Monday, July 20, 2020

Tech Teaching Tips: Zoom Breakout Rooms

Breakout rooms can be used to alternate between periods of typical lecture in an online class meeting to collaborative work among small students groups, and then returning back to the whole class session.

Zoom provides a number of self-help resources about setting up and using breakout rooms. These include the following:


Teaching Effectively with Breakout Rooms


Just like any instructional technology, it's important to carefully plan and prepare to use breakout rooms in your Zoom meetings. The following tips may prove useful as you evaluate whether or not breakout rooms are right for your class.


Planning/Preparation


  • Decide how many breakout rooms you want to have and how many students should be assigned to each room.
  • Decide whether you will assign students to breakout rooms manually or randomly.
  • Create clear instructions/information for students about the breakout rooms and about the activity they will be completing within the small group.
  • Practice at least once with some guest users (family, friends, colleagues) to ensure that you can move smoothly from the main room, to the breakout rooms, and then back to the main room.

Before Breakout Rooms Open


  • Because students will not be able to see the PowerPoint, document, or other shared information from the main room once their enter their breakout rooms, provide students with a link to the activity materials, instructions, etc. before sending them into breakout rooms.
  • Make sure that everyone understands what is expected of them before switching to breakout rooms.
  • Remind students to have a short meet-and-greet/introduction session in the breakout rooms, since they may not already be familiar with everyone in their group.

During Breakout Rooms


  • Drop in on each breakout room at least once.
  • Listen in on the discussion and offer questions and/or clarification.
  • Give each group a 2-3 minute warning before the breakout session ends, giving them time to wrap up their activity/assignment.
  • When time is up, close the breakout rooms. Zoom will start a 60-second countdown, after which any students who haven't yet returned to the main room will be automatically transferred there.

Planning for Asynchronous Learners


  • If you expect to have students who will be accessing the session via recorded video (asynchronously), it's a good idea to pause your recording when the breakout session begins (Zoom only records the main room when you are saving recordings to the cloud. If you have saving to your local computer, it will record wherever you go, from room to room, during the breakout period). In addition, make sure that you let asynchronous students know about any activity that you want them to complete in place of the group session.
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Tuesday, July 14, 2020

IDT Newsletter Archives (2020)

Beginning June 22, 2020, our team prepares a weekly newsletter that is emailed to faculty and staff every Monday night. This page contains PDF versions of all previously distributed newsletters. Please use the hyperlinks below to open any of these PDF archives. The next year's newsletter archives are available on the blog post, IDT Newsletter Archives (2021).

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Monday, July 13, 2020

Blackboard Tool/Feature Spotlight: Course Messages

As many instructors are already aware, Blackboard provides two tools that may be used as the basis for correspondence between faculty and students: the Email tool and Course Messages. As described in our support document, Using Blackboard Email, the Email tool creates a conduit in your Blackboard course from which students and instructors can send email to a user's UHCL email account. However, no emails may be received in Blackboard and they are not a part of the course records in Blackboard. The Course Messages tool, on the other hand, creates a class-specific email system within a Blackboard course. All course messages are sent and retrieved from within the Course Messages tool in the course.

Until our recent Blackboard upgrade, many instructors avoided using Course Messages because it required that they log into each course separately to retrieve and respond to message from students. However, the latest version of Blackboard now includes a Messages link on the landing page, from which students and faculty can quickly see a list of their courses, see if they have any messages waiting, and they can open the Course Messages to respond to or write new messages without ever entering a course! The new feature is called the ULTRA Global Messages page and it makes using Course Messages a much more user-friendly option than in years past.
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Wednesday, July 8, 2020

Training/Professional Development Session Recordings

All of our team's virtual training sessions are recorded and posted, so don't worry if you are unable to attend in "real-time." Check this page regularly for the latest recordings. Use the hyperlinks on the titles below to watch.

August 2022

August 2021

July 2021

June 2021

February 2021

September 2020

August 2020

July 2020

As a reminder, our team is pleased to provide repeats of any of our sessions via web conference to groups of faculty (e.g., departments, programs, colleges) upon request. Please contact Jenni Willis-Opalenik directly (willisopalenik@uhcl.edu / 281.283.2981) to discuss a session specifically for your group.
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Sunday, June 21, 2020

Online Learning and Understanding Bandwidth

As students, faculty, and staff increasingly use applications that are resource intensive (e.g., Zoom, Blackboard), they may encounter a variety of frustrating performance issues. In many cases, the causes of performance issues are often on the user side, making it very problematic for our team to diagnose and resolve them. Now that UHCL has Blackboard, Collaborate, and Zoom running from off site, in the cloud, the application vendors monitor system performance and automatically adjust when they see problems and to accommodate increased use. Because those systems should now always be operating at optimal performance speeds, we try to assist users reporting performance problems in diagnosing and resolving potential causes on their devices, home networks, and with their internet service providers (ISPs). One buzzword that invariably arises in these efforts is "bandwidth." In this article, we'll explain bandwidth and offer suggestions that may improve performance.

