CIDDE Learning Opportunities

Please complete this form to register for a workshop by selecting the session(s) that fit your schedule.  Follow this link for other support materials in the form of pdf's, webcasts, videos, and external web sites.

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Adobe Premiere Elements: Capture, Edit, and Share Video

Learn how to capture video to the computer and subsequently edit it, add titles and transitions and publish the video. Also learn about the different video formats and the pros and cons of using each. Workshop located in B 23 Alumni Hall.

Thursday, October 15, 10 am - Noon

Assessments & Surveys in CourseWeb (Blackboard)

Blackboard has tools that enable you to assess your students’ knowledge through tests and quizzes and obtain anonymous feedback through surveys. The quizzes can be configured to provide your students with immediate formative feedback. Come learn how to set up these tools and then make them available in your course. Workshop located in B 23 Alumni Hall.

Thursday, October 15, 1 pm - 3 pm

Audacity! Record Audio for Your Course

Audacity is an open source digital audio editing program that is available for free on the Internet. Audacity has become an increasingly popular option for editing digital audio on a personal computer due to its power, ease of use, and cost. It has become particularly popular with podcasts. In this session we will go over the basics of recording audio in Audacity as well as editing techniques to improve the audio quality. The process of uploading audio files to your Web course will also be discussed. Workshop located in B 23 Alumni Hall.

Monday, November 9, 1 pm - 2:30 pm

Clickers! Engage your Learners with e-Instruction

Did you ever wonder if your students are grasping the topics in class? Do you want to build interactivity in your course? An innovative teaching tool, e-Instruction, allows you to turn an ordinary PowerPoint slide show into an interactive, collaborative presentation. Students can respond to your slides through a hand-held device designed to provide immediate feedback as well as generate reports for further analysis of learning. In this session, you will explore how this technology can be used in the classroom. You will learn how to set up your PowerPoint show to engage your learners. Workshop located in B 23 Alumni Hall.

Thursday, November 5, 10 am - Noon

Content System in CourseWeb (Blackboard)

This seminar will introduce the basic concepts of the Blackboard Content System. The content system is a storage area for your course files (Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, audio clips, etc.) that is separate from, but integrated with, your CourseWeb courses. The integration allows you to store your course material online, and point to it from your CourseWeb courses. You will learn how to save time adding and updating course materials. This session is for people who are already using CourseWeb . Please bring course materials with you in electronic form. This session is NOT intended as an overview of CourseWeb. If you are new to CourseWeb please sign up for the Standard or Self-Instructional CourseWeb Workshop. Workshop located in B 23 Alumni Hall.

Wednesday, August 12, 10 am - Noon
Monday, October 5, 10 am - Noon
Wednesday, November 4, 1 pm - 3 pm
Wednesday, December 2, 10 am - Noon

Copyright Issues

This session will focus on copyright issues when using electronic materials on the Web and especially within CourseWeb (Blackboard). It will cover the implications of the Teach Act, changes to the fair use doctrine, and Pitt services related to copyright protection.

Come join us at the Teaching Excellence Showcase, located in the Alumni Hall ballroom. This presentation will take place at 9:30 am on October 21st.

We hope to see you there!

Course Design with Accessibility in Mind

Online courses provide both opportunities and barriers for students with disabilities. In this workshop, we will discuss accessibility issues faced by students with physical or cognitive limitations. Topics of discussion include the legal responsibility of higher education institutions, assistive technologies (e.g., screen readers), and design considerations. Design your course with accessibility in mind, rather than revising course content after it has been published on the Web.Workshop located in 815 Alumni Hall.

Tuesday, October 6, Noon - 1:30 pm

CourseWeb *

There are two types of workshops available for those who are new to CourseWeb (aka Blackboard) or wish to review the different features: Standard and Self-Instructional. The Standard session is an in depth eight hour session. Self Instructional is a two hour session covering the most basic practices. We highly recommend taking the Standard version to get the most out of CourseWeb for both you and your students. Once you have learned how to use Blackboard then consider attending other workshop sessions on using the Content System, Wikis & Blogs, Images in CourseWeb, Creating Audio Files, Copyright Issues, Discussion Board, etc. Workshop topics include best practices associated with educational technologies. Come see how these tools can benefit you and your students.

CourseWeb (Blackboard) Standard Workshop

This eight-hour workshop (offered as two half-day sessions or one full-day session) introduces faculty to the use of CourseWeb at the University of Pittsburgh. This workshop focuses on the application of Web-based instructional technologies to enhance learning by encouraging active and collaborative learning. You will receive an overview of the CourseWeb components and learn how to effectively design your course. Through a hands-on approach, you will explore features such as the content system, discussion board, assignments, assessments (tests, quizzes, surveys), and the gradebook. Since you will be working on developing your course, you should bring course materials (such as lecture notes, syllabus, course outlines) in electronic form. You should be familiar with basic computer operating system concepts such as “files,” and should be experienced with Web browsers (current versions of Firefox or Internet Explorer) as well as a word processor. Workshop located in B 23 Alumni Hall.


