barralopolis

Over the past few days, after a large number of colleges and universities moved their courses online, the avalanche of information has been overwhelming. Organizations, professional societies, and different groups have started sharing documents or published lists of resources related to online teaching. Moreover, many providers of online resources (publishers, companies making lab simulations etc) are offering their resources for free. So right now it seems like we are facing this tantalizingly rich buffet of options. Personally, I tend to freeze in the face of too many options, and I suspect that many instructors new to online teaching may feel the same. This blog post is to offer a list of tools/resources I have personally used in the past that worked for me.

Disclaimer: my online experience is predominantly Blackboard and previously eCollege. I have dabbled a bit in Moodle, but not with Canvas (which is very widespread these days) or Desire2Learn.

General online teaching resources

• I got my online teaching chops through the @One Online Network of Educators, a California organization providing online training (and more) to community college educators. If you are a CC faculty in CA, this is an amazing resource.
• If you follow me on Twitter you may have noticed me often re-tweeting Michelle Pacansky-Brock, who was one of my instructors at @One. She is an amazing person and an expert in how to build community online and broadly how to humanize online learning.
• For science education, the CIRTL Network is a great resource. It is associated to specific institutions but they have a broad online training scope, from basic evidence-based science teaching to online teaching. They do webinars and courses. The system I currently use to record my lectures was adopted from one of their trainings.
• In my previous post I recommended taking an online course to experience it from the receiving end. There are plenty of online courses through Coursera and EdX and others, but they are MOOCs, so there is no direct interaction with instructors. Examples of online courses (both taken and taught, apologies for the shameless promotion here) are Open Networked Learning and ASBMB’s Art of Science Communication course.

Lecture recording

This is, for me, one of the most technically demanding parts of online teaching. Basic guidelines include short length (less than 15 minutes, ideally) and captions or transcripts (ADA compliance). Also, decent video and audio quality.

• My to-go system to record lectures is this:
  • Prepare powerpoints for a topic (max 20 slides)
  • Prepare the transcript for the powerpoint. Note: there are ways to get automatic captions (youtube will do that), however that has not worked for me as 1) science words are often misunderstood, 2) I have an accent. Also, in the beginning I would go talking about my slides spontaneously, resulting in lots of um and hm. When on the receiving end, that is quite annoying.
  • Years ago I got hooked on Camtasia video editing software. It costs $ but I really like it, and I am used to it. So I record my screen and do the voiceover there.
  • In Camtasia, then I add titles, callouts, and even pictures on top of the slides.
  • Export as mp4, and upload to a shareable place.
• Your institution may have embedded recording options available. We have a connection with Kaltura, which allows direct recording and uploading, with options to edit.
• Youtube have lots of good options also.
• There are a number of free screencasting programs/applications. My major beef with those is that free applies only to short videos/limited space.

Live interactions

There are a number of video conferencing tools available. Seems like a lot of people are using Zoom. Learning Management Systems (LMS) have often such a tool embedded, for example Blackboard has Bb Collaborate. Other options are good old Skype, or Google Hangouts (or whatever it is called these days). Whatever system you use, it is important to check available time (free versions of zoom, for example, may be limited in time) and number of users allowed.

Some tips & tricks

• Setting: good lighting, no distractions in the background or foreground (messy room behind, closet door left open, wine glass on the desk-yes seen that too!). Seems like a lot of people are using virtual backgrounds (that is cool, but be sure that your real background is not too messy in case it does not work). I have a folding screen room divider placed behind me when doing official business.
• Internet: when doing video conferencing, it is really critical to have good internet. I recommend to check the wifi speed when doing video conferencing ahead of time. If it gets slow, turn off the webcam (have a nice profile pic saved).
• Practice screen sharing and use of whiteboard.
• Online meetings require a bit more planning then onsite, especially with students. To get them involved, one can use anonymous means such as polling, use of whiteboard for them to type answers, or divide them in breakout rooms and then ask for the group to report back.
• Record the session so students who couldn’t attend can still benefit from it.

Asynchronous interactions

Not all students can be present in synchronous sessions, but there are other ways to have them involved.

• Discussion boards are useful. I try to post questions that are open-ended and result in diverse perspectives. If students need to work on a specific research topic they will post about it and explain why are they interested in it. Sometimes to gather different opinions about the same issue, it may be useful to hide others’ postings before the student post their own. For DBs to be fair, word limits and content requirements are necessary.

• There are many other tools to get diverse opinions asynchronously, in different formats. Some that I have tried and liked are: Voicethread, Padlet, and Flipgrid. In this page, to the right, there is a list of collaborative tools.

