Transitioning a class to online midsemester

[Anselm]

This arrived today in my email inbox.  This is just one example as to why you just can't declare "we are moving everything online" at the drop of a hat.


Temporary customer support changes

We're writing to alert you that our partners who deliver Pearson customer support — both technical and order management support — are experiencing significant changes. Their call centers are responding in real-time to a mandatory, government-ordered shift to work from home. As a result, phone support, email support, and live support delivered through our website is now temporarily unavailable.

Our automated self-service tools on our website are your strongest option for problem resolution during this outage. You can find these tools at

https://support.pearson.com/getsupport/s/

We are working closely with our partners to establish contingency support as quickly as possible. We will keep you posted as the situation evolves with updated information on revised support processes.
Thank you very much for your patience and flexibility during this difficult time of unprecedented disruption to the way we work.


Partners?  Did they outsource this to the lowest bidder? 

[OneMoreYear]

I hope it is OK to link to YouTube here. This awesome video has been floating around my faculty listserve for some humor as we all move online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCe5PaeAeew&feature=youtu.be

[Hibush]

I hope it is OK to link to YouTube here. This awesome video has been floating around my faculty listserve for some humor as we all move online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCe5PaeAeew&feature=youtu.be

Thanks, I needed that. A+

I hope he uses a different camera angle when lecturing.

[Terrapinfan]

Hello Fora folk, I've been a lurker for awhile but now registered. I suppose I should fill out a profile, but briefly, I'm a longterm prof at a small public uni. I have an interdisciplinary background in the social sciences, and I'm transitioning to online teaching with a good dose of curiousity/humility/skepticism.  So, I can ask my faculty center, but it's swamped right now, so, does anyone know if one can retroactively narrate existing ppt slides?

TIA. And if you need to know about terrapins, please ask. I may know the answer...

[Porcupine]

I keep on seeing suggestions for faculty to use Zoom for their online classes. Since I've never particularly seen the attraction of doing that for regular online classes, is there any more reason to use Zoom for these transitioned classes?

No. And thank you for raising this point. My institution started recommending Zoom without even checking what good online teaching techniques or student internet access was like. Meantime we are running a charitable collection for students without laptops or internet at home ... while we have moved to online classes.

Not all students have time or space to check in online. Some have only cellphone data to access course material. Some are looking after family/siblings/children. Some are trying to get paid work. Some just got laid off and are hugely stressed out. Some are in different time zones. If Zoom works for you personally, fine, but since using it may well exclude some students, let's please not turn it into a panacea.

[polly_mer]

I might not have been clear.  Since we were encouraged to shift everything online, many of my students have not -- for reasons unclear to me --  been accessing the alternate mode of delivery. I guess I'm asking the hive mind if anybody else is in the same boat, and how all y'all are handling that.

What are your options on incompletes or progress-but-not-completions?  Those seem like the humane options to me to deal with folks who were doing fine and now cannot access the content or have higher priorities at the moment than finishing a particular course.

[Puget]

I keep on seeing suggestions for faculty to use Zoom for their online classes. Since I've never particularly seen the attraction of doing that for regular online classes, is there any more reason to use Zoom for these transitioned classes?

No. And thank you for raising this point. My institution started recommending Zoom without even checking what good online teaching techniques or student internet access was like. Meantime we are running a charitable collection for students without laptops or internet at home ... while we have moved to online classes.

Not all students have time or space to check in online. Some have only cellphone data to access course material. Some are looking after family/siblings/children. Some are trying to get paid work. Some just got laid off and are hugely stressed out. Some are in different time zones. If Zoom works for you personally, fine, but since using it may well exclude some students, let's please not turn it into a panacea.

I think this is very institution dependent. It is generally working fairly well for us, but we are a traditional age residential campus (or were residential until last week!), and were able to mobilize emergency funds to pay for laptops and internet for any students who didn't have them at home. Our students right now seem to be craving interaction, and video is the best we can do for them. We are recording and posting for anyone who has trouble connecting synchronously.

[Puget]

Hello Fora folk, I've been a lurker for awhile but now registered. I suppose I should fill out a profile, but briefly, I'm a longterm prof at a small public uni. I have an interdisciplinary background in the social sciences, and I'm transitioning to online teaching with a good dose of curiousity/humility/skepticism.  So, I can ask my faculty center, but it's swamped right now, so, does anyone know if one can retroactively narrate existing ppt slides?

TIA. And if you need to know about terrapins, please ask. I may know the answer...

Yes, it doesn't matter when the slides were created, you add the narration at the presenting phase (this can just be presenting to yourself). Go to Slide show--> Record slide show.

[polly_mer]

I didn't know until just now that one can use Zoom to have breakout rooms, much like groups in a classroom.

All the information I have is from reading the Twitter thread at https://twitter.com/ef_math/status/1240289696330051586 , but that looks promising for the types of classes that are reasonably small and were already accustomed to working in small groups.

[secundem_artem]

Hello Fora folk, I've been a lurker for awhile but now registered. I suppose I should fill out a profile, but briefly, I'm a longterm prof at a small public uni. I have an interdisciplinary background in the social sciences, and I'm transitioning to online teaching with a good dose of curiousity/humility/skepticism.  So, I can ask my faculty center, but it's swamped right now, so, does anyone know if one can retroactively narrate existing ppt slides?

TIA. And if you need to know about terrapins, please ask. I may know the answer...

If your uni supports Panopto, this is quite easy to do.

[Parasaurolophus]

Hello Fora folk, I've been a lurker for awhile but now registered. I suppose I should fill out a profile, but briefly, I'm a longterm prof at a small public uni. I have an interdisciplinary background in the social sciences, and I'm transitioning to online teaching with a good dose of curiousity/humility/skepticism.  So, I can ask my faculty center, but it's swamped right now, so, does anyone know if one can retroactively narrate existing ppt slides?

TIA. And if you need to know about terrapins, please ask. I may know the answer...

Yes, it doesn't matter when the slides were created, you add the narration at the presenting phase (this can just be presenting to yourself). Go to Slide show--> Record slide show.

Yup, easy peasy. Plus to audio is synched with each slide, so that if students skip ahead in the slideshow, the audio starts at that slide instead.

[Terrapinfan]

Many thanks for the ppt narration answer. My uni doesn't have Panopto....
Speaking of Zoom, several recommended it for moving online, but even experienced Zoom-y colleagues have reported that it is not going well in student tryouts during spring break, so many of us are choosing NOT to Zoom - students are too stressed and as this thread notes, there is a digital divide.

[mamselle]

For narrating PPt slides, you can also use Word Thread, if your school supports that.

M.

[Anselm]

I knew from day one that for what I teach and my style that there is no feasible way to make a transition to a real online class.  So, I turned my class into a self study correspondence course.   I give them material to read and videos to watch.  I noticed that one person out of ten actually answered my questions correctly about one video.  From this I conclude that they think they can just search on Google for the answers and not watch the video.   The video even comes with a transcript with the answers plainly visible.

I also got an email today from our president with some inspiring rally the troops message.  She then said that they plan to resume normal operations on April 13th.  There is no way that can happen.  The dormitories are mostly empty and the departed students are not returning.   We have yet to reach the peak of daily infections.    A student can't even get a haircut or new clothing since those places are closed down. 

[Wahoo Redux]

I hope it is OK to link to YouTube here. This awesome video has been floating around my faculty listserve for some humor as we all move online: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCe5PaeAeew&feature=youtu.be

Thanks, I needed that. A+

I hope he uses a different camera angle when lecturing.

Awesome.

This was next in the queue:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Kf-9kx_oSg