Category: Online Education News You Can Use

Accurate info about Zoom recordings

To: All faculty, IS Deans

You may have received messages recently indicating that your Zoom recordings may be deleted. This message is intended to clarify what is happening, what might happen, and what we recommend.

  • No Zoom recordings will be deleted imminently. You may hear from colleagues in the CCC system about a message from the Chancellor’s Office saying this would happen next week. That decision has been reversed, and it turns out it wouldn’t have applied to us at MiraCosta anyway, since MiraCosta now has more control over its Zoom account (many colleges in the system still do not).
  • There is, however, a longer-term concern about the storage of Zoom recordings. Cloud storage is not infinite and not free, and Zoom recordings can be large. If we do not manage our individual recordings well, we could face involuntary deletion of recordings in the future.

What should you do now?

  • Log into your Zoom account and click Recordings on the left-hand menu. Select all recordings that you do not need and delete them.
  • If you have any meetings set up for automatic cloud recording but you rarely use the recordings, consider changing that setting so that you only record what you need.

In the future, If our Zoom cloud storage space reaches its limit, users may need to download recordings out of Zoom as MP4s and upload them into other video storage/streaming systems such as Canvas Studio, 3C Media Solutions, or YouTube. This can be a time-consuming process for long recordings, and you may also lose the transcription and chat records, and you would also need to change your links in Canvas courses and elsewhere to reflect the new location of the recording. 

So, it’s in everyone’s interest to make sure we are only keeping Zoom recordings that we really need, and regularly deleting the rest.

If a decision is ever made to automatically delete certain Zoom recordings, the message will come from a MiraCosta College employee. It’s our hope that we this won’t be necessary, or that if it does happen, it would only impact videos that are no longer in use.

If you need assistance with managing your Zoom recordings and/or meeting settings, please contact the employee help desk.

– Jim, in partnership with AIS

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

Misinformation Forum Series

Hello, Campus Community! 

I am excited to introduce a new forum series that will cover a range of topics pertaining to an ever-growing social problem – the spread of misinformation.  Our amazing Web Services & Emerging Technologies Librarian, Lauren McFall, has organized an interdisciplinary faculty lineup to present on intriguing and timely topics.  

Here is more from Lauren – 

Misinformation is an old problem, but technology has manifested that problem in new ways. 2020 only intensified these issues and the exposure to the public at large. From conspiracy theories to science denial to online bias, we are being impacted by a distorted information landscape like never before. In this series of four misinformation forums, we will take a deep dive into some of the recent information issues that have plagued our society alongside the problems that will permeate our future.

My neighbor is a conspiracy theorist! The psychology of misinformation and strategies to dilute the kool aid.
Do I have COVID? Health & Science Misinformation in the Wild
im.not.racist.but Bias in social media, online algorithms, and the bubbles they create
Are you a bot? The future of misinformation

Forum series details – 

We invite you to join these cross-disciplinary discussions and invite your students to participate, as well. 🙂 

Stay joyful, 

Sean Davis
Joyful Teacher in Residence
Coordinator, C3 Teaching and Learning Center

MiraCosta Faculty and Student Online Support

Is spring semester off to a great start? Could it be even better for you and/or your students with a little bit of help? The campus may be physically closed but an amazing array of support for successful online education is a click away! Some quick reminders for all faculty, and especially those launching classes starting this week:

For faculty:

  • Online Mentors and Instructional Design help – To request online teaching and course design support from a peer faculty mentor and/or our instructional designer, please fill out our request form. We’ll get you connected!
  • Tech Support – Canvas tech support options include 24×7 phone and chat support. Just click the Tech Support button at lower left in Canvas! Zoom tech support for faculty now is available through the MiraCosta employee help desk.
  • Proctoring – If you have questions about how best to run your online proctored exams, the Academic Proctoring Center is happy to help faculty, as well as potentially providing makeup exam support for your students. For more information, please visit miracosta.edu/apc or email proctoringcenter@miracosta.edu.
  • OER support – Interested in exploring Open Educational Resources (OER) this spring? The college and the statewide Academic Senate OER Initiative have many resources and projects you can tap into. Just reply to me and I can help you get connected with resources, colleagues, support staff, and/or financial support.

For students

  • Student Orientation to Online Learning – I’m offering five more workshops this week and a couple more for the 12-week classes that start in two weeks. More details are on the TASC site, and you can point your students to the signup form. You can also find out which of your students attended a session via SURF.
  • Student Support Hub – Please remind students about the Student Support Hub in Canvas (the button is at lower left in Canvas). This is a quick way for students to connect with live MiraCosta support folks from the library, tutoring centers, Writing Center, academic counseling, Career Center, computer lab staff and the student help desk. New this spring, the Hub has added connections to health services and mental health counseling.
  • 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.

Happy spring!

