As soon as possible — before Spring Break if you can! — it’s helpful to let Spring term students know what they will need to succeed in your upcoming remote course. You can link to this Minimum Technical Requirements document in an announcement to your course, or build your own statement using the sections below.

All courses making use of online resources require:

• Consistent, high-speed internet access
  • If you have assignments due once a week, consider whether once-a-week access is enough, or whether multiple days will be required, and state this requirement clearly as soon as possible!
  • For instance, a discussion board that requires both a post and replies will require either multiple hours on one day or shorter time over multiple days.

Other hardware requirements:

Other software requirements:

Software is less predictable because you may already have required/preferred programs. Here are some possible requirements.

Often the closest contact students have with our campus is with their instructors. That means your communication is the most likely to cut through when there’s a stack of messages in their inboxes. Please use this week to begin communicating with students about what’s happening and will happen.

The Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice provides the following advice for supporting students during COVID19:

Students are humans first. The more a student feels connected to and understood by their college or university, the more likely they are to stay enrolled and engaged. The language you use to communicate about the response to COVID-19 matters—it must convey care along with urgency. Communicate the need for physical distance as opposed to social distance to emphasize that you are still a community while observing recommended prevention practices.

Sara Goldrick-Rab, “Beyond the Food Pantry: Supporting #RealCollege Students During COVID19“

Send a full-class email, Moodle messages, or texts to your students as soon as possible this week. If you are sending grades through Moodle, consider adding a note in feedback about the coming changes on campus. Link to the Lane COVID-19 page and our Keep Learning page for students, where they can find updated information and assistance in making the move to remote learning.

Finally, don’t forget to take some time to take care of yourself! This teacher-made video made the rounds yesterday, and it’s a pretty good way to start your virtual day (thanks to everyone who sent it my way, except that I’ll have this song in my head forEVER):

Sometimes, you just need a quick reference or a quick answer. Even from a distance, we’ve got you covered!

Faculty can jump into our help/support session any time between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. today to ask about Zoom, Moodle, and just about anything else related to remote learning.

If you’re comfortable trying out technology on your own, here’s a list of quick start guides and cheat sheets for our most popular technologies. (You can bookmark this post if you think you might try any of these later).

Quick list of quick guides:

• Screencast-o-matic cheat sheet
• Google Drive cheat sheet
• G Suite course (multiple quick-start guides in one handy place)
• Sharing Google Docs, etc.
• Get started with Moodle (7 min. video)
• Zoom video resources
• Moodle for Faculty (course provided by our Learning Management System)

We have more help available on the Teaching Continuity Plan page.

And just remember…

If you pick up papers, workbooks, assignments, or other physical materials in class, make a plan for how to receive that work before a campus closure.

Need to gather up assignments, but not sure how to do it (or how to help students)? It’s never too early to try a practice run at collecting assignments virtually! Here are a few ways you can get student work without making students come to campus:

Tips:

• If you’re taking assignments by email, ask students to include your course number in the subject line.
• Ask students to save files with their name and the assignment as the file name. 
• If you receive a file you can’t open, contact the ATC for help in converting the file, or try opening it in Google Drive. 
• Keep student work confidential – make sure students review the privacy settings on anything they post to YouTube.

Talk with colleagues near and far to get the best ideas of what’s already happening and what you can borrow for remote learning.

Do you have great tools or ideas about remote learning? Comment with them below, or e-mail us to add to tomorrow’s Crowd-Sourced Resources Post.

Individual disciplines may have different challenges in preparing for remote teaching. While an essay may be a natural fit to collect online or by email, a lab exercise can be a challenge to duplicate. Your ATC colleagues are ready to help untangle these challenges – but you may find solutions already exist even closer by!

Check in with department and discipline colleagues to find out if anyone has solutions you can try. Students, too, may be a good resource here: What technology have they used in other classes, or to supplement studying, that could be shared online with others? If there’s a video series, lab workbook, simulation, or app that could smooth the way, now’s the time to discover.

Check in with your professional organizations, as well. Many teaching-oriented groups have current special interest groups around online learning or pedagogy that might offer tips. You can also observe what technology is in use for virtual meetings.

Finally, if you regularly use online networks or social media for professional purposes, look for groups or hashtags where educators are sharing ideas, best practices, or recent good technology finds. These often pop up regionally when weather or health emergencies are incoming.

Tip

• Remember to vet any software before using and certainly before suggesting a download to students. Consult the ATC if you have questions!

As soon as possible in advance of a potential remote day, clearly communicate with your students your plan for a break in classes. 

Example messages for students:

• In the event that campus is not accessible due to weather or health emergencies, I will post all class reading materials, lecture notes, and brief supplementary videos to Moodle. If there are major deadlines during the time when classes can’t meet, I will accept papers by e-mail or through a link on Moodle. If you need to reach me during this time, I will make every effort to check my e-mail at least twice a day.
  
• If we can’t meet for a one or two class periods, keep up with the readings! We’ll regroup when classes meet again and adjust our exam schedule as needed. If we can’t meet for more than a week, we’ll have to figure out another plan. Please sign up now to receive text or e-mail messages from me in an emergency…

Tips:

• Don’t over promise: If you’ve never done a video lecture before, trying to do one now may be more than you want to tackle! Instead, focus on what’s possible in the short term, and start seeking training now for the long term.
• Think of what you’ve done before: Most instructors have had to cancel a class or two due to illness or personal emergency before. How did you recover? 
• Think of what you’ve done before, part 2: Lane’s main campus has been closed for nearly a full week twice in the past few years. What did you do to stay on track then? What could you duplicate at a moment’s notice?
• Plan ahead: If you promise you’ll be in touch through e-mail, Moodle, text, or another message, test that method in advance.
• Ask for help: The ATC and your Instructional Design team are happy to assist with figuring out what’s possible and what’s useful. Drop us a line!