Friday, September 4, 9 am - 5 pm
Tuesday, September 15 (Part 1) & Thursday, September 17 (Part 2), 9 am - 1 pm
Monday, October 12, (Part 1) & Wednesday, October 14 (Part 2), 1 pm - 5 pm
Friday, October 30, 9 am - 5 pm
Friday, November 13, 9 am - 5 pm


CourseWeb (Blackboard) Self Instructional Workshop

This one-to-two-hour workshop is for those who cannot attend the CourseWeb Standard Workshop. The session provides an introduction to CourseWeb that covers the basics of adding content to a course and using the gradebook. Users are shown how to access additional support materials and resources available over the Internet to assist in using other CourseWeb functions. Please bring course materials with you in electronic form. Workshop located in B 23 Alumni Hall.

Monday, August 17, 1 pm - 3 pm
Wednesday, August 19, 2 pm - 4 pm
Tuesday, October 13, 9 am - 11 am
Tuesday, November 10, 10 am - Noon
Monday, November 16, 1 pm - 3 pm
Tuesday, December 8, 2 pm - 4 pm

Creating a Learner-Centered Syllabus

Join your colleagues for this workshop to discuss components of a well-designed syllabus and evaluate sample syllabi. This session will focus on how to plan and construct a syllabus that reflects the tools and information instructors can provide to help students. Please bring a copy of your syllabus to the workshop if you have one.Workshop located in 815 Alumni Hall.

Friday, November 20, Noon - 1:30 pm

Developing a Course

Learn to use an effective, straightforward model to design a university-level course. Student learning outcomes, activities, and assessment are the components of this learner-centered model that hundreds of Pitt faculty have found valuable. Follow-up and individual assistance is available from an Instructional Designer with a background in learning and instructional theory.Workshop located in 815 Alumni Hall.

Friday, October 16, Noon - 2 pm

Digital Camera Workshop

CIDDE’s Instructional Media Services can now provide modern digital cameras for short-term loan to faculty. These cameras are designed to provide high quality images and offer a wide variety of digital functions for creative photography, including many features previously limited to more expensive cameras. Join our expert staff from CIDDE’s Photographic Services department for a workshop that will show you how to get the most out of your digital camera and improve your picture making skills. Workshop located in B 23 Alumni Hall.

Friday, November 20, 9 am - Noon

Discussion Board in CourseWeb (Blackboard)

The Discussion Board in Blackboard promotes interaction between students, instructors, and content. It provides an asynchronous area for class members to continue discussions, conduct peer reviews, facilitate communication, to name just a few. This session will cover best practices for setting up and using the tool in your course as well as reviewing new enhancements. Workshop located in B 23 Alumni Hall.

Wednesday, September 23, 10 am - 11 am

Do It Yourself CourseCast

Panopto’s CourseCast is a rich media capture software application. CourseCast has the capability to capture audio/video from a USB web camera and microphone, PowerPoint slides, and computer screen capture all from the convenience of an individual’s office or personal computer. Recordings are published to a web-server for on-demand viewing. Individual viewers can create public and private notes that are time synced with the recording. In this training session you will get an overview of the CourseCast technology and all of the software’s capabilites. You will learn how to download and install the software, prepare and record a CourseCast recording and use CourseCast’s web based editor to create topic specific recordings from a longer recording.Workshop located in B 23 Alumni Hall.

Tuesday, September 1, 10 am - Noon
Friday, November 20, 2 pm - 4 pm

Drop the Dropbox! Consider Using the Assignment Tool in CourseWeb (Blackboard)

The Assignment Tool will save you time while organizing student work. It creates a link to submit homework while simultaneously creating a column in the gradebook. The instructor can retrieve submissions individually or all at one time with just a few clicks. Feedback can then be attached to the grade for the student to read. This session will cover setting up this tool, retrieving submissions, entering grades, and giving feedback. Workshop located in B 23 Alumni Hall.

Monday, September 21, 1 pm - 2 pm

Faculty Article Discussion

Join your colleagues for a discussion of the practical classroom management ideas in the article, 10 Effective Classroom Management Techniques Every Faculty Member Should Know, a collection of short essays selected by The Teaching Professor. According to Maryellen Weimer, Editor, The Teaching Professor, effective classroom management is much more than just administering corrective measures when a student misbehaves; it’s about developing proactive ways to prevent difficult situations from occurring in the first place while creating a positive learning environment.

