And here are some links for those who wish to follow up on what we are sharing (remember, we are just briefly introducing ideas, not walking step b step through the how to’s).
As Jim J. worked through his ideas, he reminded us of what an amazing recourse the TIC home page is and the practical teaching ideas we can find in our Distance Education Handbook.
When Nadia walked us through adding quiz questions and annotations to video in canvas, she highlighted the possibilities. But she also has a video that walks interested colleagues step by step through the how to’s of this tool: embedding quizzes and annotations in videos.
Thanks to all — especially our colleague Arturo Arevalos — for another lively session.
gym sullivan joyfully celebrating, cultivating, and connecting
I hope your fall is starting well! If you’re looking for a boost to your communication with students but haven’t tried Pronto, this might be a good moment to learn more about it!
Pronto’s a messaging tool that’s integrated with Canvas and also has a fantastic mobile app. We’ve had Pronto at MiraCosta for over 2 years now, and (I just checked) over 9600 MiraCostans have sent almost 176,000 messages with Pronto!
To learn more:
Check out our TIC page on Pronto, which includes links to recorded MiraCosta faculty-led workshops, Pronto guides, and everything else you’d need to get started.
Join our Canvas Pronto Practice course to get access to a Pronto conversation sandbox/playground with other Pronto-interested MiraCosta faculty.
Pronto is an app that works within and outside of Canvas to enable seamless, fun, and effective communication between faculty and students, and among students. Many California Community Colleges are now using Pronto. An initial pilot in 2021-22 went extremely well, and Pronto has been institutionalized going forward!
Some stats as of the start of fall 2023, after two years of using Pronto at MiraCosta:
nearly 9,600 MiraCostans signed in to Pronto
nearly 176,000 messages sent
nearly 37,000 groups created
What Pronto Offers
Real-time Chat Without having to share phone numbers or other contact information, now you have real-time messaging across each class and to individuals. Send text messages, files, images, emojis, and GIFs!
Message Translation Pronto gives everyone a voice by allowing them to send messages in their preferred language, and Pronto then automatically translates messages into the recipient’s preferred language.
Live-stream & Group Video Chat
Broadcast live video to your classes, and record your video sessions for replay. This may be a nice alternative to Zoom for things like office hours, group meetings, and more. Viewers interact using the chat button. It keeps the process smooth. Here is a video from Fabiola Torres of Glendale CC on how she uses the live-stream feature for class.
Chat via live video with up to 10 people simultaneously. Perfect for group projects!
Live 1:1 video chat any time for face-to-face interaction with a student. Or live-stream with a student and they can chat (they don’t have to be on camera).
Announcements Keep your entire course in the loop by sending a message to the whole class. It’s like sending a real-time announcement to your entire class. Keep everyone updated on assignments, tech glitches, emergency alerts, and any other important information you need to get out instantly.
File Sharing & Storage Share any file type—documents, spreadsheets, slideshows, photos, videos, and more. All files stored in Pronto remain available through Pronto for easy retrieval with no storage limits. Pronto integrates with all reputable cloud storage repositories, including Dropbox, OneDrive, iCloud, and Google Drive.
Task Management Keeps students organized and accountable by assigning tasks. Tasks allows you to create reminders for yourself or others in groups—attach files, photos, or videos and assign due dates with auto-reminders for each task. Here is a video from Professor Gomez of Glendale CC demonstrating how to assign a task.
Accessibilityand Privacy Pronto is both WCAG 2.0 AA and FERPA compliant. Pronto keeps you connected to everyone without sharing personal contact information.
Check out this brief introduction to Pronto from MiraCosta faculty member Tanessa Sanchez:
Pronto Faculty Introduction
Where Can I Access Pronto?
Pronto is available in 3 ways:
Directly within Canvas. If you are enrolled in any published course where Pronto is active, you will see the Pronto icon at the bottom left of Canvas, in the Global Navigation menu (you may need to scroll the menu down). Selecting the Pronto icon will open up Pronto to the latest chat you have had open or the course/group with which you are currently engaged.
The first time you use Pronto, you’ll need to provide your MiraCosta email address and then enter a code that Pronto will send to your email. If you are not yet enrolled in any course that is published and uses Pronto, you may need to wait until that occurs for this step to work.
Pronto only becomes active for a course after it is published. NOTE: this doesn’t happen automatically – Pronto becomes active for a newly-published course once the next synchronization between Pronto and Canvas occurs – this happens daily at 7 pm PST. But if you want to make Pronto active immediately after publishing a course, you can manually enable Pronto in the Pronto course management tool.
Do I have to use Pronto?
