by Eli Collins-Brown | Mar 27, 2020 | Collaborative Learning, Educational Development, Educational Technology, Emergency Instruction Plan, O365, Online Learning, Other Resources, Teaching with Technology
As more schools begin to make the transition to distance learning and online classrooms, we want to help. Microsoft has created resources, training, and how-to guides that we hope will help educators and their classrooms make this transition.
To help support you during this time, we’ve created a support page for O365 with the information Microsoft has provided.
Microsoft Education is committed to helping all teachers, students, and staff stay engaged and focused on learning. Creating an online classroom is an important step in moving to a remote learning experience. Free for schools, Microsoft Teams, provides a secure online classroom that brings together classroom management features, collaborative workspaces like OneNote Class Notebook, and virtual face-to-face connections in a single digital hub that keeps students engaged.
Information included are Microsoft’s top resources on distance learning, Web Pages with tools to connect remotely, Microsoft Teams quick start guide for EDU (PDF). Webinars designed for educators, Blog posts, and Free Training,
These resources have been provided by the Microsoft Corporation and are included in this post for the convenience of WCU faculty who want to use Office 365 to facilitate online learning.
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by Eli Collins-Brown | Mar 17, 2020 | Blog, Educational Development, Educational Technology, Emergency Instruction Plan, Learn, Online Learning, Student Engagement, Teaching and Learning
It is easy to just assume that you will be able to have live class sessions online using Zoom at the same time and day they have been scheduled, but that will not produce a good learning experience for the students, nor will it be pleasant for you as the instructor. We gathered a couple of really good posts that align with our approach to moving online quickly.
Do This, Not That
~Alison Wang, Online Teaching Do This Not That
Click on image to download the PDF. 
Shared through Creative Commons, Attribute, No Derivative, No Commercial Purpose.
This has been flying around social media, but it’s one of the good ones. She refers to particular systems and programs but her advice is right on.
What? Did I hear you correctly? YES!
As Rebecca Barrett-Fox says “You are NOT building an online class. You are NOT teaching students who can be expected to be ready to learn online. And, most importantly, your class is NOT the highest priority of their OR your life right now. Release yourself from high expectations right now, because that’s the best way to help your students learn.” ~https://anygoodthing.com/2020/03/12/please-do-a-bad-job-of-putting-your-courses-online/
And we like her list of 10 considerations:
- Your students know less about technology than you think. Many of them know less than you. Yes, even if they are digital natives and younger than you.
- They will be accessing the internet on their phones. They have limited data. They need to reserve it for things more important than online lectures.
- Students who did not sign up for an online course have no obligation to have a computer, high-speed wifi, a printer/scanner, or a camera. Do not even survey them to ask if they have it. Even if they do, they are not required to tell you this. And if they do now, that doesn’t mean that they will when something breaks and they can’t afford to fix it because they just lost their job at the ski resort or off-campus bookstore.
- Students will be sharing their technology with other household members. They may have LESS time to do their schoolwork, not more.
- Many will be working MORE, not fewer, hours. Nurses, prison guards, firefighters, and police officers have to go to work no matter what. As healthcare demand increases but healthcare workers get sick, there will be more and more stress on those who remain.
- Some of your students will get sick. Others will be caring for people who are ill.
- Many will be parenting.
- Social isolation contributes to mental health problems.
- Social isolation contributes to domestic violence.
- Students will be losing their jobs, especially those in tourism and hospitality.
Other recommendations she puts forward that we promote as well:
- “Don’t do too much. Right now, your students don’t need it. They need time to do the other things they need to do.”
- Make all assignments due at 11:59 pm on the same day of the week. Make them due on Sunday at 11:59 p.m. instead of Friday so that they use the evenings and week-end to get work done.
- Allow students to take every exam or quiz twice so that if there is a technical problem (such as getting kicked out of the LMS), they will have another opportunity to complete the exam.
- Record lectures only if you need to. But use the TED talk method: no longer than 18 minutes and focused on one concept, big question or idea.
- Don’t fuss over videos. Don’t worry about your ums and ers. It helps if you write a script (also provides a transcript for ADA purposes) and read through it a few times. Then practice 5 times just the first few sentences or first few slides. That will get you into the recording without the jumpstarts we do at the start.
- Do NOT require synchronous work! Students’ life and schedules have been turned upside-down as well. A good use of Zoom or Bb Collaborate is to use it for office hours or tutoring sessions. But make it optional.
- Do not use proctoring or ask students to record themselves when taking a test. This is a violation of their privacy and they did not sign up for an online course.
- Remind them of due dates. This is not hand-holding!! They need contact from you and as we said before, their lives have been turned upside down. Be kind to them and kind to yourself. Be supportive and encouraging, Be a mentor and coach!
- Respond to them when they ask for help. These are anxious times and they will need encouragement.
We will continue to share quick tips and helpful resources over the next few weeks!
by Jonathan Wade | Mar 16, 2020 | Canvas, Educational Technology
Surveying Your Students: WCU Supported Software
Option #1: Canvas
Don’t forget that a Canvas’ Quiz also allows for surveys that don’t add to grades and that links to those surveys can be added to announcements and emails from Canvas. More information on Surveys in Canvas. This is a best option if you are only surveying one course.
Option #2: Microsoft Forms
For easily copied and shared polls, check out Microsoft Forms. If you haven’t clicked the “Waffle of Power” (apps launcher) in your email portal for Office365 (email.wcu.edu), then you may not have found all of the magical wonder hidden in O365. One of those is Microsoft Forms. Forms is basically the Microsoft version of Google Sheets, and it is very easy to use and distribute.
