, explain, or elaborate on that content for students in real time when it is most meaningful to them.

    Interested in learning more about using formative assessment for student engagement and understanding? Join us for a presentation, demonstration, and conversation about how online forms can be leveraged to create a loop of communication audits and encourage a deeper and more practical understanding of course material no matter what modality you are teaching in.

• Feb 11- Session 2: Demonstrating Aligned and Accessible Courses Dr. Robert Keyser (Assoc. Prof. of Industrial Engineering) and Ms.Garima Banerjee (Senior DLI Instructional Designer)
  • What does it mean for an online course to be aligned to course objectives and accessible to all learners? How can you increase instructor presence in your online course? Join us to see a course that showcases modules that includes various types of files and formats that are accessible, aligned to course objectives, and that demonstrate instructor presence.
• Feb 18- Session 1: Creating Engaging and Inclusive Online Classrooms Dr. Rajnish Singh (Assoc. Prof. of Chemistry), Ms. Ashley Moore (Senior DLI Instructional Designer), and Ms. Kathryn Morgan (Senior DLI Instructional Designer)
  • Teaching freshman chemistry online is a daunting task. Challenges of student engagement in a face-to-face class are heightened several-fold in an online environment. Rajnish Singh, faculty in Chemistry & Biochemistry, together with Senior Instructional Designers, Kathryn Morgan and Ashely Moore will present “lessons learned” in teaching online chemistry and the tools required to create an engaging, inclusive classroom environment. 
    • Link to Session Recording
    • Other Resources from this Session – PowerPoint
• Feb 18- Session 2: Immersive and Interactive Online Laboratories  Dr. Nancy Pullen (Prof. of Geography & Geospatial Sciences), Dr. Mark Patterson (Prof. of Geography & Geospatial Sciences), Ms. Sarah Cooper (DLI Instructional Designer), and Mr. Jason Rodenbeck (Assistant Director Academic Web Accessibility, DLI Instructional Designer)
  • How can students comprehend the physical world without leaving their computers? How can students complete online (laboratory) exercises that are both immersive and interactive? Watch us as we demonstrate how students can learn via online interactive story maps that literally put the world at their fingertips. 
    • Link to Session Recording
    • Creating an Online Lab PowerPoint
    • Hands-On Kitchen Science Introduction
    • Online Lab Resources
    • Virtual Lab Introduction
• Feb 25- Session 1: Structuring Synchronous Sessions: Making the Most of your Time (but not overdoing it) Dr. David Glassmeyer (Assoc. Prof. of Math) and Mr. Stephen Rahn (DLI Instructional Designer)
  • This interactive presentation will include research-based strategies for structuring effective and engaging synchronous classes. Whether meeting for 30 minutes or two hours, we intersperse what literature says with our experience running synchronous sessions and provide time to share your ideas as well.
• Feb 25- Session 2: Forming Effective Collaborations: Reaching Students Through the Use of Microsoft Teams Dr. Cameron Greensmith (Assoc. Prof. of Human Services) and Mr. Stephen Rahn (DLI Instructional Designer)
  • This show-and-tell presentation explores the ways instructors can utilize Microsoft Teams to provide feedback, collaborate, and meaningfully engage students. We suggest that no matter the course modality, Microsoft Teams can be used as an effective tool to communicate and collaborate with students. This presentation will provide instructors with the knowledge to engage in innovative and in-depth uses of Microsoft Teams that have the potential to strengthen existing courses and meet students where they are at.
• March 4- Session 1: Taking up the Slack: Using Slack for Authentic Course and Community Engagement in an Online Learning Environment  Dr. Miyoshi Juergensen (Asst. Prof. of Educational Leadership) and Mr. Robert Swift (DLI Instructional Designer)
  • Slack is a productivity platform designed to streamline communications for folks sharing community and/or work. The presenters will showcase how Slack is being used in online coursework to create authentic opportunities for course communication and collaboration (e.g., in lieu of D2L for announcements, discussion board posts, and seeking clarification for course activities/expectations) and to support students with dissertation development individually and collectively. The presentation will be interactive, providing sandbox time for participants to explore the Slack features being used for our online learning environments; and, be framed by research-based approaches for effective instructional design.
• March 4- Session 2: Developing Accessible Course Content with D2L HTML Template and Text-to-Speech Services Dr. Zhigang Li (Asst. Prof. of Information Technology) and Ms. Nancy Somjit (Senior DLI Instructional Designer)
  • D2L provides a set of HTML templates that very few people are aware of. These templates not only offer static templates for regular text content but also provide interactive components. More importantly, these templates are accessible! Step away from being confined to PowerPoint slides and design learning materials in the HTML format natively. The majority of the text-to-speech software produces robotic VoiceOver that does not sound natural. Experience how recent advancement in AI and machine learning now make it possible to have a computer-generated voice-over that sounds natural.