Tip of the Day

Synchronous Sessions and Their Alternatives (7/1/2020)

Synchronous sessions are particularly problematic, as some students will not be able to join the session due to Internet limitations (i.e., streaming video has a high bandwidth requirement and uses a lot of data if students are relying on a mobile device) or technology limitations (e.g., students may not have a camera or mic). If you do plan to host synchronous sessions in the course, please consider the strategies below for creating accessible alternatives to video and synchronous sessions:

Video recording of a synchronous session (may require text alternative - transcript and/or visual description)
Written summary of a synchronous session (e.g., summary of a discussion, questions asked and answered, information shared and/or concluded)
Alternative participation, activities, and assessments should be made available to students who cannot participate in a synchronous session, especially if they include a graded component (e.g., participation grade or graded activity/assessment). Students should have the opportunity to submit at a later date/time for grading or feedback or support. For example, if a synchronous session is centred around a theoretical debate or a discussion, a student who cannot attend/participate in the live session could submit a summary of the discussion and some of their own thoughts, points, and reflections in order to receive a participation grade.

Click here to learn more on characteristics of online learners.

Make Grading Less Time Consuming (4/30/2020)

Whatever its weaknesses, technology has rescued this semester in higher education, and it can help ease the pile of grading in front of you now. How? Try audio technology. You can talk faster than you can write, and all sorts of speech-to-text options are available. Here are some ways to use them for grading:

Dictate your comments into Canvas Speedgrader by clicking on the speaker icon button shown in the screenshot below and use speech-to-text to transcribe them in real time. That way, you provide substantial feedback on a large amount of student work without developing carpal-tunnel syndrome.
Record your comments by clicking on video icon button in Speegrader in Canvas shown in the screenshot below and then share them with individual students via an audio file they can listen to on any device.

Especially for large-scale projects and written work, audio feedback can cut your grading time just about in half, without sacrificing the depth or quality of your evaluation. Learn more.

Videoconferencing Alternatives (4/24/2020)

When we try to replicate classroom experiences in an online environment, it’s easy to think of video conferencing as our go-to tool for all sorts of learning objectives—and for good reason. Most of us have participated in a video conference at work or had a video chat with friends or family at some point. We like the idea of being able to see and hear our students while interacting with them in real time just like we do when teaching face to face. But there are two key factors that make this approach problematic. Click here to read the more.

Want to Add Music to your Zoom Meeting (4/20/2020)

Want to play music as your Zoom attendees wait?

Step 1: When you join your meeting, before the audience, click on the “share” button at the bottom of the page.
Step 2: Click on the “advanced” option tab at the top of the screen.
Step 3: Click on the middle box, “Music or Computer Sound Only”.
Step 4: Play music from whichever app or website you want.

Zoom Updates Concerning Meeting (4/9/2020)

Zoom has made some new enhancements created specifically for ensuring the security and privacy. For more information on these changes, please reference Zoom Release Notes. The overview of the updates are below:

Security Toolbar Icon for Hosts

The meeting host will now have a Security option in their meeting controls, which exposes all of Zoom’s existing in-meeting security controls one place. This includes locking the meeting, enabling Waiting Room, and more. Users can also now enable Waiting Room in a meeting, even if the feature was not turned on before the start of the meeting. For more information, please visit this recently published Blog.

Invite Button on Meeting Client Toolbar

The button to invite others to join your Zoom meeting is now available at the bottom of the Participants panel

Meeting ID No Longer Displayed

The meeting ID will no longer be displayed in the title bar of the Zoom meeting window. The meeting ID can be found by clicking on Participants, then Invite or by clicking on the info icon at the top left of the client window.

Remove Attendee Attention Tracking Feature

Zoom has removed the attendee attention tracker feature as part of our commitment to the security and privacy of our customers. For more background on this change, please see a note from Zoom's CEO, Eric S. Yuan

Removal of the Facebook SDK in our iOS client

We have reconfigured the feature so that users will still be able to log in with Facebook via their browser

File Transfers

The option to do third-party file transfers in Meeting and Chat was temporarily disabled. Local file transfer is available with our latest release. Third-party file transfers and clickable URLs in meeting chat will be added back in an upcoming release

New Join Flow for the Web client

By default, users will now need to sign in to their Zoom account or create a Zoom account when joining a meeting with the Web client. This can be disabled by the Admin or the User from their settings page

Join Before Host Emails Disabled

Notifications sent to the host via email when participants are waiting for the host to join the meeting have been disabled.

Setting to Allow Participants to Rename Themselves

Account admins and hosts can now disable the ability for participants to rename themselves in any meeting. This setting is available at the account, group, and user level in the Web portal.

Language for Directory and Company Directory (please note, this does not impact your account)

Domain contacts: For free Basic and single licensed Pro accounts with unmanaged domains, contacts in the same domain will no longer be visible. We’ve also removed the option to auto-populate your Contacts list with users from the same domain. If you would like to keep those contacts, you can add them as External Contacts.

Change in visibility of contacts with same domain (please note, this does not impact your account)

For Basic and single licensed Pro accounts with unmanaged domains, contacts in the same domain will no longer be visible under ‘Company Directory’ in the ‘Contacts’ tab. Consequently, for the single Pro accounts with unmanaged domains, we’ve removed the option in the admin experience to populate Company Directory with users from the same domain. If these affected users would like to keep contacts with the same domain, they can add them as External contacts. This change will not impact paid accounts with multiple licenses and all accounts with managed domains.

Please be sure to update to Zoom's latest release to take advantage of these new features. And subscribe to Zoom's Blog for more information and resources in the days to come.