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

What’s Going Well? – A SAFE Topics Podcast Live Show

Hello and welcome back campus community!

The SAFE Topics Podcast is back at it with our first 2021 release! In this latest episode, we aired our first live recording during the Spring 2021 flex week! Hosts Sean and curry asked a panel of MiraCosta faculty including Himgauri Kulkarni (Biology), Leila Safaralian (Math), Casey McFarland (Kinesiology), Billy Gunn (Film), and Edward Pohlert (Faculty Director, Retention Services): what’s working, what’s challenging, and what should students expect as we all prepare for another semester of remote/online teaching and learning? This is one episode you won’t want to miss!

Ways to Listen!

  1. Podbean – S.A.F.E. Topics
  2. Spotify
  3. Apple Podcasts
  4. Amazon Music
  5. Audible

What to Listen For

  • Introductions from each of our guest faculty members. 
  • What made remote learning easier for students this last semester?
  • The importance of flexibility. 
  • Asynchronous classes working well for entirely new student populations.
  • Opportunities for students to connect with one another.
  • How did the synchronous classes go?
  • Building trust with students from the get-go. 
  • Trying to humanize the online class experience.
  • What has made learning challenging during this time?
  • The lack of instant feedback.
  • Reminding one another that we are all going through this together.
  • Unforeseen challenges that come the student’s way. 
  • The importance of low-stakes meet-n-greets, chats, and online hangouts.
  • The real problem of access and knowledge of technology.
  • Student access to a safe space to learn. 
  • The importance of being more empathetic towards our students.
  • Wrapping up with a one-minute message to students that each of our guest speakers want them to know.

The S.A.F.E. Topics Team

curry mitchell – Faculty, Letters (Co-host)
Sean Davis – Faculty, Sociology (Co-host)
Kelly Barnett – Intern and Music Technology Student (Audio Editor)
James Garcia – Associate Faculty, Sociology (Show Notes, Online)

Connect with Us

PodBean
Safe Topics
S.A.F.E Topics logo

Stay great,

S.A.F.E. Topics Podcast Team

Online News for our Online Spring 2021!

Happy new year! I hope everyone had a good break, despite the weirdness of our world!

Flex workshops launch tomorrow: Friday, Jan. 15

Flex week starts tomorrow with lots of great online ed-related workshops, including some Canvas open lab hours for anyone seeking expert Canvas support. There’s also a workshop on an awesome new communication tool called Pronto, available college-wide this semester, and a workshop to make sure you’re ready for the new Zoom that arrived over winter break. Friday ends with a workshop featuring seven MiraCosta online faculty mentors sharing some of their top tips for online teaching. And there are many more super workshops coming next week!

Online Teaching Tool Updates

  • Check out Pronto, an incredible mobile-friendly and Canvas-integrated messaging platform that’s ready to use in every course now.
  • As you’re hopefully aware, Zoom was updated over break. Many of the changes are seamless but review our updated faculty Zoom support site for details. With the new Zoom comes a new Canvas integration that’s a huge improvement on what we had previously.
  • Accessibility and Universal Design are important elements of equity and inclusion. We have a new, more powerful tool built into Canvas called Pope Tech that helps faculty detect and correct accessibility issues. (This replaces UDOIT, if you had used that.) Another tool, Ally, is here for spring. Ally automatically provides files you share through Canvas in multiple options for students. For instance, PDFs can be listened to (great for those who would prefer to listen). PPTs can be accessed as PDFs (great for those without PPT). Word documents can be viewed as HTML (great for mobile devices).
  • The big change you’ll notice in Canvas is an update to the Rich Content Editor. If that makes you nervous, be sure to attend Karen Turpin’s 10 am Flex workshop tomorrow!
  • Finally, Proctorio is no longer available at MiraCosta, as had been communicated in late fall.

Student Orientation to Online Learning Workshops

In collaboration with the library, I’ll be again offering over two dozen Student Orientation to Online Learning workshops this spring – see all dates and times on the TASC site and in Canvas announcements. These workshops 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.

Student Support Resources to Share with your Students

Campus may be closed, but our amazing array of student support services and resources are just one or two clicks away. Point your students to the Student Support Hub in Canvas. Share the link and point them to the Student Support button on the left in Canvas for 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, and more! The new Help Hut on the MiraCosta website is also a quick way for students to connect with all kinds of support services, and the tutoring hub gives access from the website to all the academic support resources found in the Student Support Hub within Canvas.

Reminder: Merging Canvas Course Sections

This was once again available to faculty starting this fall. See our guide to learn more about merged course sections in Canvas, and if you’d like to request this, see the guide to the SURF dashboard for merging course sections – be sure to do so ASAP!

Don’t forget to refer to our useful Canvas start-of-term checklist to keep you on track as you finalize your spring classes!

See you online!

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

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