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Recent News

TandemTalk: A New Resource for Students and More
Are you interested in TandemPlus, but not yet ready to commit to a partnership? Consider signing up for TandemTalk, the new TandemPlus newsletter. You’ll learn about upcoming events and opportunities, get conversation ideas, and more. Students are the primary audience of TandemTalk, but instructors and advisors are welcome to join as well. Participants of TandemPlus will automatically receive TandemTalk during the duration of their enrollment.

Tips of the Day: Two New Tips & A Celebration of Jamboard
This academic year the Tip of the Day team has provided several Tips on using Jamboard, an interactive, collaborative whiteboard, which is freely available as part of the University of Minnesota Google Suite. If you haven’t tried it yet, it’s not too late. Start with the Introduction to Jamboard, follow up with Timelines, and then check out all the posts in the Jamboard Collection. There are also two new Tips that are not related to Jamboard: Can Google Stop Being So Helpful? Yes! & Integrate a Zoom Virtual Background with Your Teaching

CourseShare for Fall 2021 – Suggestions and Requests are Welcome
Planning for CourseShare exchanges for Fall 2021 is now underway. The CourseShare program has experienced tremendous growth this academic year, both in terms of the number of University of Minnesota (UMN) students served, and also in the number of signature UMN programs showcased in the Big Ten. This growth is due to the generosity of our instructors who share their expertise beyond campus, and also to the support of departmental and college advisors who help students find the right course for them.

Tips of the Day: Focus on Zoom Reactions & More
Last week, Tip of the Day published a tip on the new Zoom Reactions. This week we are following up with even more ideas for using this feature: Changing the Skin Tone of Your Zoom Reactions & FAQ on the New Zoom Reactions The other recent Tip of the Day is also Zoom-related: Share Your Zoom Interface in Meeting And more: The Good Teacher Project, a 1992 Language Center video production, is now online through LC Elevator!

TandemPlus CLIC Program: Chinese Speakers Needed
Like the University of Minnesota (UMN) and Minnesota K-12 schools, the Culture and Language Integration in Chinese and English (CLIC) program is continuing to serve UMN international students and high school Chinese language learners remotely. CLIC, a partnership between the TandemPlus program in the Language Center and the Asian and Middle Eastern Studies department, is now in its fourth year of offering weekly academic year conversation sessions in two languages.

Featured Tip of the Day: A Student's Perspective on Breakout Rooms
The Tip of the Day team was fortunate to recently add a new member: undergraduate Chee-ia Thao. We asked her to tell us about her experience as a student taking multiple classes over Zoom. What features are instructors using? The answer: breakout rooms – in every class. We wanted to know more. Continue reading Breakout Rooms: A Student's Perspective. Two other recent Tips of the Day are: Blur your Background in Zoom, Google Docs: Two Methods of Emailing Collaborators

Striking a Balance in Remote Language Teaching and Learning
You’re invited to the first Spring 2021 session of the Language Collaboratory, a partnership for the advancement of intercollegiate dialogue on the teaching of languages and cultures, driven by language centers and institutes at the University of Minnesota, as well as the University of Iowa, the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Recordings of past sessions can be found on the Language Collaboratory YouTube channel.

LC Elevator and DCL Changes
When LATIS first launched the Digital Content Library (DCL), it had a broad focus of meeting the media needs of all programs in CLA. Since then LATIS has narrowed the focus of the site to research and internally developed content, and moved some other content to other instances of Elevator in the college. LC Elevator became the home for some media used by second language and culture programs. However, to avoid immediately breaking links for instructors and students, some of this media remained accessible on both sites.
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