Author: Jim Julius

For those teaching this summer, please see below for quick reminders of important online-focused resources to help you help your students succeed!

Support for You

• Our Canvas start-of-term checklist can help you prepare your classes.
• The MiraCosta Online Class Quality Guidelines provides MiraCosta requirements and recommended practices for online instructors.
• Ongoing faculty support – You can request an appointment with our Instructional Designer anytime.
• Tech Support – Canvas options include 24×7 phone and chat support. Just click the Tech Support button at lower left in Canvas! Zoom tech support for faculty is available through the MiraCosta employee help desk.
• MiraCosta technologies supporting online teaching and learning – please see the last section of this email for an overview, with links to learn more.

Support for Your Students – Please help your students to be aware of and make use of these important services and resources!

• Student Online Academic Readiness workshops – In collaboration with the library, I’ll be offering a number of these during the first week of summer – see all dates and times on the TASC site and in Canvas announcements. These workshops (formerly known as Student Orientation to Online Learning) help to familiarize students with the resources MiraCosta provides online to support them, as well as to adopt habits and attitudes of successful online students. Encourage your students to attend and, if you like, find out which of your students participated in order to incentivize their attendance.
• Online Student Support Access Points – the Student Support Hubin Canvas, accessed via the Student Support button on the left in Canvas, gives quick access to online support from the library, STEM & MLC, online tutoring, writing center, counseling, career center, open computer lab staff, student help desk, health services, CARE team, and more! The Help Hut on the MiraCosta website is also a quick way for students to connect with all kinds of support services including A&R and Financial Aid.
• Tech Support – Also at lower left in Canvas is a button for students to quickly access Tech Support options, including 24×7 phone and chat support from Canvas, and our local MiraCosta student help desk.
• Technology Needs? – Be sure to share the updated CARE form for students to fill out if they need a laptop to succeed this summer.

And please remember, in support of students: Class Availability in Canvas – Faculty teaching distance education (online and hybrid) classes are expected to make their classes available by mid-day on the Monday of the week in which they begin. To learn more, please see MiraCosta Distance Education Class Authentication Compliance, Start-of-Term Availability Procedures, and Recommendations.

MiraCosta’s Online Education Tools

Click the link immediately after each bullet for a detailed MiraCosta-specific overview of each item below. This is not intended as a comprehensive review of all technologies for online teaching supported by the college, but rather a quick look at the essentials available to all faculty. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have questions about these or other resources.

• Canvas – the #1 tool for faculty and students
• Zoom – if you’re using Zoom, make sure you’re using a pro Zoom account through MiraCosta.
• Canvas Studio – enables faculty and students to create videos while inside Canvas. Faculty can create interactive discussion or quiz activities based on video.
• Pronto is an incredible mobile-friendly and Canvas-integrated messaging platform that’s ready to use in every course.
• NEW Perusall is a social annotation tool available within Canvas that makes it easy for students to comment/discuss right on a text, document, or image.
• NEW Lab Archives Electronic Notebook is an online notebook especially useful for translating lab manuals and student notes/work into the online environment.
• Pope Tech helps faculty detect and correct accessibility issues within Canvas. See also Tips for Creating Accessible Course Content.
• Ally automatically converts content you share through Canvas into multiple formats for students, allowing for listening rather than reading and better access to content on mobile devices.
• PlayPosit – This video interaction tool offers more complexity and options than Studio. Studio is a great place to start, but if you’re looking for more question types to add to your videos, PlayPosit is a great option. 
• Turnitin – help students learn to properly cite sources and avoid plagiarism. Also provides grading and peer review tools for written work.
• Productivity Software, Hardware, and other resources for working from home – this AIS website includes a number of links to helpful resources for being fully equipped when teaching from your home.

Best wishes for summer success!

– Jim

Jim Julius, Ed.D.

Faculty Director, Online Education

Can you believe summer is almost here? Before you go, here are some quick reminders and opportunities as you wrap up spring online classes and look ahead to summer.

