Wednesday, May 27, 2020

Week 16, Spring 2020





We did it! None of us could have predicted how this semester has ended, and how quickly we all moved to a remote environment. It has been a pleasure to support you during this time.

~ Denise & Cheryl
Important Canvas Housekeeping

Concluding Your Canvas Course

Canvas Course End Date for students:
Before last day, select the course end date. (Settings > Course Details) By default, it is the last day of the semester. In some cases, faculty need their students to have continued access to the course to complete unfinished work. In those cases, faculty can revise the course end date setting in Canvas. See further details at the District's Past Enrollment's Page


Canvas Course Access for instructors:
Instructors have full access to Canvas courses after the end date.

Export Grades:
(Grades > Action > Export) It’s good practice to save a copy of the Grades for each course.

Export Course Content:
This creates an archive of your course. (Settings > Export Type: Course > Create Export). Archives can be used to load onto different Canvas servers (for teaching at other schools). It’s also good practice to make periodic archives of your courses in the event of accidental data loss. 

If you prefer to view a video tutorial on the above click here: End of Semester Canvas Tasks (for instructors)

 Updating Your Course Between Offerings
You may need a shell to revise your course. The concluded teaching shell is not the ideal place for those changes, and you may not yet have the teaching shell for the future course CRN. That’s why a Development Shell is useful.

A Development Shell gives you a safe place to work on your course between course offerings. You can request a Development Shell for every course you teach by calling the 24/7 Helpdesk (1-844-612-7422).

New/Empty Development Shell

If your Development Shell is new/empty, then copy from your teaching shell into that Development Shell. You can then update your Development Shell as you wait for the next teaching shell to become available. 

Old/Outdated Development Shell

If your Development Shell is now outdated (since it was a previous version of your course), and you want it to be an exact copy of your most recent teaching shell, then you’ll need to Reset the Development Shell first, before copying your teaching shell into it.

⚠️Resetting Your Development Shell deletes everything. A red confirmation message will be displayed. Be sure that you are in the correct shell and that you are okay with deleting everything therein.⚠️ (To Reset: Settings > Reset Course Content)

Once your Development Shell is empty, then copy from your teaching shell into that Development Shell. You can now update your Development Shell as you wait for the next teaching shell to become available.


For a link to a Google Doc with this instructions click here: Concluding Your Canvas Course
Thank you to Katie Palacios, Instructional Designer, for this document.

 Canvas Hack:
Validate Links and Check Accessibility





from Patti Manley






Haven’t we all experienced - we add links to our pages, or links to a file and that one student will email that the link doesn’t work.  This often happens when we copy courses or YouTube videos or website links are no longer valid.
  • Before you copy a course (or even after) go to the “settings page” in the Course Shell and on the right hand side menu select “Validate Links in Content.” 
  • Canvas will automatically check all the links in your course to see if they are working.
  • It checks external and internal links such as links to files or other pages in Canvas.   
I just checked my development  course shell and found 8 links that we no longer valid. Fixing them now will save me so much time later.








Also remember you can check “accessibility” on each page.  
  • If you create a page or want to check your existing page while in the “edit mode”  near the top right above the text box there's a man standing inside a circle. 
  • Select that and you can check your page for accessibility.

 Ongoing PD Opportunities

Image by manuel ramirez from Pixabay 
Miramar and SDCCD

Conferences

 Survey

 Please take a moment to complete this one-question survey on your PD needs for online teaching:

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Monday, May 18, 2020

Week 15, Spring 2020



Canvas Hack: What to do when it's over


 Well, this semester has been a wild ride! While all those annoying ads pitched ideas for "what to do with all your free time at home," we were rewriting and rethinking assignments and student interactions week by week.

But we made it. It's all over but the finals. So, now what?

 About this time of the semester, when the tsunamis of final papers come crashing in, I start thinking about next year. (I know. I'm working on it.) 

Here's how I'm easing out of the semester and setting myself up for a less eventful fall:

Give students a great sendoff. I'm sending a "you did it!" email and exit assignment to remind students they just did something rather heroic. Their world shifted sideways halfway through the term, and they had to make sense of coursework that suddenly seemed to be a distant clamor. They may feel like they just dragged through, or didn't do their best work, but they made it. Reframe & celebrate. 

Capture my best stuff. Before I purge my emails and archive my Canvas shell, I'm going to save those announcements, witty comments on assignments, student feedback on what worked and what didn't. Cut and paste! (By the time I'm  pulling my fall syllabus together, these will be a haze of fond memories spread across multiple Canvas shells. I'm pulling it together now, as it's still happening.)

Note it/Tweak it.
You know those times during the semester when something's going really, really well (or really, really awful) and you think, "If only we could---" When I get the uncontrollable urge to plan next semester while this one's still going--I start a page in my Canvas development shell called "Notes."

Lose this reading. Put a link to info about X in this module. Revise this rubric ("reply" = "peer review"). Move this unit up to Week 3. Rewrite these assignment instructions.  Find that clip from the movie mentioned in that podcast.

*Note: If I find my self actually creating materials instead of grading finals, I know I've gone too far.

Make a copy of the gradebook. 

Watch  ScaredSenseless? Tips for Calming Students in Online Courses, a webinar that gives surprisingly practical things to do before, during, and after the semester to make your remote class less stressful for students.

One-Question Survey

 Please complete the survey below to help us plan future professional learning experiences for you:

Links and Resources

Have you enrolled in the Mental Health Counseling Team's new Canvas Shell?

 Go2Knowledge Online Database for Professonal Development is available (create a free account and use discount code miramar20 to order live webinars.

