distance learning

Update to Faculty

Posted on by Greg Diment

The Information Services Team has worked to produce extensive content to support online learning and collaboration during Spring Quarter. You can follow our COVID-19 Online Learning Plan Updates and Faculty Tools pages. Recent posts include information about virtual computer labs, tips for working securely from home, and student writing in Moodle.

What’s Working

  • Response to Microsoft Teams has been strong. We currently support over 425 various Teams including courses, committees, departments, and more. We intend to continue to refine and expand support for Teams in the future.
  • We’ve welcomed faculty new to Moodle for their asynchronous course communication and supported returning faculty in developing further skills. The number of Moodle courses is up 35% from Spring Quarter 2019.
  • Early adoption of Microsoft Stream has provided another robust platform for video communication and eased the burden on other hosting sources.
  • Classes that require software that is available only in on-campus labs can now access them remotely. This has maintained learning opportunities with programs like SPSS, MATLAB, and ArcGIS that would have been otherwise lost.

What’s Not Working

Moodle Supporting Large/Long videos

Moodle users began experiencing “500 – Internal server error” messages last week. We believe the major cause is lengthy videos hosted directly onto Moodle. Therefore, we have expanded our support of Microsoft Stream and encourage comfortable users to post to YouTube when appropriate. Currently, we are asking faculty to refrain from posting any videos longer than five minutes directly to Moodle.

Stream and Privacy

Many course videos of student introductions and instructor content are currently posted as available for anyone at the College using Stream. It is important that users not inadvertently share with larger audiences than they intend. Please know that the Quick share option available via the Stream phone app publishes video with the permission Allow everyone in your company to view this video. For more control, disable Quick Share and then use Save as draft. For further discussion of permissions in Stream, please visit the Video Streaming page of the IS website or watch our video overview.

Choice of Videoconferencing platforms

We have received extensive feedback about user experiences in Zoom and Teams. We know that Zoom’s expanded display of video and some of its scheduling features are appealing. However, we are also aware of increasing concerns over “Zoombombing” and the challenges of conducting College business in unsupported platforms. Microsoft recently posted that they are working to accelerate their implementation of increased number of concurrent video displays in Teams. Information Services believes that the benefits of using a more secure tool that is integrated to our software architecture is the best choice. We’ve published a post titled Moving from Zoom to Microsoft Teams that addresses some of the most common questions and attempts to provide solutions for success.

Teams Calendar Event Feature

Some Microsoft documentation references “Meeting” and “Calendar” tabs inside Microsoft Teams. These are integrations that are not available at the College. Windows users with Teams and Outlook 2013 or later versions can use Outlook to schedule Teams meetings. For additional strategies on initiating and managing calls, please refer to Moving from Zoom to Microsoft Teams.

Return to all COVID-19 Online Learning Plan Updates

Moving from Zoom to Microsoft Teams

Posted on by Josh Moon

Microsoft Teams is our institutionally supported videoconferencing application and offers many collaboration features.  Due to its integration into the College’s technology infrastructure and the requirement of login credentials, it is more secure than other clients that are increasingly targets of disruption and attacks. We do recognize that many users are comfortable with certain features in Zoom and are hesitant to sacrifice them by moving to Teams. We would like to offer some support and practices that might make this shift easier.

Easy ways to schedule a meeting

If you need to schedule a meeting, set up a Channel on your Team labeled “Meetings.” This becomes the consistent site to begin Calls and the online meeting spot.

There are multiple benefits to this approach:

  • Everyone knows where to go at the appropriate time (like a physical classroom).
  • The Channel’s “Meet Now” button allows you to quickly initiate meetings and get started.
  • If you record or otherwise add Meeting-specific content, it avoids clutter on your other Channels.

Managing a Call with four concurrent videos

The ability to see all participants in a call is one of the most popular features that Teams currently lacks. While Microsoft has suggested that they are quickly working to introduce this, productive calls can still be held without out this functionality. Some tips include:

  • Encourage all participants to mute their microphones. This is a generally helpful practice in videoconferencing to avoid crosstalk and ambient noise. In turn, encourage individual users to unmute and interject when they would like to comment or contribute a question. “Excuse me, Professor, can I ask a question….” It can be that simple even without a visual. Microsoft Teams will automatically transition one of the video feeds to the person who is speaking.
  • Utilize the Call’s accompanying Chat conversation to draw out questions and commentary. It can be difficult to facilitate conversation and monitor the Chat simultaneously. Give students responsibility for helping to bring questions and comments into the Call from the Chat.
  • Set an agenda for your Meeting Call. Even with four users, having a free flowing conversation can be difficult in an online conference call. Help everyone know when to participate and what the expectations are by sharing an agenda ahead of time if appropriate.
  • If the audio and video quality of a call is inconsistent, encourage some users to turn off their camera to improve the experience. Also, be aware of using too many features at once during a Call that might make it increasingly challenging for some students to participate.