No, Pronto is available but you can ignore it. Doing so will still allow your students to use it. If you wish to turn off Pronto temporarily or permanently for a class, you can do that too. (Even if you like having Pronto on most of the time, you may wish to shut it off during an exam, for example.)
Support for Pronto is provided via the Pronto support site or by contacting help@pronto.io
A few important notes/tips:
Students added to your Canvas class will not be able to use Pronto for the class until the next Pronto synchronization occurs. You can use the Pronto Course Management tool to manually force Pronto to synchronize with a course if necessary.
Faculty can’t see Pronto in Canvas’s Student View. If you wish to experience Pronto within your course as your students would, you need to use your “fake student” account. But rest assured that the student experience with Pronto is just about identical to what you see on the faculty side.
On mobile devices, Pronto will not show up within the Canvas app or inside of Canvas in a mobile browser. Use the free Pronto app (search “Pronto: Team Communication”)
Here are some excellent additional Pronto resources:
Pronto Help Desk – for students from MiraCosta professor Tanessa Sanchez
Pronto vs. Discord – Discord is a popular tool for free-flowing online class discussions – it has its downsides though as a tool that has not been vetted by the college and is outside of the college’s control
Social Annotation with Perusall (Zoom Recording, 1 hour 5 minutes) – 1/16/2023 workshop by Jim Julius, Michael from Perusall, Rob Bond, John Kirwan, & Aaron Roberts
Hands-On Labs in an Online World – (Zoom Recording, 1 hours 12 minutes) – 12/3/2020 workshop by Lynne Miller, Barbara Juncosa, Paul Katson, Scott Fallstrom, and Dominique Ingato.
Moving to Free and Open Course Materials – (Zoom Recording, 1 hour 39 minutes) – 8/17/2020 Online workshop by Jim Julius, Pilar Hernandez, Nate Scharff, Jennifer Paris, & Richard Ma.
Additional recorded zoom sessions and online teaching guides from Summer 2020 can be viewed within the PROJECT Online Teaching Foundations Canvas course.
Using Turnitin in Canvas (video, 77 min.) 1/16/2018 Chat Transcript (txt) In person workshop by Billy Gunn and curry mitchell with simulcast online via Zoom
Welcome back! Please see below for quick reminders of great MiraCosta resources to help you enable your students to succeed in online environments! If you use Pearson tools in Canvas, please be sure to see the final bullet in the first section for a critical update that occurred this summer.
Ongoing faculty support – You can set a meeting with our Instructional Designer, Nadia Khan, any time. Note: the Online Mentor program has not yet been renewed – I will keep you informed if/when that becomes available again.
Tech Support – Canvas options include 24×7 phone and chat support. Just click the Tech Support button at lower left in Canvas! Zoom and other MiraCostatech 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.
Pearsonusers! The integration between Pearson and Canvas had a major update following the spring term. MyLab is now called PearsonAccess. Links to Pearson MyLab tools from copied courses will no longer work and must be updated. Please see the Pearson Canvas integration guide for instructors and Pearson Transition guide to learn more, and reach out to your Pearson rep if you need assistance.
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 two weeks of summer – see all dates and times on the TASC site and in Canvas announcements. These workshops engage students with resources MiraCosta provides to support them, as well as 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! NEW: The Ask the Spartan chat integrated into MiraCosta’s website provides both automated responses and (brand new!) the opportunity to connect to Live Chat with staff from many student support areas.
Tech Support – 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 form for students to fill out if they need to borrow a laptop or internet hotspot
Click the links for a detailed MiraCosta-specific overview (and often, recorded Flex workshops) for each tool below. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have questions about these or other resources.
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.
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.
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. NEW: the PopeTech dashboard tool added to Canvas this summer provides a course overview for addressing all accessibility issues in a course in one place, rather than having to go item-by-item through Canvas.
SensusAccess is a NEW tool added this summer to provide multi-format course material accessibility and file type conversion options for students, replacing Ally. If you notice an S symbol next to your page title and next to items in the Modules view, that’s SensusAccess.
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 types of interactivity to add to your videos, PlayPosit is great.
Turnitin – help students learn to properly cite sources and avoid plagiarism. Also provides grading and peer review tools for written work. Turnitin includes an AI detection capability for instructors at this time, but please beware of false positives should you use it.
Best wishes for a fantastic fall!
– Jim
Jim Julius, Ed.D. Faculty Coordinator, Online Education
Directly within Canvas. If you are enrolled in any published course where Pronto is active, you will see the Pronto icon at the bottom left of Canvas, in the Global Navigation menu (you may need to scroll the menu down).