Instructional Pilot Tools
The Center for Excellence in in Teaching, Learning and Online Education (CETLOE) pilot iCollege integrations and learning tools to add to the growing portfolio at Georgia State University.
Discussion Tools
Participate in a Discussion Tool Pilot
To participate in a Discussion Tool pilot, you’ll need to complete a Pilot Participation Survey by April 16, 2021 at 5 p.m.
CETLOE will select pilot participants by the following criteria:
- Willingness to collaborate with CETLOE to ensure that summer courses are designed to take advantage of the new discussion features.
- Willingness to complete 2 instructor-focused surveys on the new discussion tool.
- Willingness to request that your students complete 2 surveys on the new discussion tool.
- Enrollment in your summer sections does not exceed our cap on pilot users.
(To determine whether your sections can be included in the pilot, we will consider early responders to the survey and their max enrollments first.)
You will be notified of your selection by April 19, 2021 at 5 p.m.
Feature Reference Chart for Discussion Tools
| iCollege Discussion Tool | Ed Discussions | Harmonize | Ment.io | |
| Social Media Features | Limited. Can rate posts. | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Multi-Due-Dates | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Participation Grading | No | No | Yes | Yes. AI generates components, such as a quality score and contrarian percentage that impacts participation. |
| AI-Assisted Assessment | No | No | No | Yes. AI-assisted indicators for posting quality. |
| Q&A Functionality | No | Yes. Correct responses, endorse responses, and private messaging between “staff”. | No, but on product road map. | No |
| Equation Editor | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Code Snippets | No | Yes. Includes the ability to run code snippets. | Yes | Yes |
Ed Discussion
Ed Discussion offers Q&A functionality as well as an equation editor and the ability to insert and run code. It also provides many social media-like options such as “liking,” @mentions, and #hashtagging.
Contact us to get started or to request more information about this tool.
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Harmonize
Harmonize provides enhanced discussion capabilities that are not found in the iCollege Discussion Tool. The user interface for discussions provides a modern look and feel that is similar to what users experience with popular social media applications, and offers many of the social media-like features requested by faculty, including milestone due dates, participation grading, and the ability to include code snippets.
This tool has a low barrier to entry for new instructors and students because it builds upon practices they are already familiar with in the existing iCollege Discussion Tool, meaning instructors don’t need to significantly rethink their teaching strategies to fit into the tool’s pedagogical model.
Contact us to get started or to request more information about this tool.
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Ment.io
Ment.io provides enhanced discussion capabilities that are not found in the iCollege Discussion Tool and it incorporates Artificial Intelligence (AI) into its platform. The user interface for discussions provides a modern look and feel that is similar to what users experience with popular social media applications. It offers many of the social media-like features requested by faculty, includes milestone due dates, AI-assisted participation grading, and the ability to include code snippets. It requires rethinking of teaching strategies to fit into the tool’s pedagogical model including reviewing how the student facing analytics should (or should not) be used.
Contact us to get started or to request more information about this tool.
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Additional Tools
Learning Object Repository (LOR)
The Learning Object Repository (LOR) is a new feature coming to iCollege. The LOR can be setup to create repositories of documents and quizzes that can then be shared across the university or with specific departments. Documents and quizzes stored in the LOR are then discoverable and adoptable through the iCollege Content tool.
Contact us to get started or to request more information about this tool.
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Feedback Fruits – Group Member Evaluation
Group Member Evaluation works in conjunction with the iCollege Groups Tool to allow group members to provide peer reviews via a custom rubric. Group members can leave quantitative and qualitative feedback for their peers and complete self evaluations. Instructors can choice to use the feedback to assign grades that are available via the iCollege Grades Tool.
Learn more about Feedback Fruits >
Contact us to get started or to request more information about this tool.
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