Friday Matinee: Using Zoom at Murray State University

Zoom is a necessary component for teaching during the Covid-19 pandemic at Murray State University.  Whether your class is totally online or some of your students are in the classroom while others are online, Zoom will help you with your online teaching.  

Need help with using Zoom in your classroom?  This site is dedicated to helping you quickly find the answers to your how to questions.  Whether it is how to schedule your Zoom meeting in Canvas to how to use breakout rooms, you'll find the resources here to get you started.

Before using Zoom with your class it is recommended that you explore all of the features of Zoom, find out how they work, and practice using them with family and friends so that you are comfortable with the controls and features.

We have been curating information on how to use Zoom and will be sharing it with you over the next couple of weeks.  We have done put this information into a Google Site for easy access.

Friday Matinee: Zoom Scheduling & Basic Controls

Zoom sessions are very easy to schedule and use in the classroom and it's important that you are comfortable setting up meetings and using the controls from within it.  Besides setting up your Zoom link for your class in Canvas, you can schedule on the Zoom website.  Setting up a Zoom session outside of your Canvas class link can be important if you need to meet with a student or small group during the semester or set up a different virtual office hours link.  Check out the videos on how to do this.  

Scheduling a Meeting on the Zoom Website

KATE's website: Using Zoom at MSU

I'm also adding a video on the fundamental Zoom meeting controls that are available when you are in a Zoom meeting.

Host and Co-hosts Controls in a Meeting

Friday Matinee: Adding Zoom to Canvas

Looks like we are in for a hot and muggy weekend.  If you've been outside and need to cool down for a minute AND if you don't know how to integrate Zoom into Canvas, then this is the video for you.  It's less than a minute and a half and so easy to do.

Adding Zoom to Canvas

Here's the article from Information Systems on how to do this as well.

Friday Matinee: Ways to Make Online Learning More Engaging

The semester is over and you've taken a big sigh of relief!  Teaching online is over for now.  

It's a great time to start thinking about summer and fall classes and possibly teaching again online.  You've got the basics down and are delivering the content, but now is the time to start thinking about making your classes more engaging for your students.  

Check out ISTE's (International Society for Technology in Education) blog post showing 3 ways to make remote learning more engaging.

Friday Matinee: Some Advice for Newly Remote Instructors

Happy Friday!

I recently came across an article that is part of a guide entitled, "Sustaining Higher Education in the Coronavirus Crisis," and wanted to share it with all of you as you begin to get ready to teach online this summer or think about classes for this fall.  The article not only has advice for new remote instructors, but includes a link to a Google Sheet created by Daniel Stanford, the director of the faculty development and technology innovation at DePaul University.  This sheet includes a great number of resources curated from universities.

Coronavirus Has Led to a Rush of Online Teaching. Here's Some Advice for Newly Remote Instructors

Friday Matinee: Choice Boards & Learning Menus

Choice Boards are a great way to give your students some choice in how they will complete an assignment.  Some of our students may excel at creating a Google Site, where another student would rather create a video or write a paper.  Some may want to watch a video on the topic and others would prefer to read a chapter in a book.  Choice Boards let us differentiate our assignments and engage our students at where they are.  During these times when we are all teaching online, we as teachers need to create the best learning experiences possible that will keep our students attention, maintain a positive attitude, and keep them committed to doing their best job possible.

Here's a 3 part mini "course" that is entitled "The Ultimate Guide to Choice Boards and Learning Menus" by AJ Juliani.  He talks about why Choice Boards are important, especially now, describes a step-by-step process for creating them, and gives examples of choice boards in action.  This was written for K-12, but can easily be modified for your teaching here at MSU.  It's easy to use Google Docs or Slides (or Word or PowerPoint) to create these menus for your students.
Choice boards are perfect for online learning, student choice, and differentiation.  Here's what Kasey Bell of Shake Up Learning says about choice boards/learning menus:

What is a Choice Board?
IT’S ALL ABOUT CHOICE!

• Choice boards are a form of differentiated learning that gives students a menu or choice of learning activities.

• Learning menus and choice boards can be created in a variety of styles and mediums.

• They’ve been around for a long time and originated in a static, paper format.

• With digital tools, we can bring the menus to life with interactivity and creation.

From Dr. Catlin Tucker, a post on Student Agency: What Do Students Want to Create to Demonstrate Their Learning? will help you understand how choice boards allow students to make key decisions about their learning and helps you personalize learning for each student.
I've added several examples of choice boards below.  Have a favorite?  Share it with us!

Google Chrome PD Choice Board

TicTacToe - Choice Boards

Interactive Tic-Tac-Toe Menu Choice Board Template

Novel Study Tic-Tac-Toe Choice Board

Choice Board - Google Slides

Halloween Choice Board Example

Friday Matinee: Google Slides Discussion on Using Google Meet in the Classroom

As many of you know, I've been teaching our students how to use Google and one of the things I had them do this semester was to come up with a way to use Hangouts Meet in their future classroom.  The way I did this was to share a Google Slide deck with a directions slide and another slide that I called the student slide that was set up for them to add their name and their response.  We sometimes call this collaboration slides.  Here is the file that I shared and their responses:

Using Hangouts Meet in the Classroom

This activity can be used in any class and on pretty much any topic where you want students to discuss something and comment on each other's input.  It works very well as an online discussion board and can be easily changed as the topic changes. 

I'm adding a template that includes a basic set of directions and an additional student slide.  These are the only 2 slides available in the slide deck.

Discussion Slides

To use this, go to FILE then choose MAKE A COPY and copy the entire slide presentation.  This makes it yours to use.  I would keep this as your master and make a copy of it every time you use it for a discussion.

You can edit the slide with different backgrounds and text.  Here's a video on how to do that:

Using Collaborative Slides by Creating Master Slides