Category: online

What I learned from 9 hours of online training (beyond the online training content)

On By Tanya NoelIn higher ed, online, science, teaching & learning, technologyLeave a comment
Computer showing video conferencingOur Dean arranged for three days of Faculty of Science-specific workshops this week to help with preparing for our completely online Fall term courses. It’s great to have upper administration support for our teaching (also from CTL , OOL & ITS), and given the turnout and discussions that happened each day, there was clearly a lot of interest. We had the chance to discuss and learn about many tools, key considerations (pedagogical and technological), and express some worries/concerns that many of us have about our upcoming virtual term.
Additionally, we got to experience online learning from a student perspective in an intense way – we had three days of workshops, each with a three hour session in MS Teams or Adobe Collaborate Ultra. I had already some participant experience in the oCUBE Virtual UnConference, webinars, and online MSc defenses over the past few weeks, but this was particularly intense in terms of the amount of content covered, and the time spent in virtual meeting systems. So, in no particular order, here are things I learned (or had reinforced) this week:

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Second Pandemic Book Club meeting: aligning video content with instructional goals

On By Tanya NoelIn book club, online, pandemic, teaching & learningLeave a comment

We had our first PBC meeting on May 4, and it was great to get to talk to different educators about the value of making educational videos (Section 1 in Karen Costa‘s “99 Tips for Creating Simple and Sustainable Educational Videos”) . We talked about the book, but we also discussed some other aspects of online teaching, and I so appreciated getting to hear different perspectives and advice!

I’m hoping to have another PBC meeting next week, discussing tips in Section 2 (“Aligning Video Content with Instructional Goals”) of Costa’s book.

UPDATE: We’ll meet Fri. May 15, 2-3 PM (ET) in Google Meet: https://meet.google.com/ezw-ordk-hhx

Physical copies* of the book still seem to be delayed in getting to Canadian buyers, though I think people can still participate even if their book hasn’t yet arrived. I’ll continue to update the Google Doc for sharing reading notes: Supplementary materials for Pandemic Book Club: Costa book.  If you are reading the book, and are willing to contribute to the document, just request edit access (click the button at the top of the page)!

Are you interested in hosting a PBC meeting on this book, or others? Sign up here!

* If you would like an eBook version of Costa’s book, it can be purchased for download from Amazon (Kindle), Stylus or Kobo (ePub). The Stylus price with the (current) 30% off promotion is about the same as the Kobo price and Amazon.ca Kindle prices, once the exchange rate, as of time of writing, is factored in.