Teaching Technology
Cheat Sheet

In an online instructional environment, time together via video-conferencing is one of your most valuable assets. Save it for hosting video-conferenced discussions and round tables.

• Pre-record your lectures ahead of time, and then gather together with your students for post-lecture discussion time. You can simply use your smart phone on a tripod to record yourself lecturing or opt to create voice-over slide presentations.

Combing slides in a keynote/powerpoint presentation along with a "talking head" video in the lower right of the presentation can be an effective way to asynchronously instruct and train students. It combines teaching and personality, one of TCM's high marks that we consistently hear from students.

You can use the following software to record your screen and webcam simultaneously for voice-over slide presentations.

• Mac OS X: Capto ($30), Debut ($25)

• Windows PC: Debut ($25)

• Use Google Meet to host video-based times of discussion and problem solving. This includes allowing students to view a lecture at some point during the week, and then meeting at the end of the week for an after review.

• Opt for hosting a drop-in form of online office hours where you open a meeting for 30 meetings each week at a consistent time and allow students to drop in as needed.

• Encourage students to gather in groups and use Google Meet Video conferencing to work on an assignment together or for times of prayer with one another.

Auto-translation and auto-captions are never perfect but they are also better than nothing when you are sharing video content with your students or translating assignments that students have turned in. The best tool available for auto-captioning and auto-translating video into multiple languages is YouTube.

Google Meet, has automatic captions (not automatic translation) that you can turn on during a meeting by clicking the CC (Closed Captioning) button at the bottom right of your screen under the settings (3 dots) menu.

Last but not least, you can translate any text-based assignment using Google Docs or Microsoft Word. If using Google Docs, in order to save yourself the step of uploading the doc via Google Docs, require your students to upload the document to Google Docs and then upload it from Google Drive repository in an assignment.

There are millions of hours of video and audio available online on sites like YouTube and Vimeo. You can often find short 5-6 minute video clips that support the content you are using for your course.

• Link to these videos in a Moodle Forum and encourage student discussion around them.

• Have students create their own videos based on your lectures and post them to Moodle for other students to see.

• Use a podcast or audio link for sermon examples or linking to topics discussed by others in relation to your course content.

Instant Messaging can be used to create flexible office-hours as well as encourage a better comfort zone for students. There are many different platforms out there, but it seems many of our students use WhatsApp. WhatsApp offers end-to-end encryption making it a safe platform to use for sensitive content.

• Based on professor preference, use it for flexible office hours or use some other means that students can schedule an appointment (email, video call, etc)

• Assign students in groups and encourage them to share instant messaging contacts with one another.

• Encourage students to use WhatsApp to share prayer with each other.

Blogging is a great assignment that can encourage students to use a variety of creative skills in an assignment. Not only can blogs serve as an alternative to strict essay writing, they can be a tool that a student looks back on in the future to review their original thinking on various ideas. There are many free blog options out there but we recommend Wordpress.com or Blogger.com.

1. Use a blog for creative writing

2. Have students post weekly video reflections to a blog/moodle discussion forum

3. Use a blog for reflective writing

4. Use a blog to create a series of articles around one topic, exploring different facets of the topic

Groups of students can use Google Slides to collaboratively create a slide presentation. Students can simultaneously work on a slide presentation together and then they could do the following:

• Share the presentation link in a Moodle forum.

• Record the presentation using Google Meet and share the video link to Moodle.

• Host a Google Meet and present the presentation during a live video conference call (be sure to record the meeting for students that are not able to attend).

If the old adage is true that a picture is worth a thousand words, infographics can be worth 10,000 words once students have carried out proper research. Canva is a graphics web-based app that allows anyone to create infographics, business cards, and much more. Some ways to use Canva in the classroom:

• Create an infographic comparing two ideas

• Design a professional looking slide presentation

• Design a poster that highlights the main ideas of a group-based project

Often in the physical classroom, students can collaborate with one another by using a whiteboard. But how do you do this online? By using Miro. This web application is an online whiteboard that allows students to create mindmaps, post-it boards, do storyboarding, and etc. Some homework assignments might include:

• Create a storyboard with the main ideas from a passage of scripture

• Organize post-it notes with ideas that explain a larger idea

• Create a mindmap to organize individual student responsibilities in a group project (a great way to make sure all students are contributing to a group project)