In the leadup to the commencement of semester, most of my time was spent setting up teaching materials in Canvas, the new QUT learning management system.
I found there
NR
was quite a steep learning curve
in getting
AF
to know the new system.
I attended workshops that
EP
the university ran for staff, but mostly
I found them to be
NR
focused on the new
EP
interface, which I didn’t find too difficult.
My biggest challenge
EP
was that most of my class materials were not in a format appropriate to the new faculty Canvas template. Therefore, it was time consuming to work through a new template and a new system and try and work
out how to
AR
adapt my unit to suit both.
It was frustrating having to spend so much time adapting my previous assessment
to fit nicely with
NR
the Canvas
way of doing
RR
things. While
I was generally pleased with
AF
how this ended up, I’m sure it is
going to need more
NR
finessing once
I see how
AR
it works for the students, and this will no doubt take more time and continue the frustration.
Next semester
I will need to
NR
do the same process for a different unit, and
there are some
EP
things
I could probably
NR
do
differently to make
AR
the process easier. For a start, I know now how
to approach the
AR
new structure and I’m confident
that I can
AF
adapt new content to work within the new structure. Planning this out before starting the process in Canvas will probably help. I also
plan to unify some
AR
aspects and make them consistent across both units. Keeping the consistency not only makes it easy for me in making the changes, it should
also make the
EP
units easier for tutors and also for students – particularly those moving from undergrad to post grad. Finally, I need to block out some time to do specific subtasks so
that the whole
EP
process does not become over-whelming. Attending to these things will probably help, although
I think it will take
EP
a couple of iterations of the units before I am completely happy with everything.