Canvas End of Term

After June 7, your spring Canvas classes go into read-only mode for you and your students. If you wish to remove access to any of your course materials for your current students beyond this semester, you need to do so by then. Review our Canvas end-of-term guide for details. It also discusses what you need to do if you have any students who will receive Incomplete grades.

Now and Throughout the Summer: Instructional Designer Support 

If you’d like help with any semester wrap-up tasks, or if you begin working on fall classes during the summer and are looking for support, please connect with our Instructional Designer, Nadia Khan.

Summer Professional Learning Opportunities

• The Online Teaching Conference is back in person, June 29-July 1 in Long Beach. Contact me if you’re interested in funding to support your registration (but I don’t have funds to support travel expenses).  
• You can register now for a great @ONE online teaching summer course. Let me know if you’d like financial support to attend one of these. 
• A free online conference called Cal OER returns for its second year, Aug. 3-5. The call for proposals closes June 6. Conference registration (free) is open now.
• PlayPosit is offering many free webinars this summer. PlayPosit is similar to Canvas Studio, allowing you to embed interactive discussions and assessments within your videos, but provides far more options and activities.
• Prefer to take in some inspiring online education ideas at your own pace? Great online teaching resources created recently by and for MiraCostans include:
  • Recordings of five one-hour workshops about all of the elements on the MiraCosta online teaching self-checklist
  • Weekly online teaching challenges set up this spring by MiraCosta Online Mentors and our instructional designer, with a variety of guided ideas that will help you enhance an online class with a few hours
  • “Five-minute fixes” and “More than five-minute fixes” videos created by MiraCosta Online Mentors
  • MiraCosta Online Class Quality Guidelines, and an ever-growing Canvas course which includes MiraCosta faculty examples of how they have put the online class quality guidelines into practice in Canvas
  • The MiraCosta DE Handbook (approved this month by the Academic Senate!)

Have a fantastic summer!

– Jim

Jim Julius, Ed.D.
Faculty Director, Online Education

One month to go and so much to do! Sorry for another email, but there’s some good stuff here! I’ve tried to keep it brief – please take a quick look…

Fall Schedule Released in SURF, which means …

• Classes assigned to you in SURF for fall have shells available for you to begin developing in Canvas. 
• If any of your fall (or summer!) classes are Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) or Low Textbook Cost (<$40), you should designate them as such in SURF so that the classes will have the appropriate logo in SURF. And don’t forget to inform the bookstore of your course material details, even if you are using zero-cost resources.

Professional Learning Opportunities related to online teaching

• This week:
  • We have a new weekly online challenge this week, led by Laura Paciorek, focused on Offering Choice & Flexibility in online classes.
  • The free online Peralta Online Equity Conference is April 27-29. Check out the program and register!
• Summer:
  • The CCC Online Teaching Conference returns to an in-person event, in Long Beach June 29-July 1. If you would like support to attend, just reply to this email. Online Ed can cover conference registration but likely not hotel expenses.
  • The free online Cal OER conference is August 3-5. The call for proposals is open now through June 6.
• Anytime: Connect with a MiraCosta peer faculty helper for any question related to online teaching, big or small – available through May! And/or schedule an appointment with our Instructional Designer, Nadia Khan.

Canvas Improvement Voting

Canvas users can influence Canvas development through Idea Conversations in the Canvas Community. The CVC has curated a set of links to ideas reflecting input from Canvas users throughout California’s community colleges. Please take a few moments to review these ideas and cast your votes (the linked document includes voting instructions).

Internationalize Your Course, Virtually!

Have your students learn together with students abroad, creating a Virtual International Exchange (VIE). In a VIE, students can study, discuss, or create a project with students from another country. It is an experience that greatly enriches the learning process. If you are interested, the International Education Committee can help you with finding a partner and support you in communicating with faculty abroad, creating and implementing the project, and much more! This is applicable to any discipline. It is possible to work with every part of the world. To learn more, explore the local VIE site, and/or contact Andrea Petri (apetri@miracosta.edu) with any questions you may have.

Jim Julius, Ed.D.
Faculty Director, Online Education