Academic Integrity Policies in Remote Courses (4/7/2020)

What's on the rise is not academic dishonesty, but suddenly-online instructors' fear of losing control over the conditions under which assessments are handled.

Students are not out there cheating any more than they usually do, although one thing that could increase cheating is putting students into a bind where they get tempted—you know, like moving everyone to a hastily-constructed online environment with new rules and social norms. Something like that.

Put plainly, students are most tempted to act dishonestly when they feel anxiety and pressure. Most don't act on those temptations regularly, but we all have our tipping points. The current shift to remote instruction can create both anxiety and pressure. The best thing that we can all do, regardless of the subjects we teach or support, is to offer students options, voices, and choices.

Lower time pressure: don't put time limits on your online activities, including exams.
Lower due-date pressure: allow late submissions, even if you lower the grade for such things (I don't, but do like you do).
Lower grade anxiety: spread out the points across activities and avoid having one big thing carry enough points to possibly wreck a final grade. Or, consider minimalist grading (hi, Peter Elbow), specifications grading (hi, Linda Nilson), or ungrading (hi, Jesse Stommel).
Lower communication anxiety: Explicitly tell students that you are open to hearing about the challenges they face, and give them multiple avenues for making contact if things don't go as planned. Actually say that you are willing to accept late work, offer extensions, think of accepting revised work—whatever you are willing to do, say it, so that students do not feel that you are unapproachable and they have no choice but to "make the grade" any way they can. Learn more.

Respondus LockDown Browser and Monitor (4/1/2020)

Le Moyne College now has unlimited use of Respondus Monitor, here are four tips for instructors on how to get up-and-running with online proctoring.

Daily Training Webinars with Live Q&A – These 45-minute trainings are the best way for instructors to learn how to use Respondus Monitor for online proctoring. Each session is followed by an extended Q/A period where questions are answered live. Register: https://go.respondus.com/e/710093/webinars-/g92dv/62200987?h=oW_SZhIpTDFHSqWjoBpIJnFPKi6JgE1rOxHncVAseCI
Rapid Rollout Guide for Instructors – Here is the essential information for using Respondus Monitor with online exams: https://go.respondus.com/e/710093/rapid-rollout-instructors-/g92dx/62200987?h=oW_SZhIpTDFHSqWjoBpIJnFPKi6JgE1rOxHncVAseCI
Create a Practice Exam – Have students take a practice exam with Respondus Monitor to ensure their computer, webcam and Internet are working properly. Allow students more than one attempt on the quiz so they can try the practice exam whenever their device or networking environment changes.
24/7 Live Chat – Remember that students can access built-in troubleshooting and live chat from within Respondus Monitor if they encounter a technical problem. You can find more resources for students, including how to access Live Chat, here: https://go.respondus.com/e/710093/student-help-/g92dz/62200987?h=oW_SZhIpTDFHSqWjoBpIJnFPKi6JgE1rOxHncVAseCI

Usage Reports in Zoom (3/31/2020)

Teachers have access to a report that is derived from the participant list for every session they offer. The participation reports are on your profile page. Open Reports, then Usage. Set the date range to locate the session and then on the number of participants to generate the report.

Screen-sharing in Zoom (3/30/2020)

As of March 26th, the screen sharing settings within your account have automatically defaulted to “Only Host”. This setting gives hosts sole permission to share content within their meetings by default.

Allowing Participants to Share their Screen on Zoom (3/30/2020)

How do I give meeting participants the ability to share?

If you’d like to give participants screen sharing permission when hosting your next meeting, simply click the arrow to the right of the Screen Sharing icon, select Advanced Sharing Options and select All Participants.

If you would like to re-enable participant content sharing at your account level, please visit zoom.us/profile/setting > Screen Sharing > and select All Participants.

Attention Tracking Feature in Zoom (3/27/2020)

Zoom Attention Tracking displays in the Participants panel next to the name of any participant who does not have Zoom in focus for more than 30 seconds. The toggle is in Advanced Meeting Settings.

Keyboard Shortcuts for Zoom (3/26/2020)

If you like keyboard shortcuts, here are a few popular ones in Zoom Web Conference Tool.

I is for invite. Press Cmd+I (macOS) or Alt+I (Windows) to jump to the Invite window, where you can grab the link to the meeting or send invitations to others via email.
M is for mute. Press Cmd+Ctrl+M (macOS) or Alt+M (Windows) when you are the meeting host and want to mute everyone else on the line.
S is for share. Press Cmd+Shift+S (macOS) or Alt+Shift+S (Windows) to share your screen.
R is for record. Press Cmd+Shift+R (macOS) or Alt+R (Windows) to start recording any meeting.
P is for pause. Press Cmd+Shift+P (macOS) or Alt+P (Windows) to pause/resume recording.

Audible Alerts in Zoom When Someone Joins/Leaves (3/25/2020)

You may find an audible alert when participants leave or join a Zoom meeting handy. You'll find the toggle for this feature in your Zoom Basic Settings. This feature is a terrific companion to the Waiting Room feature.

Zoom Waiting Room Feature (3/24/2020)

You may find the Zoom Waiting Room feature helpful to keep participants at arms length while preparing for a meeting or class. You'll find the toggle for this feature in your Zoom Advanced Settings. Learn More.

Mute All Feature in Zoom (3/23/2020)

Live classroom meetings getting a little rowdy? Then, Mute All in Zoom. Simply click on the Manage Participants icon in the Zoom toolbar. At the bottom of the window is a button to Mute All. Participants can unmute individually or you Unmute All. Learn More.