At a very simplistic level, bandwidth refers to how much information can be transmitted at any one time over an internet connection. Generally speaking, the greater the bandwidth of your internet connection, the faster that information can be moved to and from your device. As Fisher (2020) indicates in his article, bandwidth may be visualized as being analogous to your home water supply. When only one member of the household is using the water, the flow should be steady and strong. Each additional user (or device, in the case of internet use) draws off some of the incoming water, making the flow weaker for everyone in the house. Thus, "assuming the water pipe to a home (the bandwidth) remains the same size, as the home's faucets and showers are turned on (data downloads to the devices), the water pressure at each point (the perceived "speed" at each device) will reduce—again, because there's only so much water (bandwidth) available to the home (your network)." Fisher's article provides additional excellent images and information to better explain bandwidth and how to ensure that you have sufficient bandwidth for your internet needs, such as web conferencing and Blackboard. We have extracted the following tips and recommendations from several online resources, all of which are referenced at the end of this blog post:

  • Check your Internet bandwidth using an online speed test, such as http://www.speedtest.net. Such speed tests can vary in accuracy, but they should provide you with a fair representation of your current download and upload speeds. Although some sources cite 2Mbps as the minimum upload and download speed needed for online teaching and learning, web conferencing applications and online testing function with fewer technical issues at speeds of 5Mbps and higher.
  • If possible, plug your computer directly into your router to maximize performance, or move your device as near to the router as possible.
  • You may also want to consider upgrading to a new router and/or adding a wifi extender to improve your wifi signal strength.
  • When using resource-intensive applications, such as Blackboard, Zoom, and Collaborate, users should shut off all other applications and background processes so that their devices are functioning at peak efficiency.
  • Consider how many other people and devices share your internet with you and, for critical online meetings, tests, and similar activities, ask others to limit their video and music streaming, online gaming, and other internet activity during your work.
  • During web meetings, organizers/hosts should try to limit the number of simultaneous open microphones and cameras as much as possible, ensuring that participants leave their mics OFF until called upon to share with the group. Have users switch on their cameras only when necessary, as multiple cameras that are on at once can greatly increase how much data is being uploaded/downloaded.

We encourage you to review the references listed below for additional information, tips, and recommendations to improve your online teaching and learning experience!

References

Blackboard, Inc. (2019, July 26). Collaborate Ultra Experience - Best Practices for Application Sharing. Retrieved from https://blackboard.secure.force.com/publickbarticleview?id=kA739000000028q

Fisher, T. (2020, February 26). What is bandwidth? Lifewire. Retrieved from https://www.lifewire.com/what-is-bandwidth-2625809

University of Southern California (2020). WiFi and mobile hotspot tips. Keep Teaching. Retrieved from https://keepteaching.usc.edu/tools/wifi-and-mobile-hotspot-tips/

University of Wisconsin-La Crosse (2020, May 7). How to manage slower internet and low bandwidth. Retrieved from https://kb.uwlax.edu/page.php?id=99645

Wieck, L. P. (2020, March 9). An euitable transition to online learning - Flexibility, low bandwidth, cell phones, and more. Pedagogy Playground: Innovative Teaching in Higher Ed. Retrieved from https://pedagogyplayground.com/inclusive-pedagogy/an-equitable-transition-to-online-learning-flexibility-low-bandwidth-cell-phones-and-more/
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Friday, June 19, 2020

First Look: Echo360 and Lecture Capture

What is Echo360?

Echo360 is a robust video creation and video management system that will enable faculty to create and post to Blackboard lecture videos, record and live stream face-to-face class meetings, and incorporate student interactivity within presentations. With Echo360, faculty will be able to create their own instructional videos or video lectures from their campus or personal computers or from within the classroom. Sessions can also be live streamed while being recorded, which would enable faculty teaching face-to-face to live stream and record their in-class lectures from within UHCL classrooms. Echo360 enables the recording and live streaming of two simultaneous video channels, meaning that instructors will be able to use/display information from the computer workstation, document camera, and/or the camera on the computer or in the back of the classroom.

We will begin offering informational/preview sessions about Echo360 to faculty in the first week of July. In the meantime, feel free to visit the following links to learn more about Echo360 and to begin thinking about how you may want to use it this fall:


UCT is currently working to ensure that all UHCL classrooms are equipped to include both cameras and microphones to support capture and streaming. However, none of the cameras will follow the instructor as they move away from the instructor workstation. Initially, some classrooms will have a back-of-room camera that will provide a view of the front of the classroom, but they will not track faculty movement or zoom in on the white board. Some classrooms will be limited to using only the built in camera on the computer or monitor itself. As UCT acquires Echo360 and the hardware needed for the classrooms, we will provide more information about how each classroom is equipped.

Will there be training for Echo360?

Absolutely! Once the purchase of Echo360 is finalized, the Instructional Design and Technology team will begin offering training sessions as soon as we can get it installed and ready for use. Those instructors who are interested in pre-recording lecture videos before Echo360 is available can already work with a member of the instructional design team to learn how to leverage Zoom, Collaborate, or PowerPoint for doing so. Videos created in these, or other, tools can be deployed to Blackboard via Echo360 once it is available, so faculty would not need to recreate any MP4s created prior to Echo360.
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Tuesday, May 26, 2020

Changes to Course Provisioning, Etc.

As announced in an email to faculty sent on April 15, 2020, the OPALS system has been removed from service. Beginning with the Summer 2020 semester, faculty will receive a blank Blackboard shell for every course that they have in the schedule for that term. Faculty will be able to use the Course Copy feature in Blackboard to copy content from whichever previous semester offering or existing master course they desire into the new blank shell. Please use the links provided below for information about how to complete tasks that were previously processed in OPALS:
If you have any questions about these, or other, Blackboard-related tasks, please contact your designated instructional designer or contact the Support Center to have a help ticket created and assigned to a member of our team. You may contact the Support Center via any of the following means:

Email: supportcenter@uhcl.edu
Phone: 281.283.2828
Create a Support Ticket
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