FAQ

• Provide a way for students to share their experiences or concerns of the first few online sessions. Consider creating a Google form to collect their feedback. Then send a message to the whole class that summarizes key ideas in the responses. Or consider adding a discussion board thread for students to share experiences during the disruption.

• Inform your students how you are going to communicate with them during this time of transition. Regular communication will mitigate their anxiety about course content, assignments and timelines. Frequent, ongoing communication with students is essential to course continuity. Use announcements in your Blackboard course, share new information, and post reminders for students.

• Hold your office hours online. Office hours can be scheduled even when you are not in the office. You can either use the telephone or hold them online.

• A microphone and relatively fast machine are a few of the things that you'll need in order to facilitate a webinar. Check out our visual guide for more information on how to prepare your environment for a webinar, along a list of technical requirements to get you started.

• Tip 1 - Users, both moderators and participants, should ensure that their audio and video access permissions are enabled in Chrome. Follow these tips to grant audio and video permissions in Chrome.

• Tip 2 - Users should also ensure that third-party cookies are enabled, specifically for humber.ca, before beginning a Blackboard Collaborate session. Follow the tips in this video (courtesy of Humber FLA Faculty member Dr. Jim Nielson) to allow for third-party cookies from humber.ca.

• Tip 3 - There are some Chrome extensions (such as Privacy Badger) that try to block invisible tracking. This can sometimes block users from accessing their Collaborate rooms. Either disable the extension, or similar extensions, or create a rule within the extension granting access to the Blackboard environment.

• For additional troubleshooting tips for Blackboard Collaborate, please see the Blackboard troubleshooting page.

• As the instructor, you will be the moderator for the session. Follow these instructions to schedule the session from your Blackboard account. Be sure to share the link for your session with students in advance.

• Google Hangouts: Schedule the session following these instructions. Be sure to share the link for your session with students in advance.

• Zoom: Zoom's free basic plan will give you unlimited 1-to-1 sessions and 40-minute session for 3 to up to 100 participants. Share meeting details with students in advance. Students can access from computer or app on mobile devices.

Share guides with students in advance of the session ( Blackboard Collaborate Ultra Help Google Hangouts). Consider starting the session before your regularly scheduled class time to give students extra time to join the session and practice using the software. You may even explain it may take some time for the class to become familiar with these tools and it is a learning process for everyone.

You cannot set up groups in advance, so if group membership is not important, consider using the “randomize” group feature. If group membership is important, you will have to create groups and add students manually to each group. Once you launch the “break out” feature during a session, you can adjust group membership by editing the break out session: unassign and then reassign the student. To ensure accuracy and efficiency, consider preparing a list of group names and group members in advance if you do not plan to randomize group membership.

Suggest that students use Google products for collaborative work, such as Google docs, presentations, and sheets. Ask that students share edit access to their group files and folders with you so that you can provide comments when helpful.

Communicate to students that you will be adjusting how you will be evaluating formative assessment now that the class is meeting online. Provide options for how students can demonstrate that they are actively participating, such as by joining video conferencing sessions, posting and replying on discussion boards, or submitting a written reflection on a discussion board after engaging in lecture or reading materials.

Create an assignment in Blackboard and ask students to upload a digital version of their term project or paper, such as PowerPoint files, Google Presentation links, and Word documents. If students are working in groups, you can ask each student to upload a copy of their group’s assignment. Then evaluate each group’s submission and assign a grade to each student in the group. It is up to you whether to give a group score or an individual score to group projects.

One option is for students to create a digital presentation and upload these files to Blackboard. Options include PowerPoint files, Google Presentation links, and Word documents. For presentations, you could ask students to add text in the speaker notes section of each slide to share what they might have shared verbally. Alternatively, you could ask students to present their final projects by setting up a Blackboard Ultra Collaborate session and screen sharing their presentations.

Consider alternative forms of assessment, such as written reflections, case study responses, or open book exams.