Assignments

• One of the basic tenets of scientific teaching is to combine low and high stakes assignments, as well as formative and summative assessments. These categories tend to overlap- a homework graded for completion and/or of low value versus a high value exam. In Covid19 times, considering the massive disruptions in everybody’s lives, it may be kind to offer more low stakes assessments, relax the deadlines, and offer more than one take at online exams. If students are new to the online environment, it is a good idea to offer practice assessments.
• How to makes exams and quizzes online is a posting by itself, but basically it can be made from scratch or imported/reused.
• Written assignments can be usually graded within the LMS environment or downloaded, reviewed, and uploaded back when grading.

Well this is all for today. Our university decided to go fully online couple of days ago. The courses I am responsible for have plenty of online material, but it is still a bit stressful for faculty and students alike. Stay safe and healthy!

Academic Twitter and email lists are full of both angst and advice regarding moving to online teaching in a very short time due to the coronavirus epidemic. I sympathize. As somebody who teaches both onsite and online, I can attest that the first online courses are hard, even with enough time and support. It takes a lot of work to set up a decent online course, and it is an ongoing process to keep it engaging, interactive, attractive, up to date with technology etc. So my blog post here is dedicated to those colleagues who are new to online teaching and have to switch in a very short time, based on my experience of more than 10 years in the online realm. This is focused on undergraduate biology courses.

First of all, “keep calm.” Chances are, students will be quite comfortable with the online environment. But, also be aware that this will not be an optimal course.

Stand on the shoulders of giants (including textbook providers). There is no need to reinvent the wheel, and no shame in taking something that is already developed (especially if the time is short). Most textbooks (at least in my field, biology) will have some kind of online support website. Many will have short videos, embedded quizzes, and other activities that can be used as low stakes assignments and homework.

Structure, organization, guidance. Decide on the structure of the course. Weeks? Topics? It is simple to create content folders/modules based on the major structure. Make them repetitive (each module/folder containing the same type of materials/assignments). Routine and predictability is good. Students need guidance about what to do and where to find it. It is not a bad idea to have a Task list somewhere with all assignments and due dates.

Lectures. Recording lectures is a major task. There are courses and workshops dedicated to how to do it. There are tech requirements. They take time and effort to make them right. In a summary, it may be worthy to decide if such effort is necessary if time is short. There are plenty of great video collections (and that includes Youtube) already available. The more is outsourced, the more time and effort can be dedicated to the really important stuff.

Exams etc. Some people make exams from scratch. Others use testbanks or software such as Testgen. The latter usually allow exporting as a file that can be imported into the LMS. In the case of Blackboard, it is a zip file. Again, if time is short, it may be worthy to use a testbank and edit the questions later. Note: plagiarism is obviously much easier online. Check that the question prompts are not “googlable.”

Labs. Well, that’s a complex issue and a lot depends on the kind of lab. I have no problem using fully virtual labs or take-home kits for non-majors’ lab classes. Some schools are ok with virtual science labs for almost everything. In any case, there are all kinds of simulations and virtual labs online (check out HHMI Interactive). And there are specialized companies who make them, some quite good. Another option is to have students buy a kit that they use at home. Or use labs using household supplies (deshelled eggs for diffusion! catalase activity using diced potato and peroxide at different pH!) Again, it depends on the lab and the audience.

Interaction. Well, while online classes don’t have the face to face aspect, instructors may be pleasantly surprised that they will get the voices of shy students if using tools such as Discussion Boards. Have one for each week or topic, and ask an open-ended question with no right/wrong answer. Or ask students to share something from the class or from science websites. Note: for DBs to be worthy, requirements such as minimum word number should be clearly stated. Oh and have students comment on each others’ postings.

Live interactions. Zoom and other videoconferencing tools can be used for a one per week meeting. Many things can be done with practice and technology (drawing on a whiteboard, polling, asking for feedback, place students in breakout rooms), but for starters it can be fine just to lecture on a powerpoint and have the floor open for questions via chat for example.

The personal touch. Online teaching requires being responsive and proactive. Reach out to students regularly via announcements or email. Respond quickly when students have questions. Be aware that some students may not have steady internet access or computers with software we take for granted. Be flexible. Be kind.

So these are my thoughts for instructors who are not familiar with online teaching and need to set up online courses in a short time. Hopefully there will be plenty of tech support for this transition. Personally, even in onsite courses I tend to do as much “flipping” as possible, to give students flexibility and time. Lectures are recorded, low stakes quizzes are online, practice quizzes are available before exams, and written assignments are also submitted online. One last thought- if you are new to online teaching, take an online course to experience how it is. Being on the receiving end is a great eye opener to the good and the bad of online teaching.

ps. I left out on purpose pointing to specific vendors or websites. Needless to say, the more sophisticated the tool, it tends to cost. On the other hand, shinier is not always better- in fact a tech tool requiring fast internet to work just brings problems and is discriminating. Less is more!