Author: Jim Julius

Welcome back to fall semester! I’m excited to share Flex workshops and other resources for your professional learning as you prepare for another semester of mostly or entirely online teaching!

Flex Week starts tomorrow with a Friday the 13^th full of online ed workshops!

But this is a day of good luck! You can see all of these workshops listed on a handy 1-page schedule; they are also included with full descriptions on the complete Flex workshop schedule. Please note that there are a number of other superb-sounding online ed-related offerings later in Flex week, too.

Online Ed Workshop Recordings

We’ve been offering online workshops and recording them for years! Explore what’s available in the Online Education workshop archives page, including the fantastic sessions from our Equity Online day last April. If you’re looking for inspiration with a tool or online teaching topic that’s not on this fall’s Flex schedule, you can probably find a recording that’s just what you need. And viewing those recordings is, of course, Flex-eligible.

Return of the MiraCosta Online Mentors!

Many of you met with a MiraCosta peer faculty helper last year for support with your online course preparation and teaching. Happily, this program will continue this fall! More information on this will be coming soon, but if you can’t wait to get connected with a peer, feel free to reply to me.

Completely Updated: MiraCosta Online Class Quality Guidelines

Last year, the MiraCosta Online Educators committee undertook a major revision of the MiraCosta Online Class Quality Guidelines to place a greater emphasis on equity and to reflect updated regulations. Check out the document, which is intended “to help faculty develop and redesign online classes and foster conversation in departments about effective and equity-minded teaching practices in online education.”

Professional Learning Opportunities through @ONE

Many MiraCosta faculty looking for deeper professional learning about online education have let me know how important the @ONE program has been to them. Some events and classes are free while extended, facilitated classes typically have a fee. If you’re interested in having my office cover a fee for an @ONE class just reach out to me!

• Michelle Pacansky-Brock has set up a fantastic-looking series of webinars and workshops for this fall on Humanizing Online Education. Individual sessions are free to attend. If you’d like to register for the full series and associated activities, there is a cost.
• @ONE has many courses starting in the next few weeks – check out the options and register if you’re interested!

Save the Date: InstructureCon (the Canvas annual conference) is online and free – October 7  

You can learn more and register now!

Happy online teaching!

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

Dear MiraCosta Faculty,

Congrats as we approach the spring finish line! Here are a couple quick reminders and opportunities for support with your online teaching:

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 June 7. Review our Canvas end-of-term guide for details.

MiraCosta Online Mentors and Instructional Designer Support Still Available

If you’d like help with any semester wrap-up tasks, or as you begin working on summer or fall classes, our MiraCosta peer support faculty are available through the end of May, and our Instructional Designer is available through the end of June. Fill out the request form to get connected!

Pronto Available for 2021-22

Check out Pronto, an incredible mobile-friendly and Canvas-integrated messaging platform that’s ready to use in every course. Faculty who used it this spring found it extremely useful for communicating with students.

Summer Professional Learning Opportunities

• June 21-23 is the Online Teaching Conference. It’s entirely online and $150 registration is open. If you would like support to attend, just reply to this email and I’ll hook you up!
• @ONE has a few spots remaining in their summer online teaching classes for CCC faculty. Again, let me know if you’d like support to register for one of these.
• Aug. 4-6 is a new free online conference called Cal OER. The call for proposals closes June 4. Conference registration (free) is open now.

Fall Flex Friday: Call for Participation

Friday, August 13 has been designated by PDP as having a focus on online instruction. Sean Davis and I would like to organize the day into a conference format. We’re grateful for the proposals already submitted to PDP and we would like to involve more folks. If you didn’t submit a proposal but would like to be involved in some way, please just send me a quick email expressing your interest and ideas. We look forward to working with you!

In gratitude,

– Jim

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

Spring break is just about here, hooray! I haven’t been throwing a lot of info at you this spring, so this email has a lot of quick and useful items … please take a look!

I’m offering a final set of Student Orientation to Online Learning workshops the week after break. These are especially to support students starting in 8-week classes but of course are open to all.

• Share the sign-up form link to encourage your students to attend.

Professional Learning Opportunities & Save-the-Dates:

• MiraCosta
  • Friday, April 30, save the date for a local online event recognizing and celebrating our efforts (especially over the last year) to offer equitable online learning to our students, and deepening our skills, knowledge, and commitment to this ongoing work. Look for more details coming soon!
  • Remember that you can request personal, 1-1 online teaching assistance from peer faculty and/or our instructional designer.
• CCC system
  • June 21-23 is the Online Teaching Conference. It’s virtual and $150 registration is open now. If you would like support to attend, just reply to this email and I’ll hook you up!
  • @ONE has many facilitated classes coming up for the second half of spring, including a new one on Live Online Teaching & Learning. Again, let me know if you’d like support to register for one of these. Some of @ONE’s leaders have published an article highlighting practices in place for humanizing online education across California Community Colleges that may interest you.
• Across all 3 California Higher Ed systems
  • Aug. 4-6 a new free online conference called Cal OER will take place. A call for proposals will be open soon – I’ll send an email with more info when it’s out.

Online technology tips and updates of note:

• Zoom now offers automatic live captioning/transcription in addition to transcribing recordings. Meeting hosts have to enable this every time you start a meeting.
• MiraCosta’s Canvas system now includes an Immersive Reader feature at the upper right of every Canvas page (Pages only, not assignments, discussions, or other Canvas tools). Immersive Reader supports Universal Design for Learning by providing tools supporting student comprehension of course material, including language translation options and (high-quality!) reading aloud of content on pages.
• Office 365 is now available as an integration in our Canvas system. This enables quick access to your OneDrive files for adding to Canvas as content, as well as tools for collaboration and assignments using Office 365 files. To learn more, start with our Office 365/Canvas integration instructor guide on the TIC site . The bottom of that page includes links to resources supporting students as they get started with Office 365.
• Putting Your Best Self Forward: 6 Keys for Filming Quality Videos has some great tips, most of which also apply to setting up and using Zoom effectively. It’s an easy read with some funny examples of what *not* to do as well.

Best wishes for R&R for those taking a break, and gratitude to all who will be continuing to do the work!

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