Category: Online Education News You Can Use

Hello, Faculty Community! 

Are you ready for Remote Instruction? Button-ups and sweatpants are the new normal for Zoom-based class sessions…

Click here to access the full schedule of events throughout the week.

And click here to enter the Zoom meeting for online workshops (it’s the same Zoom meeting for all workshops, all day, all week!) 

Okay, so here is the full schedule for Monday, March 23:

10 to 11 am – Jim and Sean: Overview of Support Resources and the Plan for the Week, Q&A
Jim Julius and Sean Davis will walk you through the various resources available to faculty to support your transition to remote instruction. There will be time to address your burning questions as we launch into this unprecedented effort!

11 am to 1 pm – Liezl Madrona: Canvas Basics 

Learn the basics of creating and developing a course in Canvas. Participants will get an overview of Canvas’ layout and navigation. In addition, participants will learn how to add materials to a course, use Discussions, create and grade Assignments, and create a FrontPage. This workshop will serve as an introduction to, and a general overview of, the Canvas system. We will learn:

• The basic navigational links/course menu items in a blank course shell 
• How to create a Front Page
• How to make a course published to students
• How to create a Discussion
• How to create an Assignment

Participants will have access to free adaptable and accessible Canvas course layouts for rapid course development. Student support pages are included to orient and provide technical support for various tools that may be used in Canvas (such as Studio, Zoom, Assignments, and Quizzes.) Ensure you have all of the essential information students should know and adapt your own Canvas course layout today!

1 to 2 pm – curry mitchell: Connecting with Students in Canvas 

A session on using Canvas tools to connect, collaborate, and sustain community with students

curry will share a few simple activities and methods for scaffolding assignments using various Canvas tools:  discussions, Google docs shared in Canvas, screencast/videos embedded in announcements, and even quizzes. Then we will spend some time in small groups discussing what Canvas tools might help you deliver your basic collaborative activities to your students remotely.  

2 to 3 pm – Liezl Madrona & MiraCosta CE Faculty: Course Demos & Online Teaching Discussion

Are you curious about how other MiraCosta faculty organize and present their Canvas courses? Join some of our great faculty who will showcase their courses that they designed and developed with our 2019-20 CE instructional designer. Find some new ideas about student navigation and leveraging Canvas’s built-in tools for rapid course development!

3 to 4 pm – Liezl Madrona: Canvas & Video Accessibility Basics
Many faculty have questions about how to address accessibility requirements for instructional materials in order to support students of disability. When using Canvas to support online teaching, following best practices can help deliver an accessible and usable online class for all students. Learn the top five easy things you can do in Canvas to help all of your students be successful. Participants will be able to:

• Determine the best format/strategy for delivering content, whether it should remain as a PDF, in a Word Doc, or a Canvas page.
• Explain how formatting impacts assistive technologies’ ability to access and interpret information.
• Utilize the Rich Content Editor to properly format content pages using the acronym ‘LIST’.
• Run the Canvas’ Page Accessibility Checker UDOIT and interpret its results to remediate inaccessible instructional materials. 
• Determine a workflow to caption videos based on authorship

***ALL WORKSHOPS WILL BE RECORDED AND MADE AVAILABLE BY THE END OF EACH DAY***

1-1 Drop-in Canvas and Course Design Support via Zoom (Click here to enter the 1-1 support at ANY TIME)

This support is available from 10:00am to 3:00pm AND 7:00pm to 10:00pm

Virtual Happy Hour is from 4:00pm and 5:00pm today. This session will focus on Brainstorming, Sharing, Q&A, Zoom Practicing, and Course Tours.

Click here to enter the Virtual Happy Hour starting at 4:00 pm

See you online! 

-Sean and Jim

Dear Faculty,

Thanks to an outpouring of support from our colleagues who are willing to volunteer their time, effort, and expertise, we are pleased to present you with the schedule of events for the Instructional Continuity Professional Development Week. We have a full slate of online workshops, one-on-one (1-1) support, external offerings, and additional resources for you to review here.  

Online Workshops via Zoom

Our week of training and faculty support starts tomorrow – Monday, March 23. There is a full schedule of workshops Monday through Friday that runs from 10:00am to 4:00pm, featuring sessions focusing on Canvas, Zoom, Equity in Remote Instruction, the Library, Student Services, Academic Support, and much more. 

Please review the first schedule on the MiraCosta Faculty Support for Instructional Continuity training schedule for all the details. 

You can enter the online sessions at any time during each day. We have one Zoom meeting that will be used for all of the online sessions. Each workshop will be recorded and made available on the schedule by the end of each day. 

You can enter the online workshops at any time using this link – MiraCosta Online Workshop Meeting.

Each day in this meeting will begin with a Virtual Coffee Hour (Tuesday through Friday) from 9 to 10 am and end with a Virtual Happy Hour (Monday through Friday) from 4 to 5 pm. The purpose of these sessions is for brainstorming, sharing, Q&A, Zoom practicing, and course tours. 

1-1 Drop-in Canvas and Course Design via Zoom

We have a fantastic group of MiraCostans who have volunteered their time to serve with one-on-one (1-1) support. The week is filled with willing contributors, and we hope you take advantage of the assistance these folks are willing to provide. The 1-1 support schedule is intended for MiraCosta faculty looking for guidance in the use of Canvas, preparing for remote instruction, and teaching online. Those planning to be online during any given hour are listed on the schedule. The Zoom meeting includes breakout rooms so that help-seekers can go into their own online space with the person providing support. 

