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by Emily Funston and Adele Georgievski, Seneca Libraries
Looking for alternatives to textbooks? Seneca Libraries has you covered. Using free textbook alternatives improves access to information and reduces costs for students. Ninety-six percent of the library’s collection is available online, and our liaison librarians can help faculty find low-barrier materials easily and effectively. Below are some examples of tools and resources that can be leveraged to supplement or replace textbooks:
Leganto is our course resource list management tool that can seamlessly connect students to articles, eBooks, and more. Liaison librarians can help faculty get started in Leganto, assist with the search for resources, and collaborate throughout the process. Faculty can also enable the Leganto LTI link within Learn@Seneca (Blackboard) to create a resource list independently, or collaborate with colleagues. Using Leganto helps to ensure that class materials are compliant with copyright and fair dealing guidelines for education. Leganto lists can be shared across sections and courses, and Leganto even provides valuable usage analytics, such as the number of times items are viewed.
Seneca Libraries has a large collection of streaming videos available for faculty to use in their courses, including popular documentaries, Canadian, and specialized content. Assigning videos to support your teaching offers a multi-modal way of reinforcing core concepts, and may help enhance the learning experience for students. Browse the video databases or work with your liaison librarian to find videos that support your course learning outcomes.
Open Educational Resources are published within the public domain or with an open license, making them free to use and often free to adapt. Many OERs are created by faculty, and your liaison librarian can help you identify existing OERs in OER repositories. Adopting an OER reduces textbook costs for students, and OERs that allow for modification and adaptation allow you to customize the materials for your students.
Seneca Libraries has many tutorials and instructional videos that can be embedded within Learn@Seneca (Blackboard), helping students learn research, academic integrity, and citation skills. Additionally, Sandbox tutorials support students creating digital media, including presentations, infographics, and videos. Many of these tutorials are also offered in the form of a library package with an accompanying auto-graded quiz that can imported into Learn@Seneca (Blackboard).
The Learning Portal provides support material for a variety of student skills, including study skills, research, writing, and digital skills. Embed a link to a Learning Portal module in Learn@Seneca (Blackboard) to support students completing an assignment or learning activity, such as studying for a test, writing a research assignment, or learning digital skills for digital media assignments.
For a video primer on any of the above, as well as a host of other topics, please see our Faculty Miniseries. We hope this has piqued your interest, and encourage you to reach out to your liaison librarian or contact librarians@senecacollege.ca for more information on no additional cost resources!
Get ready for a day filled with learning, technology, and excitement! Join us for Teaching & Learning Day Winter 2023 on Monday, February 27 at Newnham Campus. This event is dedicated to exploring educational technology and its impact.
Our keynote speaker is Dr. Robert Clapperton, Associate Professor in Professional Communication at The Creative School at Toronto Metropolitan University and co-founder of Ametros Learning, a natural language understanding experiential learning platform. His keynote presentation, "The Promise and Peril of ChatGPT and other Large Models to Critical Thinking and Creativity," will explore the explosion of large language models on the academic scene in terms of risk and opportunity.
In the morning, attendees will have the opportunity to choose from a variety of workshops that focus on different aspects of educational technology. We have something for everyone: tech tools, classroom technologies, OERs, virtual reality, and more! In the afternoon, join us for a Tech Crawl; it's a fun way to learn about the latest technologies in education. And if you're feeling adventurous, take part in our AR Scavenger Hunt and you could win a prize!
Don't miss this opportunity to connect with experts in the field, learn about the latest advancements in educational technology, and have fun while doing it! Register now in MyPD for this free conference and join us on Feb. 27 (during Study Week) at Newnham Campus!
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