Zooming to New Heights of Student Engagement
I was a college student during the Stone Age of online education…you remember it, right? The age of mile-long content pages where, if you were lucky your professor would include a link back to the top at the half-mile marker on the page! Well, online education has changed a lot since then and there are now more ways to improve our students’ experiences. For California Community College (CCC) faculty, one way is to “zoom” to new heights by using ConferZoom in Canvas.
ConferZoom is the CCC-branded version of Zoom, an easy-to-use video conferencing tool that is provided at no cost to CCC educators by CCCTechConnect. Using ConferZoom changed the dynamic of my online Nutrition & Health courses by providing a way for my students to interact more organically with me and each other. We know that retention rates increase when students feel connected to their professor and/or classmates. Zoom provides a way for this connection to occur. Since I started using ConferZoom, I have observed increased student-student and student-instructor interactions, which are key to supporting students to complete the course successfully.
What do I do?
At the start of the course, I have an orientation or klatch meeting, a term I adopted from my
In my welcome
Want to give it a try?
Follow these steps:
- Send out your welcome letter before your class begins.
- Include the dates and times of the orientation meetings. It is important to let students know attending one session is mandatory and they will get credit. (My orientation is worth 20 points, more than any other week one assignment.)
- In your message, encourage students to join from a computer with a webcam or a mobile device so you can see and hear one another. If you are aware that a student requires live captioning as an accommodation, contact ConferZoom support in advance of your meeting.
- When orientation day arrives, have your klatch meeting from a computer with a webcam.
- Launch Zoom and share your desktop.
- Meet and greet your students in real time!
- Take your students step-by-step through the basics of your course’s navigation.
You have now demonstrated to your students how useful klatch meetings will be going forward. In a coming blog
Laying out the welcome mat
UsingConferZoom for my course orientation not only sets the table for my students to get a taste of what’s to come, but it also allows me to more easily create learner-centered content throughout the term, as students can ask questions and let me know what they’d like to learn about. Their input helps me guide the klatch in the direction the students deem necessary, as opposed to being completely
Since personal bonds are developed through shared experiences, we can easily see the significance of bringing students together live as they are entering your virtual classroom. Ensuring the session is meaningful and provides opportunities for social connections is essential. I want my students to know that I am here and available to them, both now and going forward. I also want my students to know that we are on this virtual nutrition or health “journey” together.
ConferZoom empowers me to take the anxious feelings that online students have at the start of a course and turn them into a promise of a shared learning experience. Through this experience, students are more likely to relate to me as their guide, mentor, and comforter. They also relate on a personal level with
Join Chelsea on a tour of this assignment in the 4-minute video above.
How might you blend research, group work, video creation, and friends and family into an empowering and equitable learning experience for your students? In the 4-minute video below, Chelsea Cohen from Laney College, will show you!
Chelsea’s students, who are English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) learners, engage in a multi-stepped project, beautifully scaffolded into managing meaningful chunks. Each step of the way, students collaborate and increase their knowledge of a particular topic. Chelsea will demonstrate how extending discussions beyond the classroom or Canvas and into a students’ circle of family and friends can foster more diverse dialogue that situates a student as an expert. Can learning get more meaningful than this?
3 Steps to Becoming an Expert
- In groups, create a video using Adobe Spark based on your research paper.
- Share and discuss your video with friends and family (Extension: share the videos with your Twitter communities).
- Reflect upon the experience with your classmates in our class discussion. Summarize the ideas that came up with your friends and families and how it felt for you to facilitate the conversation.
Accessibility tips! If you have a student in your class that uses a screen reader to navigate the web, you will need to provide an alternative to Adobe Spark Video. Also, if you have a student with a hearing impairment, have at least a few students caption their videos before sharing them with the class. To caption an Adobe Spark Video, download it from Spark, upload it into YouTube, and edit the auto-captions.
We suggest surveying your students in week one to let them know about your multimedia project plans and ask if they will need any accommodations. They'll appreciate your efforts to support them!
Did you know there’s a “wrong” way to add content onto a Canvas page? This little mistake is often the cause of broken links when you import your content into the next semester’s course shell. Come learn the best method for adding images, files and links in Canvas. (And the secret of what to do if your images suddenly aren’t displaying correctly.)
I am the Instructional Technologist at Cañada College and I work a lot with faculty who are motivated and excited to improve their online and hybrid courses and make them more engaging for their students. One thing that gets my faculty most excited about improving their courses is being able to make videos for their students, whether it’s a short course introduction video, a set of lecture videos, or an informal check-in video.