Weimer goes on to say that the goal of this article is to provide actionable strategies and no-nonsense solutions for creating a positive learning environment—whether you’re a seasoned educator or someone who’s just starting out.

Copies of the article are provided to all faculty who participate in the discussion. Enrollment is limited. Workshop located in 815 Alumni Hall.

Tuesday, October 27, Noon - 1:30 pm
Thursday, October 29, Noon - 1:30 pm

Faculty Book Discussion

Join Pitt colleagues for a discussion of the book, Beyond Tests and Quizzes: Creative Assessments in the College Classroom, edited by Richard J. Mezeske, chair of the Department of Education at Hope College, and Barbara A. Mezeske, associate professor in the Department of English, Hope College.

From the Back Cover: Because the drive toward external assessment speaks almost exclusively in terms of standardized testing, we need to be reminded of the internal purposes of assessment: measuring learning for both student and teacher so that instruction can be adjusted and improved. This book is written for college instructors who are striving to creatively change assessment practice to better reflect learner-centered teaching. It is intended to consider not only the multiple ways in which individuals learn content, but also the multiple avenues to assessment the variety of learning styles demands.

Copies of the book are provided to all faculty who participate in the discussion. Enrollment is limited.Workshop located in 815 Alumni Hall.

Wednesday, October 28, 3:30 pm - 5:00 pm
Friday, October 30, Noon - 1:30 pm

Getting Started with the New Grade Center in Blackboard/CourseWeb 8.0

One of the new features of Blackboard 8.0 is the Grade Center, a robust tool that offers you better ways to manage your course grades.  This two-hour workshop will provide an overview of enhancements such as: inline editing or the ability to enter grades directly in spreadsheet, Smart View reports to categorize student information based on certain criteria, new grade calculations including average, minimum and maximum grades, easier grade weighting, reporting and printing capabilities, and more!  Come learn what the new Grade Center has to offer you. Workshop located in B-23 Alumni Hall.

Wednesday, August 12, 2 pm - 4 pm
Tuesday, August 18, 1 pm - 3 pm
Friday, August 28th, 2 pm - 4 pm
Friday, September 4, 9 am - 11 am
Tuesday, September 8, 9 am - 11 am
Thursday, September 10, 10 am - Noon
Thursday, September 17, 2 pm - 4 pm
Tuesday, September 22, 1 pm - 3 pm
Wednesday, September 30, 9 am - 11 am
Wednesday, October 7, 10 am - Noon
Friday, October 16, 1:30 pm - 3:30 pm
Thursday, October 22, 1 pm - 3 pm
Friday, November 6, 9 am - 11 am
Monday, November 23, 10 am - Noon
Tuesday, December 1, 1 pm - 3 pm
Wednesday, December 9, 9 am - 11 am
Monday, December 14, 1 pm - 3 pm

Grade Center Open Help

This open session is reserved for those instructors who are already using the Grade Center that may have specific questions concerning their course(s). FIDL staff will be on hand to provide personal assistance for faculty. So bring your questions or issues to the session and we will help clarify them. Workshop located in B-23 Alumni Hall.

Monday, August 31, Noon - 1 pm
Tuesday, September 8, Noon - 1 pm
Wednesday, September 16, Noon - 1 pm
Thursday, September 24, Noon - 1 pm
Friday, October 2, Noon - 1 pm
Tuesday, October 6, Noon - 1 pm
Wednesday, October 14, Noon - 1 pm
Thursday, October 22, Noon - 1 pm
Monday, October 26, Noon - 1 pm
Tuesday, November 3, Noon - 1 pm
Wednesday, November 11, Noon - 1 pm
Thursday, November 19, Noon - 1 pm
Tuesday, November 24, Noon - 1 pm
Monday, November 30, Noon - 1 pm
Friday, December 11, Noon - 1 pm
Tuesday, December 15, Noon - 1 pm
Monday, January 4, Noon - 1 pm
Tuesday, January 12, Noon - 1 pm
Wednesday, January 20, Noon - 1 pm
Thursday, January 28, Noon - 1 pm

Guidelines for Providing Feedback

Does your feedback on student assignments always result in increased learning? What does the research say about the types of feedback that are most effective, and under what conditions? What audience benefits most from feedback? We will review general guidelines that can help you facilitate learning and save time. (And no, we won’t be talking about grading rubrics).Workshop located in 815 Alumni Hall.

Friday, October 23, Noon - 1:30 pm

Interactive Teaching and Learning

Regardless of the Discipline, faculty and students benefit from strategies to promote interaction. Interactive teaching and learning promote active involvement and increased motivation, leading to higher levels of learning. Other benefits include improved feedback to teacher and students. This workshop will present an array of activities that can be used to promote interaction in small and large classes. Workshop located in 815 Alumni Hall.

