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 wcuadmin | Jan 9, 2017 | Blog, Educational Development, Teaching with Technology
“Don’t let a snow day catch you off guard!”
“I’ve had to revise my syllabus twice, changing the schedule, and as a result, changing the weight of the first two exams…it’s an unfortunate start…not something that cannot be overcome.” – Professor Brian Pilecki
Technology-based assignment alternatives:
- Lecture / Discussion
- Record a lecture (easy solution – you can use Microsoft PPT with voiceover or Panopto)
- Use a discussion board for students to discuss the topic and respond to each other
- Hold class synchronously – Zoom
- E-learning days using the LMS
- Use Ted talks or other similar resources to prompt learning and discussion.
- Taping video or audio lectures ahead of time on subjects that can be placed anywhere in the semester, but need to be addressed
- Remind101 – text messaging from teacher to student where numbers are anonymous
What if students lose electricity?
Have students form groups at the beginning of the semester, share contact information that way if phones or computers die there is likely a possibility that someone still has a charge. Even if campus is closed, students on campus can get together to work on groups using technology or physical assignments.
Offline assignment alternatives:
- The dreaded paper
- Pre-written prompts broad enough to relate to anything taught up to the current period of the semester
- Creative use of snow
- Health: get out in the snow and have students take baseline stats and then record their exercise and retake stats
- Science: “kitchen test” with snow
- Math: Calculate speeds of sleds etc.
- English: creative writing pieces
- Arts: create art using snow or through observation of snow
- Education: students plan own alternative lesson for a hypothetical snow day
For more information on this or anything relating to course content or pedagogy, please contact the CFC 227.7196
by Jonathan Wade | Mar 4, 2016 | Blog, Educational Technology, Panopto, Teaching with Technology
In 2016, CFC was tasked with making certain that WCU’s media streaming practices were up to date in relation to current laws, ordinances, and policies. WCU has paid out thousands of dollars to settle copyright infringement cases related to accidental copyright infringement, and copyright laws and the capability of electronic “big-data” discovery mechanisms have improved in ways that make this a prudent time to reflect upon our collective use of the intellectual property of others. As such, we have been instructed by university counsel to inform faculty of copyright issues and to be careful about any storage or streaming of materials under copyright.
As such, we cannot extend the availability of any media for which we do not have an explicit waiver of copyright from the copyright holder and/or permission granted through the copyright clearinghouse for the use of the media for a particular period of time.
Following is the information we had cause to deliver to everyone migrating media from one form to another. You may or may not find it of use in guiding your own reflections upon the academic use of materials falling under copyright:
The migration process is a good time to review your course resources to determine whether it complies fully with federal copyright law and related policies at WCU.
Generally speaking, it is never permissible to store or disseminate copyrighted materials (including feature films) for which you do not have explicit written permission from the copyright holder.
The Coulter Faculty Commons staff and student workers cannot at this time aid in the conversion, transfer or upload of copyrighted materials without the express and written consent of the copyright holder.
For more help in determining your rights and responsibilities under copyright law, please consult the resources below:
WCU Copyright Policies and Related Law
The WCU library has constructed the WCU Copyright Resources Page as a guide to issues of copyright generally. Make certain to check the “Compliance Guidelines for Faculty” tab in the center of the page. The library can help you through the process of gaining copyright clearance from the copyright holder on a course by course fee basis. (The Provost’s office has set aside a limited amount of money to help defray some of these costs for the remainder of the 2015-16 budget year.)
Please note that there are still some irregularities in the laws and in the protections provided for instructional uses. Of particular note is the way that the law treats face to face courses differently than online courses in regard to the use of copyright protected media.
The CFC has been advised by university counsel that fair use is only a legal defense. It is not a shield from litigation. We would like to pass that advice on to our faculty members, and will do what we can to help you adapt your teaching practices for the additional challenges and opportunities offered by the increased speed and reach and discoverability of online learning and its underlying digital architecture.
Note that many recent movies are available for paid and legal streaming for less than $5.00 through Amazon, ITunes, The Google Play Store, and Hulu. In the event that you cannot obtain copyright permission, you can assign students to purchase viewing rights to the movies from theses sources.
The TEACH Act provides some protections for instructors capturing and using clips from copyright protected materials, but they are limited to the instructor and are in addition to fair use. For a more detailed description of appropriate use, you may find the Copyright Crash Course created by the University of Texas to be of great assistance. Note that the TEACH Act provides no legal protection to non-instructional staff or student workers, only to the instructor of a course, and only under very specific circumstances.
At this point in time it has been determined that directing students to clips on YouTube is a safe practice, acknowledging that Alphabet (Google) is practicing safe and legal takedown procedures. (Note that these links cannot be judged to be permanent in any sense and a good practice for using them would be to check them on or near the dates of presumed student use).
Note that if you need or want to show videos to distance education students who are local, the library can and will schedule screenings of reserve materials for specific groups of students in a viewing room.
Some other useful sites to consult to see if you may have a reasonable claim of fair use or TEACH Act or other acceptable justification are below.
Center for Media and Social Impact: Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Video
Copyright Advisory Network Interactive Guidance Services
The information provided above should not be considered to be a substitute for explicit legal counsel on this topic. It is intended for educational purposes only. For explicit and exact interpretation, please contact legal counsel.