But I also find that video can be very intimidating for those who have not yet used it . I personally was horrified at the way my voice sounded and at the facial expressions I made while recording my very first video. So horrified, in fact, that I re-recorded it approximately 56 times and then just gave up and deleted it all together. But being able to record tutorial videos is essential for the work that I do, so I tried again and kept going. And, surprisingly, I got more and more comfortable talking to my webcam over time.
Getting more comfortable with recording yourself just comes with time and practice and a lot of patience. However, the technical side of video, which includes recording, editing, and captioning, has gotten a lot easier for me since I started using Screencast-O-Matic. I started out using the Free version, which allows you to record videos up to 15 minutes in length. Then at the beginning of 2018, we purchased a site license for the paid version and it came with some very simple, yet robust editing, captioning and uploading tools that made my video workflow so much smoother. So I’m excited to share with you my recommended recording workflow using Screencast-O-Matic. If your institution does not have a site license, educators can purchase an upgraded account for a monthly price that is about the same cost as a cup of coffee (link to: https://screencast-o-matic.com/plans#solo).
Recommended Recording Workflow
I put together a Recommended Screencast Recording Work Flow and a Recommended Face-to-Camera Recording Work Flow for faculty at my college and I made the video below to demonstrate the steps. These steps allow me to make videos quickly and relatively painlessly, but feel free to experiment with other ways of making your videos until you find what works for you.
The Screencast-o-matic
features illustrated in this video are included in a Solo Deluxe account.
Additional Resources
It can be overwhelming to know how and where to start when you are ready to try making a video for the first time. Whether you are using Screencast-O-Matic to record your videos or another tool, here are my tips and areas to focus on for the different kinds of videos you may want to make.
- Tips for Recording Videos
- 4 Main Components of Course Introduction Videos
- 4 Main Components of Lecture Videos
- 4 Main Components of Announcement or ‘Nudge’ Videos
What’s Next
It’s my hope that you feel a little more prepared to tackle video making if you’ve never done it before, that you learned something helpful if you’re a seasoned video maker. I encourage you to test out the free version of Screencast-O-Matic and get started with making videos. Or if you have another tool at your college or one that you’re familiar with, jump in and experiment with that. The tool you use is not as important as putting the time and energy into learning and practicing the skill of video making.
Leave a comment below, or contact me via email at hughesa@smccd.edu or on Twitter, if you have any questions. Feel free to even just share your thoughts and experience with making videos, I’d love to hear how you’re doing!
Does your online ice breaker need a refresh? Chelsea Cohen has a great idea that will get your students connected and take the edge off the start of a new course!
In the 4-minute video embedded above, she will take you on a tour of her course and show you how she blends a Canvas Discussion with an interactive Google Map to create a 2-part assignment. Her students, who are English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) learners, drop a pin on a Google Map that designates their home town and
If you use Google Maps in your course, include a link to Google's Accessibility in Google Maps page to ensure all your students can engage with the content. And offer an alternative pathway for students to contribute their content if they experience challenges.
Let Chelsea be your guide -- click the video above and enjoy the ride!
Canvas notifications is an automatic way to stay abreast of activity in your courses as well as contributing to regular effective contact with your students. But there are a few in’s and out’s to using the notifications tool well that you and your students might be missing. Let me elucidate you!
UPDATE: Since I first created this episode, Canvas has added the ability to set course-specific notifications. Good on ya, Canvas!
Two helpful Canvas Guides to share with your students:
- How do I set my Canvas notification preferences?
- How do I add contact methods to receive notifications?
In October, more than 1,100 educators across California's community colleges and beyond joined us for Can•Innovate. We are happy to announce that our next free, online conference, CCC Digital Learning Day is now open for registration!
Register for one or two sessions or join us for the entire day -- from anywhere. All sessions are delivered online in Zoom so you don't have to worry about traveling!
Program Overview
Our event kicks off on Thursday, February 28,
The remainder of our morning program includes two sessions that will take you on a deep dive of Adobe Spark Video, a free, easy-to-use video creation tool. At 10:00 Matt Mooney, faculty at Santa Barbara Community College, will join us with one of his students, Amber Greene, to share how he is using Spark Video to transform his tests from drab to dazzle! After Matt and Amber's session, you'll have the opportunity to see a demo of Adobe Spark Video by Donna Caldwell, from Adobe Education. Donna will entice you to participate in our CCCDLDay Create Challenge too. Join in for a chance to win a cool prize from Adobe! We've intentionally left the lunch hour open to encourage you to dabble with Adobe Spark Video and get started on your video creation.
