Ed Tech tools to engage your students

Since March 2020, Educational Technologies (EdTech) have proliferated as a result of the remote teaching forced upon instructors and students. Because of these new needs, the Center for the Advancement of Teaching Excellence (CATE) has worked to improve UIC’s EdTech ecosystem of enterprise tools. UIC instructors can use these tools free of charge with their UIC credentials.

The CATE website lists all enterprise solutions available for Fall 2021. While tools change all the time, high-quality teaching doesn’t. We recommend instructors use tools to engage students in constant dialog and creative work, and consider evidence-based practices when deciding what to use. Instructors can explore the EdTech pages to find resources in the following categories:

• Digital Course Materials (OERs, RedShelf, VitalSource)
• Grading & Proctoring (Gradescope, iThenticate, Respondus, SafeAssign) 
• Learning Management (Blackboard Learn) 
• Learning Spaces (Classrooms, Computer Labs, Virtual Computer Lab, Solstice Collaboration Software) 
• Lecture Capture (Echo360, Panopto) 
• Media Streaming (Echo360, Panopto) 
• Multimedia Creation Software (Adobe Captivate, Articulate 360, Camtasia, Echo360, Panopto, PowerPoint, VoiceThread) 
• Polling & Surveys (Blackboard Surveys, Google Forms, iClicker Cloud, Qualtrics) 
• Storage (Box, Google Drive, One Drive) 
• Virtual Classrooms (Acadly, Blackboard Collaborate, Echo360 Engagement, Google Meet, Zoom)
• Virtual Collaboration (Google Workspace, Microsoft Teams, Other Not Centrally Managed Free Apps) 

We encourage instructors to explore them and find out how they can use them in their teaching. If you missed the last module of the CATE Summer Institute, Leveraging Technology, you can still enroll to take advantage of the content for that and all the previous modules.

While tools change all the time, high-quality teaching doesn’t. CATE recommends that instructors use tools to engage the students in constant dialog and creative work and consider evidence-based practices when deciding what to use. 

CATE instructional designers can help explore tools that create a friendly environment for students and help them feel part of a community of learners. You can request as appointment here: go.uic.edu/IDappointment

For questions about the use of any Ed Tech tool, you may ask a question here: go.uic.edu/AskIT