Such techniques have been successful in navigating Teams Calls with two dozen faculty members and is the weekly model for Information Services Computer Meetings that include twenty participants. It can be done!

Hosting Office Hours in Teams

The lobby feature of Zoom to form a meeting queue is helpful, but it has also become one of the prime vulnerabilities for introducing unwanted participants. With Microsoft Teams, the certainty that the user is who they claim to be is much higher.

To facilitate hosting Office Hours with Teams, try this:

  • Let students knows when you’ll be on Teams with your status set as available and welcome them to contact you. You can set a status message in your profile to make clear your preparation to receive calls.
  • If you are busy in a Call with a student, encourage students to send you a Chat message to let you know they are waiting to speak with you. Quickly acknowledge them and let them know you will be with them shortly. If you wish to just use the text chat, experiment with balancing multiple Chats at once as you are comfortable.

The College is committed to continuing to support Microsoft Teams in the future and exploring more ways to take advantage of its collaboration and communication features as well as to introduce new functionality. If you’d like to talk about how to make the resource work for you, there are multiple avenues of support. We have the videoconferencing and Microsoft Teams pages on the IS website. A new Tech Talk channel is now on Microsoft Stream and you are always welcome to contact us for personal support.

Return to all COVID-19 Online Learning Plan Updates

Forums and Other Options: Student Writing in Moodle

Posted on by Josh Moon

One of Moodle’s strengths is the ability to collect student writing online. There are a multiple Moodle Activities designed to accomplish this, and this post is going to discuss the key features and settings of three: Forum, OU Blog, and Assignment.

Forum

In online learning, the Discussion Forum is one of the most common tools. It is a great place to start for a faculty member who wants a simple space for students to discuss topics and respond to readings. There are more naturally engaging and dynamic tools but with strong prompts, clear expectations, and an engaged facilitator, a Forum can be a solid foundation for communicating asynchronously in an online class.

Key settings:

Forum Type: Standard forum for general use – this is the default. Students can make new posts and replies to their classmates without restriction. It is what most instructors will want to use.
Note: a “Q and A Forum” is misleadingly named. This requires that each student post a discussion topic before they can see any posts by other students in the Forum. This is a special, restrictive format.

Subscription and tracking – This determines whether users receive email notifications about Forum activities.
Note: Subscriptions can be managed by users both at the level of the entire Forum and individual discussion posts.

  • Optional subscription (default): users can choose if they wish to subscribe to a Forum or Post but are not subscribed by default.
  • Forced subscription: all class participants receive email notifications and cannot opt out. This is the setting for the Announcements Forum.
  • Auto subscription: the reverse of “optional subscription.” Everyone is subscribed by default but individual users can remove their subscriptions.
  • Subscription disabled: no one can subscribe for email notifications in Forums.

Grading & Ratings – this determines whether instructors are able to directly grade a Forum. They do this by assigning a “Rating” system for posts. This can be confusing and we recommend either 1) creating a discussion forum as a separate grade item in the grade book and/or 2) using Course Completion and Activity Completion to automate confirming participation. For an explanation of Course Completion, please watch the portion referring to completion tracking on the Conversation about Moodle Forums video.

There are additional settings, but a “standard forum for general use” with clear instructions in the description field will create a flexible discussion board for all course participants. If this is the functionality that an instructor needs, no other setting modifications are necessary.

If you’d like to view an extended overview about the use of the Forum tool in Moodle, you are welcome to access the video, A Conversation About Moodle Forums recorded between Dr. Josh Moon and numerous faculty members on the topic (you may be asked to enter your K ID and password).

OU Blog

We have replaced Moodle’s built-in blog tool with a preferable alternative designed by Open University. It works like a standard web blog. Posts can either be visible to other participants in the class or function like a private journal (visible to the instructor). The OU blog supports comments by readers on visible blogs.

Key settings:

Individual blogs:
Separate individual blogs – each student’s post is only visible to the instructor and the writer.
Visible individual blogs – blog entries are open to other participants and can receive comments.
No (blog together or in groups) – one blog without options to sort or view by author.