Our afternoon program kicks off with a student panel at 1pm, hosted by Fabiola Torres from Glendale College. Student panels are always the highlight of any event so we're considering this a
Our final two presentations feature more teaching and learning innovations and one more student too! At
Excited? We are too. Share your
If your college is not yet hosting an on-campus viewing room for CCC Digital Learning Day, sign up now! Viewing sessions and creating content with your peers is an awesome way to learn and grow. But if you aren't on campus, no worries. #CCCDLDay is designed to support you no matter where you are.
According to Beckie Supiano in “How Colleges Can Cultivate Students’ Sense of Belonging”, a growing body of research has linked students’ sense of belonging on their campuses to a number of important outcomes, including their persistence in college and even their well-being. As a result, some colleges make an effort to help students- especially members of underrepresented groups- cultivate that sense. The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Aligned with Chancellor Oakley’s Vision for Success to fully close CCC equity gaps, the CVC-OEI provides colleges with innovative tools, technology, and professional development in the areas of instruction and student services. These ongoing efforts include applying an equity lens to address the disparate impact and surface institutional and systemic barriers in order to increase student success.
Darnell G. Cole, an associate professor and co-director of the Center for Education, Identity, and Social Justice at the USC, agrees that colleges should not take students’ sense of belonging for granted. Cole encourages colleges to have “a structure in place that’s designed to communicate that students matter. Just because students got into a college doesn’t mean they feel at home there.” The Chronicle of Higher Education. Creating a sense of belonging and inclusion resulted in improved academic performance when the University of Texas improved outreach efforts by sending welcome and belonging messages to students from marginalized communities. In “The Problem of Othering: Towards Inclusiveness and Belonging, john a. powell, offers belongingness as a way to move beyond tolerance and respect to ensuring that all people are welcome and feel that they belong in society. Prudence L. Carter, reflecting on Brown v. Board of Education, in Equity and Empathy: Toward Racial and Educational Achievement in the Obama Era, suggests our policies and practices must be student centered and reflect an institution’s intention, commitment to, and consistent efforts toward actively incorporating students from marginalized communities into every facet of the educational process...in classrooms, counseling sessions, categorical programs, and in the delivery of student services.
NameCoach
The CVC-OEI is supporting efforts in the California Community Colleges (CCC) to increase students’ sense of belonging in online instruction by providing innovative tools such as NameCoach, a new tool that nurtures inclusion in the classroom, available to all OEI consortiums colleges at no cost and available to all non-consortium CCCs at a discounted price. Founder and CEO of NameCoach, Praveen Shanbhag, developed the software to enable true inclusion in school communities through technology. NameCoach is a tool for students to record a pronunciation of their name and convey their gender, and easily share this with instructors, administration, staff, and student peers. The CVC-OEI will incorporate this software to foster belonging in other campus settings, such as the delivery of online student support services.
Why NameCoach? Educators often struggle with correctly pronouncing the names of students from diverse populations. This software addresses the problem of name mispronunciation and misgendering. According to Dereca Blackmon, Associate Dean and Director of the Diversity and First Generation Student Office, Stanford University, NameCoach makes it easy for students’ identities and cultures to be respected. “Belonging Uncertainty” is heightened for students of color and this sense of belonging is not equally distributed for students from traditionally marginalized communities. Mispronouncing students’ names and using the wrong pronouns can increase ‘belonging uncertainty,’ which Stanford research shows can affect students’ performance, stress levels and overall sense of being a valued part of community.” It is also a constant reminder to students that they do not belong. This also applies to misgendering.
Student feedback stresses the positive impact of using NameCoach. “This is great! This is why we push and remain critical. Instituting seemingly small things like this can have the largest impact on campus culture. It is a recognition of the value of diversity on campus.”
NameCoach can be incorporated
Would you like to learn more about using NameCoach to create a sense of belonging within Student Services? Join us on February 1,
When I signed up for the @ONE suite of courses for the Advanced Certificate in Online Teaching Principles, I didn’t expect they would help me to improve my on-campus classes. The Advanced Certificate in Online Teaching Principles courses are about teaching online, right? Right. Yet I discovered these courses would help me become a better face-to-face teacher, too.
Sometimes, modality doesn’t matter.
Take, for example, creating a more equitable classroom. I thought I had this nailed. I teach from the heart. I get to know my students’ names, interests, and majors. My motto is “Reach students where they are,” and this motto informs my teaching.