Please review the second schedule on the MiraCosta Faculty Support for Instructional Continuity training schedule for all the details on 1-1 support. 

You can enter the drop-in support sessions at any time by entering the 1-1 Drop-in Canvas and Course Design Support Zoom meeting. Support sessions are being offered from 10 am – 4 pm and 7 pm – 10 pm daily, with additional sessions on Saturday and Sunday.

*Phone 1-1 support is also being offered by several faculty members. Scroll below the 1-1 schedule for names, phone numbers, and availability* 

External Webinars and Other Support

We have begun to compile a schedule of external support for the transition to remote instruction. While these webinars run concurrent with our local support offerings, we want to provide a breadth of options so folks can get the appropriate training that is most pertinent to their situation. We will post the recordings of these workshops when/if they become available. 

Please review the third schedule on the MiraCosta Faculty Support for Instructional Continuity training schedule for all the details (scroll way down!). 

Faculty Support – By Department 

Please review the MiraCosta Faculty Support for Instructional Continuity spreadsheet if you’re looking to connect with a departmental colleague for support. If you’re willing to provide such support but don’t appear on the sheet, please let us know so we can add you!

FAQs for Faculty

We want to make sure you are aware of the Remote Instruction FAQs for Faculty document. Here you will find answers to questions on schedule changes, support for the transition to remote instruction, student support services/resources, and facilities/technology access. 

If you have a question that does not appear here, please submit your inquiry to the Questions About Instructional Continuity at MiraCosta College form.

Canvas Site with Guidance and Resources

Please remember to review the Canvas site on Instructional Continuity and Taking Classroom Activities Online (be sure to click the “Next” button at the bottom of the page for more information and resources – including the Primary Online Support Resources). 

Open-ended Sharing Opportunity

Finally, if you want a space to share resources, vent, connect, and get some ideas, please visit and contribute to the Open-ended Instructional Continuity Sharing for MiraCosta Faculty document. 

We are looking forward to connecting with you during this busy week of transition. We will be sending a daily early-morning email with a breakdown of the day’s events and links to the previous day’s recorded sessions. 

With appreciation,

Jim and Sean

Dear Faculty,

In light of President Cooke’s most recent message to the campus, we now shift our plans to work completely remotely for the remainder of the semester. All of the scheduled training sessions for next week’s transition to remote instruction will be conducted via Zoom. We are developing the slate of workshops and one-on-one support sessions – look for details on these and instructions on how to access them coming later this week. If you’d be willing to provide support through a workshop or by staffing an online consultation session and haven’t let us know yet, please send us an email about what you are interested in offering.

ConferZoom – URGENT

If you are interested in connecting with your students live online for instruction, office hours, group meetings, etc., the tool we recommend is Zoom, available in a pro version to all CCC faculty and staff through ConferZoom. If you do not have a ConferZoom account, we urge you to register for an account as soon as possible. If you currently have a free Zoom account using your MiraCosta email address, you’ll need to request support from ConferZoom to convert it to take advantage of the full range of pro features. The high demand for accounts is resulting in a wait of several days – we urge you to register for an account NOW. Please see our MiraCosta support article about ConferZoom to learn more, including how to integrate ConferZoom within Canvas.

Faculty Supporting Faculty

We are grateful for the overwhelming number of you that have reached out to us and are willing to assist in the instructional continuity effort in a variety of ways – from facilitating workshops to offering office hours next week to support our fellow faculty members. We are really blown away by the work that has already been done and the willingness to pitch in on the work ahead. We have compiled a list of the folks who have let us know they are providing support by academic departments. Please review the MiraCosta Faculty Support for Instructional Continuity spreadsheet if you’re looking to connect with a colleague for support. If you’re willing to provide such support but don’t appear on the sheet, please let us know so we can add you! 

Canvas Site with Guidance and Resources

Please remember to review the Canvas site on Instructional Continuity and Taking Classroom Activities Online (be sure to click the “Next” button at the bottom of the page for more information and resources – including the Primary Online Support Resources). 

Still Have Questions? 

We know many questions remain unanswered at this point and we are doing our best to field your inquiries to the best of our knowledge and in concert with the Office of Instruction. To this end, we ask you to submit questions via our Question Form. This will inform the continued development of an FAQ Page which will serve as a hub for all faculty issues and will soon be linked to MiraCosta’s centralized COVID-19 page. If you have more than one question, please submit multiple forms – one per question – this will help us best organize the inquiries by frequency. 

Student Orientation to Online Learning Sessions

We know that we are not the only ones making the adjustment to remote instruction. We will be providing many Student Orientation to Online Learning sessions starting the week of March 30th and continuing in the following weeks. These sessions will be approximately one hour and will be conducted via Zoom. A recorded version of the session will be available to students. Once we have a schedule in place, we will send it out. Please encourage your students to attend one of these sessions. 

Thank You! 

We appreciate the hard work and commitment you all have demonstrated in making this a collaborative effort to support each other while we do our best to provide quality education to our students for the remainder of the Spring semester. We will continue to be here for you via email, Zoom, and phone through the transition period and beyond. 

We hope that you can enjoy a safe and healthy Spring Break before we move into our week of preparation for the rest of the term. 

With appreciation,

Jim and Sean