 Highly recommend: The Mixtape: Deep Teaching Online beyond Zoom and Teach like a YouTuber: Off-Camera Online Teaching Options

Upcoming Webinars: 

 FAST Track Guides on Motivation, from Dr. Linda Lee, Professor Emeritus of English


5 Myths About Remote Teaching in the COVID-19 Crisis
Have you registered for the free Online Teaching Conference? It's June 17-19, and the Agenda of presentations looks amazing!
CanvasCon Online is completely free as well. Register now and save the date for October 15, 2020.
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Monday, May 11, 2020

Week 14, Spring 2020



A Student's Perspective
Jesse Martinez










ASG Senate Representative 
Chair ASG Care/Events Committee 
Psychology Major
Accepted to UCSD

Distance learning has been a challenging experience that has moments of joy as well. 

One advantage to distance learning for me is the option to watch a lecture video as many times as I like to better understand a concept. In addition, online learning has provided a great opportunity to further develop my time management and goal-setting skills. 

One challenge I experience is the lack of universal use of Canvas across courses. While some courses have completely transitioned using all the great tools available on Canvas, other courses are instructed completely via email. The latter lacks the opportunity to interact with peers, the ease to reference lecture information, or the ability to see current assignment scores (as we are not exchanging graded paper assignments at this time). 

The best online instructors provide engaging learning videos (by themselves or YouTube), peer discussion options, and the regular posting of grades for assignments. 

Something I would like instructors to know about learning online is, students truly appreciate the time and energy so many professors have put into our success through this challenging time. 

Thank you!

Self-Care Tips
Dr. Judy Patacsil, MFT
Coordinator Mental Health Counseling
Professor Filipino Studies


Download as a PDF here: Tips for Self-Care during Covid-19

CUE Webinar Series

I've been tuning in to this webinar series by the Center for Urban Education, and especially enjoyed last week's webinar (part three of six), Being Aware of Learning Opportunities and Constraints Posed by Online Teaching and Moving Towards Anti-Racist Practices.

A few slides that I found particularly relevant follow:







If you are interested in viewing the full webinar, all of the recordings and transcripts are available on the CUE Events website.

Webinar four of this six-part series, Online Support as an Anti-Racist Practice is Friday, May 13 from 12:00 - 1:30. Register here: bit.ly/cuewebinar4



The next two webinars are:

Webinar V: Equity-Minded Mathematics Instruction – Thursday, 5.14.2020
Register here: bit.ly/cuewebinar5

Webinar VI: How to Express Care with a focus on Racial Equity – Thursday, 5.28.2020
Register here: bit.ly/cuewebinar6

Links and Resources












Pivoting from In-Person to Online Teaching, recommended by English Professor Linda Lee, who shared, "Here's  a great set of ideas and methods for converting your courses to the online environment.  In just 40 minutes, Professor Robert Lue of Harvard University provides unique, practical, and doable ways to present content, engage students, and promote individualized "homework" learning."

 I love these San Diego Parks and Recreation Backgrounds

A helpful breakdown of auto-captioning tools

Turn your next Zoom session into a Jeopardy game

A Pocket PD Guide to Creating Microlectures

 Flash Feedback, yes please!

 As we move toward the end of the semester, you may want to join our Canvas Gradebook Tips and Drop-in Support, Friday, May 15th 9:00 - 11:00am.

Can't-Miss Conferences


Have you registered for the online free Online Teaching Conference? It's June 17-19, and the Agenda of presentations looks amazing!

CanvasCon Online is completely free as well. Register now and save the date for October 15, 2020.

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Monday, May 4, 2020

Week 13, Spring 2020

Image from Brame, 2015.

How I Transitioned to Online Teaching During the Corona-Virus Pandemic
Pablo Martin









Chair, Arts and Humanities Department
Associate Professor, Communication Studies, Sustainability, and Journalism

 This is a rough little video (i.e. unscripted and with little preparation) designed to give my colleagues a glimpse into how I transitioned my face to face classes into an online environment for the remainder of the Spring 2020 semester (read: Corona Virus!). 

 Link here:Transitioning to Online

Next Pablo walks us through how he restructed his Sustainability 101 class from Face-to-Face for the Online Environment. 

 Link here: Restructuring Sustainability 101


Pablo has also shared a peek into his course here:

Home Page Sustainability 101
Week 11 Announcement 


If you would like to see Pablo's two-minute video announcement to students referenced above, check it out here: What's Up Week 11


Zoom Hack: Zoom Registration












Rechelle Mojica brings us this week's Zoom Hack.

Hello everyone,

I discovered a cool new feature in Zoom that allows you to require registration when you are setting up and scheduling a meeting,

Here is how you do it:

1.    Login to your account on https://zoom.us/
2.    Select the Schedule a Meeting option
3.    Complete the Topic section
a.    Add a description of what will be covered or the topic for your meeting
4.    Complete the information for the Date and Duration
5.    Check the Required box for Registration


6. Complete the remaining meeting information and hit save

On the Manage “My Meeting” page you will now see



You will also have the Registration URL and the link to Copy and send the Meeting Invitation and Registration:



At the bottom of the meeting page you are able to Manage the Attendees and check the number of Registrants and send email reminders!



This is a great tool for setting up a meeting and being able to get a headcount for the number of people planning to attend!


 Links and Resources



Webinar Series: Racial Equity in Online Environments: A series of six webinars presented by the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office and the Center for Urban Education. Full series details available on the CUE website.
Guidance for Recording and Sharing Zoom Class Sessions 

 So many more examples of homemade document cameras from the Online Learning Toolkit. I'm feeling the one with the laundry basket and cans of fruit.
Snagit is offering free trials through June.

Everything you need to know about Building a Great Screencast Video

Record a quick video using duct tape and your phone.

Open On Demand @SDCCD has all the recorded webinars from Dave Giberson.

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