Looking back, I realize now that I wasn’t providing opportunities for my students to be wholly present in spite of my best efforts to engage them. I had not designed assignments that would allow students to draw upon their cultural strengths or heritage, and I kept my own heritage and personal experience out of the classroom. My syllabus was professional and complete but devoid of personality and probably a little off-putting.
As the instructor, I was also the concierge. I would provide every text up until the research essay. I had hundreds. I would provide the answers. I had hundreds of those, too.
After the first week of class and the icebreakers were in the past, it was full speed ahead. There was little time to pause and ask students to reflect. There was little group work.
There was room to improve my on-campus classes, too.
It’s clear to see that these practices had the potential to be counterproductive if they weren’t already undermining my good intentions to create a welcoming learning community—whether that community sat ten feet in front of me or across the internet.
But that’s with the benefit of hindsight—hindsight gained after completing the Advanced Certificate in Online Teaching Principles courses: Equity & Culturally Responsive Teaching, Humanizing Online Teaching & Learning, Dynamic Online Teaching, and Digital Citizenship. These courses helped me to improve my online courses and, bonus, my on-campus classes, too.
The principles espoused in the @ONE courses cross the lines of modality.
As I reflect on what I’ve learned, here are some key improvements I made:
- My syllabus is more student-centered and, I think, more welcoming. It’s also readily available online using mobile or desktop browsers. I continue to improve it.
- I designed more activities that draw upon what my students already know and make reflection a key step of the learning process.
- I gave up my role as the concierge. Well, almost. I still rely on a key OER text or two, but now, my students are increasingly responsible for locating and creating texts as they strengthen their digital and information literacy.
- I ask more questions. My students start collaborating in groups from the beginning of the course until the end, and I’ve seen this work pay off in more ways than one.
I’m still learning and improving both my online and on-campus classes, and the Advanced Certificate in Online Teaching Principles courses continue to inform my practice. In hindsight, I shouldn’t be surprised that regardless of modality, the principles of effective teaching and learning are the same. Welcome students and empower them as learner-explorers. Give them guidance and plenty of opportunities for fearless practice. Connect them with each other. These principles help create a stronger learning community—online or on-campus. Completing the Advanced Certificate in Online Teaching Principles courses reinforced these principles and helped me to see new ways I can put them into effect regardless of teaching modality.
In November, a group of five college students representing the California Community Colleges and California State University systems participated in a virtual panel at the annual Directors of Educational Technology in California Higher Education (DET/CHE) conference. Projected on a screen in front of hundreds of educators, students shared their candid reflections and experiences with technology in teaching and learning.
I had the honor of moderating the panel with support from J.P. Bayard, Director for System-Wide Learning Technologies and Program Services at the CSU Chancellor's Office. As always, listening to student experiences inspired me and reconnected me with the reasons I do what I do. As technology plays a more expansive role in teaching and learning, we must make efforts to center what we do around the real experiences of the humans at the other end of the screen. I also find myself reflecting on the courage it took these students to volunteer to participate and be candid about their experiences. And that is also something all of us can learn from.
I hope you listen to the 30-minute recording and let the students' messages inform your practices as you start the new term ahead. Leave us a comment below and share a takeaway -- we'd love to hear from you!
Quick Links
Don't have 30 minutes to listen? Here are the 5 questions the students were asked and a video quick link to their responses.
- 3:28 Reflect on your experiences as a college student and answer this question, "I wish my teachers would _____________. "
- 8:08 If your instructor gave you the choice for a test
to: write a paper, create a video, or create a verbal presentation, how would you feel about having that choice? Which option would you choose and why? - 18:03 How are you using mobile devices to access the resources and services provided by your instructors and college?
- 20:25 Why did you choose to take an online class? What makes an online class a good learning experience?"
List of Panelists
- Arturo Aguilar, CSU Fresno
- Trinity Chi, San Francisco City College
- Amber Greene, Santa Barbara City College
- Dineo Maine, San Diego State University
- Laura Marquez, Citrus College
Links are how your students navigate your course content. While it might seem like a picayune matter, knowing how to set links up properly will have a pretty big impact on how quickly and easily students can start interacting with all the great content in your course (and it’ll increase your Canvas Ninja factor considerably!).
NOTE: This episode was updated in January '22 to reflect the new rich content editor.
[Here's a resource with examples of good and bad descriptive link text.]
