Educational Technology

Educational Technologies (EdTech)

The Office of Teaching and Learning’s (OTL’s) Instructional Technology Specialist (ITS) team helps instructors intentionally incorporate the institution’s available supported technologies into their course design and assessment practices in an effective manner.

OTL’s ITS team offers consultations, workshops, and webinars to our teaching and learning community that are focused on the effective use of educational technology (EdTech). They also research, test, and pilot new EdTech options.

The focus of the ITS team is on the effective, pedagogically-aligned implementation of educational technology. Although they are well-versed in the operation of the institution’s supported technologies, frontline how-to support is the responsibility of the School of Continuing Studies CourseLink Support team.

Book a Consultation with an ITS

Interested in exploring EdTech further? Our ITS team is happy to connect with instructors looking to explore EdTech options that may support their teaching approaches and goals.

We encourage interested instructors to connect with our ITS team via email at: edtech@uoguelph.ca and include:

• The name(s) and code(s) of the course(s)
• A brief explanation of the challenge you are facing or your reason for connecting with the team
• Any technologies you are interested in exploring further (if known)

Supported Technologies

Currently, the University of Guelph has four supported educational technologies:

• CourseLink
  • The institution learning management system (LMS) powered by D2L Brightspace
  • A foundational educational technology available for all courses with many embedded tools such as Dropbox, Discussions, Quizzes, etc.
• PEAR
  • PEAR is an acronym for Peer Evaluation, Assessment, and Review.
  • This tool was developed in 2008 by UofG to facilitate online peer review and group member evaluation with an integration with CourseLink and remains a popular option today.
• Gradescope
  • Officially launched in Fall 2023, Gradescope was adopted as a CourseLink-integrated bubble sheet assessment replacement for Scantron at UofG.
  • Gradescope also offers a variety of other assignment types that help improve the efficiency and effectiveness when assessing hand-written work.
• iClicker Cloud
  • iClicker Cloud is a student response system that replaced the original hardware-based iClicker system, moving the process entirely online for both instructors and students.
  • iClicker Cloud integrates with CourseLink’s grading system and provides an avenue for instructors to engage with their students during live lectures or classes through polling and quizzes.

More information on these educational technologies can be found on the School of Continuing Studies’ Documentation & Support site under Supported Teaching and Learning Technologies.

In addition to the supported educational technologies listed above, other supported technologies such as: MS Teams, Zoom, MS Forms, etc., may also be leveraged in some cases for teaching and learning. Please contact the ITS team for more information on these options.

FeedbackFruits Pilot

OTL’s ITS team is currently leading a one-year pilot of FeedbackFruits, which began in January 2025. This pilot was initiated to find a potential replacement for the peer review and group member evaluation features offered by the aging PEAR tool, however FeedbackFruits also offers several learning activities that offer solutions for various collaboration, engagement, assessment, and feedback challenges. FeedbackFruits also fully integrates with the CourseLink LMS.

For instructors interested in exploring AI, FeedbackFruits provides optional AI features that OTL’s ITS team is happy to review and discuss as they relate to your pedagogical goals and teaching philosophy.

The final semester of the FeedbackFruits pilot commences in Fall 2025 and the ITS team is looking for additional participants from the University of Guelph and University of Guelph-Humber. If you are interested in piloting this exciting new EdTech option in a Fall 2025 course, please connect with the ITS team via email at edtech@uoguelph.ca with the following information:

• Course name(s) and code(s).
• Types of assignments in your course (e.g., peer-review, group member evaluation, interactive study materials).
• Assignment submission (i.e., will students complete the assignment individually or in groups?).
• Course delivery method (e.g., online, in-person).
• Expected number of students enrolled in the course(s).
• Some dates and times that you are available for a virtual meeting.

Please contact the Office of Teaching & Learning to seek pedagogical support or offer input on these resources.

If you are interested in learning more about Generative AI in teaching and learning
please visit our Teaching in the Context of Artificial Intelligence website