Teach and Learn with Technology

The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) helps instructors explore and evaluate innovative ways to use learning technologies for teaching at Duke Kunshan. Learning technologies connect faculty to software and web tools to promote collaboration, enhance communication, share multimedia, teach online, and more. In addition to supporting established learning technologies like Sakai, CTL, along with IT and Duke Learning Innovation, also works with faculty and administrators to pilot new tools.

DKU Technology Starter

There are many technologies available at Duke and DKU. The four technologies below are the most common and essential tools that might help you get started: to share learning materials e.g. readings or videos, collect and assess student works, communicate/ interact with your students and among students, record videos, offer live class meetings remotely, and create project sites/e-portfolios for student Signature Work.

List of Duke/DKU Learning Tools

While the four starter tools could get you off a good start, below we list some popular tools used at DKU. It’s not an exhaustive list. Think first about what you want to achieve for your classes (the purposes), and what tools you want to explore. Choosing the appropriate technologies for your course can be challenging. It takes time to identify what tools will be most effective and master them. We encourage you to choose and incorporate technologies based on what can help students learning and achieve their learning outcomes.

Please talk to CTL by emailing DKU_CTL@dukekunshan.edu.cn. for recommendations and consultation.

Sakai is Duke’s learning management system and is also used at Duke Kunshan. It is similar to Canvas or Blackboard, which you might have used at another university. DKU has its own course template that we apply to every course site. An instructor can see student rosters, post materials to the Resources or Lessons tool, email students, hold discussions using Forums, manage assignments, tests and questions, and the gradebook and provide comments and feedback. There are a number of other tools integrated such as WarpWire, Panopto, Gradescope, and Turnitin Feedback Studio.

Starting in Fall 2023, Duke University as well as Duke Kunshan University will be transitioning from Sakai to Canvas as the learning management system. For more details about this transition to Canvas, please visit this page: Canvas is coming to DKU.

Duke Box is a cloud-based file storage and collaboration service which can be enabled at the course level. Many classes and student projects generate large amount of files, especially photos, videos, and zip files, that are often too large to transmit via email or Sakai. Both Duke and non-Duke users can access, store and share content. You can use Box to collect students’ work and add feedback either by editing directly or adding Word documents or Box notes.

Duke Sites is the Duke version of WordPress. Both faculty and students can use it to create a website with a multimedia-rich experience incorporating many different tools such as YouTube or Warpwire videos, blogs, photos & links to documents. It can be enabled at the course level so that everyone in the class can access. It has also been used as an ePortfolio tool for student’s Signature Work.

Gradescope is a tool to save time grading paper-based assignments and seeing exactly what your students have learned. If you have homework or exams, especially for large classes, Gradescope helps you grade quickly, equitably, and flexibly while providing detailed formative feedback to students. It’s linked to Sakai course roster for easy access and grade integration.

Panopto allows instructors to record, edit, share, and manage videos. Panopto has a built-in editor to edit recorded or imported videos (trimming, adding prompt questions & supplementary resources). It’s very helpful to create interactive instructional videos. Instructors can view analytics to monitor student learning progress. Panopto also enables students to take collaborative notes as well as comment and discuss at specific time stamps.

Poll Everywhere is an instant polling tool. Instructors often use it to pose quick questions in the class to elicit real-time response, direct attention to key topics, check pre-class preparation, or conduct short quiz/survey for knowledge recall practices and peer instructions.

Turnitin Feedback Studio is a similarity detection and feedback system provided to the DKU community via Sakai. It enables students, faculty, and other instructional personnel to compare their work with the world’s largest academic work database. Though commonly recognized as a plagiarism detection application, it has become more widely used in academics as a feedback system to improve academic integrity and build up students’ academic writing skills by providing structured and personalized feedback from instructors and peers.

Qualtrics is a Duke-supported tool that allows you to create simple polls or complex surveys. The surveys can be limited to specific individuals or people with a Duke NetID, or can be open to the general public. Faculty use Qualtrics to get feedback from students and for other simple surveys. Students also use it for gathering data for course research projects.

Warpwire is Duke’s video hosting platform. It allows everyone with NetID to create and upload videos that are visible only to students on your course or to groups within Duke/DKU community, or to the public. Many faculty have used Warpwire to create and share lecture videos, class meeting recordings and student presentations. You can link to individual videos or collections in Warpwire or embed them in your Sakai course or other websites.

Zoom, a virtual conferencing tool, facilitates synchronous meetings when professors and students are separated. It can be integrated in Sakai sites. Breakout room, polling, chat, reaction buttons, and whiteboard annotation features are great to enhance interaction. Zoom meeting recordings can be shared easily with students to review after class at their own pace. Many faculty and students also use it to record lectures and presentations. Please refer to the technical instruction to get started.