I am a counselor at Grossmont College in San Diego. As part of my role, I teach a course in Study Skills and Time Management. In an effort to support my students, I applied for sabbatical leave in the Fall 2018 semester to curate three OER (Open Educational Resources) for my course and to be shared amongst common College Success classes at Grossmont College. This post will provide an overview of how I produced my OERs and showcase some exciting data about the impact OERs have had on my students’ success and retention.
Writing With a Little Help From My Friends
To start with my OER development process, I researched existing high-quality College Success OERs shared with Creative Commons-Attribution (CC-BY) open licensing and used Pressbooks to “reuse” and “remix” some of the existing content and integrate my own original content. Then members of the Rebus Community conducted a blind peer review of my work – and I held my breath.
With some terrific constructive criticism and suggestions from the reviewers, I edited, edited, and edited some more. The OER text also went through an accessibility review (thanks Will Pines!) and a student review. Thanks to folks at Pressbooks and the Rebus Community, I am proud of the resulting three Blueprint for Success in College OER textbooks being used for College Success and Personal Growth courses, orientations, and first year experience programs (officially published by the Rebus Community, 2018):
- Blueprint for Success in College and Career
- Blueprint for Success: Indispensable Study Skills and Time Management Strategies
- Blueprint for Success in Career Decision Making
The Student Experience
These openly licensed OER textbooks are FREE to students digitally. Many studies have found that college students (especially community college students) do not purchase textbooks because of their cost. Therefore, having access to high quality, openly licensed, and free textbooks on day one of a course is helpful for many students.
Digital OER textbooks also provide students with many access options. OER designed with Pressbooks are accessible on smartphones, tablets, laptops, desktops, Kindles, and Nooks. Students may also download the texts so they can access them offline, which is especially useful for students in rural areas. These options allow students to have the learning material on (or before) the first day of classes and also ensures their access does not expire after the course ends. This can be helpful for students who are taking courses in a sequence, repeating courses, or studying for post class or graduate exams. There is no need to purchase an access code again.
For students who prefer to have a print copy of the text, lulu.com provides high quality print versions at a low cost (only the cost of printing and paper) with no royalties and no tax that students have to pay for. The 456-page Blueprint for Success in College and Career OER textbook would cost a student just $8.45 via lulu.com (black and white) plus $3.99 for shipping.
Here are a few quotes from my students:
“I learned so much from the book that I now use it on a daily basis. I even help my little sister by telling her all these lessons. It just has so much goodness jam packed into it.” - Jasmine Pineda
“I love the free, accessible textbook. Thank you so much for that.” - Margaret Yakou
“My favorite part of the class would have to be reading the book. There was an abundant amount of helpful information that taught me many new perspectives and ideas.” - Bladimir Enriquez
Measuring the Impact
Although the three Blueprint OER texts I produced were only released a few months ago and there has been no organized effort to market them, they are spreading around the California Community Colleges by word of mouth. At least one instructor from each of the following nine colleges is using one of the Blueprint texts (or an adaptation of one of them): Grossmont, Hancock, San Diego City, Mesa, Miramar, Pasadena City, Reedley, Saddleback, West Hills Lemoore. In addition, the texts are also being used in Oregon, New Jersey, and New Hampshire.
During my sabbatical, I was also eager to analyze how using OER in my teaching was impacting student success and retention. I started teaching with OER in the Spring of 2018 and I noticed almost immediately that students were more engaged. With assistance from our local Institutional Research (thanks Stacy Teeters!) we were able to collect data from every course I taught at Grossmont over the last 10 years and compare the courses in which I used commercial textbooks that students had to purchase with the four sections I taught with OER in the Spring and Summer of 2018. The data, as they say, doesn’t lie.
Although not statistically significant, the data illustrated in the charts above is consistent with a larger study recently conducted at the University of Georgia. I have been teaching online recently as my children are young and I appreciate the convenience it gives me. As the success, retention, and grade distribution are exceeding some face-to-face numbers, I would call this a victory for both OER and online teaching.
What’s Ahead
Although the Blueprint College Success OER texts continue to be a work in progress, there are ancillaries in development that may make the content even more engaging to students and give faculty options and incentives to adopt OER. Currently, we are working on an audio version of the texts that students will be able to listen to, a cultural competency/global awareness chapter, and we’re planning a Spanish version.
If you would like more information and/or are interested in collaborating on any of these projects:
- Leave a comment below or contact me via email or Twitter.
- View the archive of my recent Academic Senate for the California Community Colleges (ASCCC) College Success OER webinar.