Friday, November 13, Noon - 1:30 pm

Motivating Your Students to Learn

Motivation is an important force in student learning. This workshop will focus on ways that you can capture students’ attention and interest to promote deeper, more lasting learning in any discipline.Workshop located in 815 Alumni Hall.

Friday, October 2, Noon - 1:30 pm

Photoshop Elements: Create and Edit Images

In this workshop, you will learn the basics of image management using the Adobe Photoshop Elements application. Participants will learn to create and use the most effective resolution, crop and rotate images, do basic color correction, and save images in formats that work well on the Web or in PowerPoint. Workshop located in B 23 Alumni Hall.

Wednesday, November 11(Part 1) & Wednesday, November 18th (Part 2), 10 am - Noon

Plagiarism Prevention Software

Pitt faculty have access to two Web-based tools to check for plagiarism: SafeAssign and Turnitin. These tools let you check student work for originality against other students’ work, against paper mill documents, and also against various online electronic sources. If there are similarities between a submitted work and online material, you are provided with links to the source documents. These will help you ensure that a student’s written work is not a result of “e-plagiarism.” Workshop located in B 23 Alumni Hall.

Tuesday, October 20, 1 pm - 2 pm

Teaching with CourseCast

In this session, we will discuss strategies for using this media capture technologies in ways that help your students learn and share some thoughts on the best ways of teaching with this medium. You’ll be prepared to create programs that your students can access anytime, anywhere. Media capture technologies include CourseCast, PittCast, and MediaSite.  Workshop located in B 23 Alumni Hall.

Friday, December 11, Noon - 1:00 pm

Teaching with Web 2.0

Web 2.0 technologies enable students to create and share content over the World Wide Web. They include wikis, blogs, collaborative editors, social bookmarking, and tools for sharing audio, video, and images. Learn how to incorporate this emerging class of technologies into your courses to create collaborative learning activities that engage students. Workshop located in 815 Alumni Hall.

Monday, October 19, Noon - 1:30 pm

Using the Smart Sympodium

SMART Sympodium is a touch-sensitive LCD panel that, combined with a stylus and data/video projector, will give you more options for delivering and capturing your lecture. This LCD panel doubles as a graphics tablet and preview screen allowing the instructor to stand or sit facing the class. The instructor can then make drawings and annotations that the entire class can view on the large projection screen. SMART Sympodium has been installed in some classrooms and is available for delivery to others. A one-hour workshop will introduce you to the SMART Notebook application available for SMART Sympoidum and show you how to prepare your presentation, navigate and annotate it. The session covers various techniques for annotating and saving your work in a format that your students can access through the Web environment.Workshop is located in B-23 Alumni Hall.

  Thursday, October 29, 10 am - 11 am

Wikis & Blogs in CourseWeb (Blackboard)

CourseWeb now offers wiki and blogging tools from Learning Objects, Inc. A wiki is an interactive website that students can build within a Blackboard course. A blog is a journal that can be used individually or in small groups. This session will address ways in which these tools can enhance class assignments and projects. Workshop located in B 23 Alumni Hall.

Wednesday, December 16, 10 am - Noon

Working with Images

Learn the principles and fundamentals of using images on the Web, in PowerPoint, and with handouts. Join CIDDE’s graphics artists in discussions focusing on the issues of aesthetics, image size, resolution, and file formats. Workshop located in B 23 Alumni Hall.

Thursday, November 12, 9 am - 10:30 am

Workshops for TAs and TFs

CIDDE offers a ”hands-on” workshop series for graduate student instructors during the academic year. Led by experienced instructors from across the University campus, these workshops provide practical advice and ideas for graduate students teaching recitations, labs or their own classes as well as the opportunity to share experiences with other teaching assistants and teaching fellows. In the past, TA/TF Services has offered workshops on using visual aids, dealing with difficult students, creating writing assignments, working with small groups and lesson planning. TA Services also provides customized workshops at the request of individual departments.

Teaching Philosophies

The teaching philosophy statement is the cornerstone of a teaching portfolio. This workshop is designed to cover the important components of a teaching philosophy and to provide TAs with examples of teaching philosophy statements. A portion of this workshop will be hands-on, allowing TAs to begin structuring their own teaching philosophy statements in a constructive and interactive setting. Workshop located in 815 Alumni Hall.

Monday, September 21, 10 am - 11:30 am

Teaching Portfolios

In this workshop, we will discuss the goals of a teaching portfolio, the key elements that should be included in a teaching statement and teaching portfolio, and tips for how to organize a portfolio that reflects your teaching strengths. At the end of the workshop each participant will have the tools necessary to build their own portfolio.

Thursday, October 29, 10 am - 11:30 am
Tuesday, November 10, 1 pm - 2:30 pm