This is an online learning conversation to help you navigate through this time, especially if online learning is unfamiliar to you. What does online learning mean? Using technology to educate students in a digital environment. That sounds intimidating, can you break it down? It means that you will do regular classroom activities—provide course content through lectures or discussion, assess student learning, communicate with students, set learning objectives, and provide learning activities—just in an online environment. I know how to do those things, now tell me ways that I can provide lecture, discussion, or course content online. Lecture, discussion, and course content can be provided in two ways asynchronously or synchronously. Asynchronous means that students are learning independently of the instructor being present (think of the students studying and doing learning activities with instructor support). This is done a few ways: by the instructor providing a short (15-20 minute) lecture capture (using Panopto or Screencast-o-matic), using text to communicate key topics (on a Canvas page or in your learning management system (LMS)), and by providing readings and resources for students to read and view on their own (by uploading files to Canvas or LMS). After students review what the instructor has provided, students can participate in an assessment of learning of the instructor’s choosing. Synchronous online learning is done with the learners present, much like in a typical classroom. The instructor uses Zoom (or other type of video based platform like Skype, Big Blue Button, or Blackboard Collaborate) to share their presentation on the screen and present the lecture or class content to the students. This presentation can be recorded so that students can view it later (by posting it in the Canvas or other LMS course shell). Students can also meet to have a whole class face to face discussion. In addition to this, you can have students do a speech or presentation to just you or the whole class as a means of assessment. What if students’ don’t have a webcam???? What if I don’t have one either??? If students do not have a webcam while using Zoom or other software as above, it will show them as a black square in the meeting room, however, it will show their name as they login. You can have a conversation verbally (hear audio) or by text (chat), but will not see their face. If you share your screen, they will see the presentation, and will hear you talking, but will not see video of your face. What if students only have dialup internet? If students only have dialup, it is best to think about putting things in text and pictures, and consider not holding video-based live meetings. File sizes need to stay small (less than 1 MB due to the fact that these files will take 10 minutes to download on dialup. It only gets worse as files get bigger--5 MB files will take 30 minutes, 10 MB files will take an hour. This will help them to better access the course materials and stay involved in the course. What if students only have a mobile phone? Most learning management systems have a mobile app. In addition, Zoom has a mobile app too. Many applications that could be used to help students learn in an online space are mobile friendly as well. The biggest concern here is the amount of data used. Again, video takes a lot of data, so if most students only have a mobile phone think about using video sparingly (unless all have unlimited data—then use video to your heart’s content). What if students….. The best way to know what students need to support online learning is to ask your students. Set up an ungraded survey in Canvas to ask them if they have internet access (and at what speed), access to a computer, and access to a mobile phone. Get their at home contact info if they are at home so you can reach out to them easily. Provide them with a preferred method of contact (email, through the course, personal phone) so they can also contact you. Set ground rules for contact so they know when you will and will not be returning emails, phone calls, and course communications. Also, you could set up a remind account so students can text message outside of the LMS. How do I assess students online? There are many ways to assess students online. You can use the quizzing function of canvas or your LMS (and can provide a secure exam!), canvas or other LMS discussion boards, online group collaboration tools such as Padlet or VoiceThread, Canvas or other LMS assignment feature for multimedia and text-based assignments, Google Forms with quizzes, online polling, online collaborative mind mapping and more. Need some quick tips? See the document from Alison Yang:
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