Maximum visibility: For publicly available blogs, there are preferable options to Moodle. “Visible to participants in the course” should be chosen in most instances.

Assignment

This is the Moodle dropbox to receive files from students. Moodle can support student submissions of most file formats and individual files up to 200 MB (larger files can be sent to faculty with OneDrive). It is a valuable organizational tool to avoid submissions via email.

Key settings:

Submission types: How do you want students to submit? Upload files or simply type into a text box? How many files can they submit? Are there only certain accepted file types for this assignment?

Feedback types: How do you want to respond to students? Do you want a comment box? Do you want to upload a file with comments?

Notifications: Do you want an email notification when each student submits their work?

When submissions are complete, faculty can download all files as a .zip folder by selecting Download all submissions in the gear wheel settings.

Which should I use?

The answer to this question depends on the nature of the students’ writing and who you wish to have access to it.

Forum: shorter posts, more balance between original posts and replies.
Blog: longer (1-2 pages) writings where the point of emphasis is the original post. Can either be private to the instructor or readable by classmates.
Assignment: extended, refined writing. Submitted as a file attachment that is only visible to the instructor.

Moodle can be a valuable tool to facilitate the asynchronous writing of your students. If you have any questions on how to use these Activities, please contact Josh Moon, Educational Technology Specialist at Josh.Moon@kzoo.edu.

The Distance Learning Tech Toolkit

Posted on by Katrina Frank

New Distance Learning Tech Toolkit Available!

For the most recent Tech Toolkit please see Your Distance Learning Tech Toolkit – Fall 2020 post.

Information Services Staff at 2019 gathering.

Although circumstances are vastly different this quarter, the Information Services team would still like to give you a warm welcome back to Kalamazoo College and share how we can support you. We understand that this abrupt transition to distance learning is not easy and our goal is to provide as much support as we can through transparency, documentation, and communication.

To ease the transition, we have compiled a list of resources that will be essential to your education from afar. In order for us to provide the utmost support it is imperative that you review and use these resources to your advantage throughout the quarter.

As always, if you have additional questions, we’re here for you!

Be well.

Staying Up to Date

Do you want to know when new software and tools are released? What about announcements about system outages or those undergoing maintenance? Listed below are ways that you can stay current on Information Services announcements particularly catered to students.

  • Student Tools page – This page is specifically tailored to students where you can access more information to your resources. Any general IS announcements, such as system maintenance, can be visible on our past IS Announcements page.
  • Hornet Hive Announcements – We will also be posting most IS announcements on the Hornet Hive; however, please note that these announcements may come later than those being posted directly to our IS website.

Communicating and Sharing with Others

  • Email and Webmail
  • Microsoft Teams (NEW!) – Some departments will be using Microsoft Teams to help you communicate and share more freely. Learn all about Teams!
  • Video Streaming (NEW!) – Microsoft Stream is a secure platform where the K College community can upload, view, and share videos within the College. Visit the video streaming page to learn more.
  • File Sharing – Visit our file sharing page to see all of ways you can share files with your peers, professors, and employers!

Tech Support from a Distance

  • The Information Services website – The IS website recently underwent a huge reorganization. Based on student feedback from our Spring 2019 usability testing we have made independent troubleshooting a priority. Be sure to first use the IS website if you’re having technical difficulties.
    • Search Tip : Use the IS Search on the right sidebar (or near the bottom of the page if on a mobile device) to find the information you need faster!
  • Email Support – Are you still not finding how to solve your issue on the website? Email the Help Desk or our Student Computer Consultants!
    • Email Tips : Provide a precise and concise subject line of what you would like solved. Add the steps that you took leading up to the issue and add a screenshot of the issue you’re experiencing.
  • Call the Help Desk – If you are unable to solve issues with one of your K College accounts you can call the Help Desk at 269.337.5800 between 8 a.m. – 5 p.m EST. Monday – Friday. Please note that with the shift to distance learning for the Spring term, the Help Desk may be experiencing a high volume of requests and response times may be longer than usual.
  • Moodle Support – Are you having issues with Moodle? If so, please inform your professor and they will help direct you from there.
  • Library Support – Your Librarians are here for you! Connect with us on the Library website!

Feedback

Do you feel like we missed something in our Toolkit? If so, please let us know by contacting the Web Services Specialist, Katrina Frank at Katrina.Frank@kzoo.edu.