Option #3: Qualtrics
All WCU employees can log into Qualtrics and create surveys. You can get to Qualtrics by going to myWCU and clicking the SURVEYS button in the quick links, or you can type in wcu.qualtrics.com into your browser and it will take you to the log in page. The learning curve for Qualtrics is a bit steeper than Forms.
Option #4: Poll Everywhere
PollEverywhere is already a part of many of your class experiences. Remember that PollEverywhere is not really designed as a survey tool but rather as a live polling tool. It will really only be useful to you in an online environment if you couple it with your synchronous virtual classroom tool (Zoom, Collaborate, or Teams) and from our point of view, it may be more difficult to be running the virtual meeting tool and Poll everywhere than to use the more limited polling tools already available in those environments. If you have a number of existing PE polls, however, it might be a good option for you. We are not advising PollEverywhere as a solution during the emergency online period in Spring of 2020.
For all of these, call or email ITHelp first and they should be able to get you started.
by Jonathan Wade | Mar 13, 2020 | Blog, Educational Technology
A Case Study in Marketing: The Danger of “Free” (Especially for Public Employees)
My dear faculty friends. Many of you are on marketing email lists of a number of educational technology companies. They’ve given you good value for trading your email address for many different incentives at conferences or for webinars or for whitepapers. They are now descending upon you with “free” offers that might not be as good as they seem in the first place.
Now you are getting exciting announcements that they are offering you free access to their predictive learning or course management platform or free publisher content. Think twice. This falls in the free like a puppy category, and it could put you in a great amount of risk.
We are making every effort to provide you with the basic tools you need to meet the needs of your students, and although these other tools may seem to be THE ANSWER TO EVERY PROBLEM IN THE UNIVERSE, they still need to go through all of the contract and data handling review that any software or service requires.
North Carolina has some particular laws with relation to the retention of student course data and any software we use is required to be properly vetted. And even “free” click-throughs are contracts that you aren’t authorized to enter into on behalf of the university. (See the software policy). Unfortunately for most of these free products, by the time we are able to get them through the process and have their lawyers and our lawyers align the agreements and check all of their data retention policies, we’ll probably be outside of the window of this particular set of circumstances.
If you absolutely have to move the ball forward we can start the process of getting the software reviewed, but, if I were you, I’d dig into the tools we have before I even considered putting content into a platform that at most will be “free” for 6 months and then will be asking for money. (For example one of the huge offenders is offering a wonderful platform that when it goes to paid costs on average $10 a student a year, and we don’t have a mechanism for paying for that particular service.)
by Jonathan Wade | Mar 11, 2020 | Blog, Educational Development, Educational Technology, Pedagogy, Teaching with Technology
Yes, most of us like shiny, flashy, and interactive technologies.
But consider:
How many truly awful webinars have you experienced?
How many times have you had to log back on, or fight with your microphone settings?
And, indeed, we have three well-provisioned video conferencing platforms that should handle the traffic, Zoom and MS Teams meetings. We also have Panopto which will allow you to record video and audio to share with your students. And video and live conferencing may be more engaging when done well, but it isn’t necessarily easier, and it is most certainly far more difficult to make compliant with accessibility laws and to get to work consistently over low-bandwidth connections.
Even if you are adept with technology, we urge you to tend toward simplicity with students who didn’t seek to be online students. They may not like to read, but text may be your and their best friend.
If you create text within the LMS using any of the built-in functions, it is automatically usable by screen readers and available for students who need that tool. Discussion boards may be clunky, but once you’ve mastered the flow, they work, and at low bandwidth.
If you choose to do live classes or to record videos, you may want to consider pre-scripting them so that you can easily send a copy of the transcript to any student who requests the transcript.
So consider whether your high-stakes information and content might better be delivered as text, as text and photos, or as a recorded video that has an identical transcript.
Remember that you can insert images and links to YouTube videos easily within the LMS from the editor and that links to external sites work as well. You can even create a reflection assignment or discussion board afterwards.
For images, remember copyright issues (a great guide from our library is available here) and remember that there are several cultural heritage institutions that provide their images free for educational use (like the Smithsonian).
And, if you’ve been forced to move online because of outside factors, be kind to yourself. Stick with simplicity or use simplicity as a fallback when complexity causes confusion.
Remember that the best practices of online course-creation call for a 1-2 year preparation for a well-designed online course and that many outside companies suggest a budget in the tens of thousands for well designed video and interactive content. You don’t have the time for that. You have the core of content and can use tools like Zoom or Collaborate as extensions of the relationships that will get us all through this time of change together.
Focus on getting a working wall of sandbags built to channel the water for a short period of time. This isn’t time to try to build one of the wonders of the world.
We’re here to help you with your technology, but don’t forget that words and reading are still one of the most powerful technologies, and that they still have their place in the world of online teaching and learning.
by Eli Collins-Brown | Mar 9, 2020 | Blog, CFC Insider, Educational Technology, O365
A series of free, live, online training classes designed to get you up and running quickly
Microsoft is excited to host a series of free, live, online training classes designed to get you up and running with Teams. If you’re a faculty, admin, IT Pro, or student, you’ll find a class that’s right for you. Join us to see Teams in action, get your questions answered, and interact with our live instructors. For more training opportunities, including on-demand versions of live training, check out our on-demand end-user training.
Click a session below to sign up:
• Say hello to Microsoft Teams: What is Microsoft Teams? Join us for this 30-minute orientation to discover what Teams is and how it can work for you.
• Run effective meetings with Teams: Learn how you can leverage Teams for your pre, during, and post meetings experience.
