Mid-Semester Online Updates & Save-the-Dates

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.

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
  • 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

Teaching with Zoom at MiraCosta College

Zoom Logo

This page provides guidance on teaching with Zoom, and assumes some basic familiarity with Zoom. Visit the Getting Started, Getting Help, and Using Zoom with Canvas page for details and technical information about getting started with Zoom at MiraCosta College, including how to set up integration of Zoom within Canvas.

Zoom Teaching Tips: Inclusion, Equity, Privacy, Security, and more

MiraCosta Zoom how-to videos from faculty

Please note that some of the following resources may refer to the version of Zoom that MiraCostans used in fall 2020 or earlier; MiraCosta Zoom is now hosted at https://miracosta-edu.zoom.us rather than https://conferzoom.org.

  • Teaching with Zoom (Fall 2020 workshop) – CSIT faculty member Rick Cassoni provides a 1-hour overview of Zoom, from the beginnings of signing up for a Zoom account, to recommended settings within your account and creation of meetings, to the basics of using Zoom for both live and recorded online instruction.
  • Connecting with Students in Zoom (Spring 2020 workshop) – Letters faculty member curry mitchell shares a few simple activities and methods for scaffolding an interactive, collaborative Zoom workshop with students.  curry also discusses flexible and compassionate practices–such as attendance policies and creating asynchronous means for participation–to ensure we’re using Zoom to help each other. (Note, this session included 10 minutes in breakout rooms but the recording was not paused, so you can skip from when that happens at around minute 39 ahead to minute 49 of the recording.)
  • Sharing your iPad screen on Zoom – Math faculty member Angela Beltran-Aguilar demonstrates in this short (under 3 minutes) video how to use an iPad as your sharing source for teaching with Zoom.
  • Capturing a separate screencast of a Zoom session – Psychology faculty member Robert Kelley demonstrates in this very short (under 2 minutes) video how to capture a portion of a Zoom session, excluding student participants, in order to be able to share the recording more widely without FERPA concerns.

Captioning for Zoom

  • Enabling Automated Real-Time Captions in Zoom – We now have access to automated captions inside our Zoom meetings – both live and recorded. While automated captions are a great resource for our students, they are not a replacement for professional captions when those are needed.
  • Zoom cloud recordings auto-transcribe and caption recorded Zoom sessions within a few hours (typically) of completion of the recording. Zoom’s interface makes it easy to fix up the captions so they are fully accurate.
  • If you have a student who requires live captions and you are using Zoom, please contact MiraCosta SAS.
    • You will need to make a one-time change in your Zoom account settings to enable live captioning, and at the start of each Zoom session with captioning, you will need to assign the captioning role to the proper person in your meeting. See directions for both.

Part Two of It’s Our Classroom, But Whose Culture? – A SAFE Topics Podcast

Hello campus community and once again, happy Friday!!!
This week the SAFE Topics Podcast team is releasing part two of our latest episode that gets into the idea of academics as a culture, “It’s Our Classroom, But Whose Culture?” If you enjoyed part one, the second part gets even better! Our hosts Sean and curry were joined by some awesome MiraCosta College faculty members that included Jade Hilde (Letters), Alexis Tucker Sade (Anthropology), Rica French (Astronomy), Karl Cleveland (Media Arts & Technology), and Rick Cassoni (Computer Science & Information Technology). Join us and listen in!

Ways to Listen!

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

What to Listen For

  • Disrupting the merit-based system by taking the position of a facilitator.
  • What are we as humans missing that prepares us for different cultures in a classroom?
  • A culture shift in how we grade students.
  • The process, not just the product when grading. 
  • The culture of industry certifications and standardized tests.
  • How must students feel if all they focus on is a grade?
  • Allowing students to take away something so they feel brave enough to contribute. 
  • “Humans are born scientists… that just gets sucked right out of us if you go through the US education system.”
  • Play in practice to perform in the game – when does the ‘play’ matter?
  • How often do we question who the gatekeepers are?
  • The demoralizing experience of a GRE. 
  • Meeting the threshold to ‘check the box.’
  • When the student asks, “is this good enough?”
  • Design Thinking and a human-centered approach as a process.
  • Trying something new and being culturally responsive by challenging your own assumptions.
  • Creating a community culture.
  • The notion of scaffolding and empowering students to be this. 
  • Being culturally responsive to each other as professionals and colleagues.

Mentioned in the Episode

​Human Centered Design (Design Thinking) – Stanford

The S.A.F.E. Topics Team

curry mitchell – Faculty, Letters (Co-host)
Sean Davis – Faculty, Sociology (Co-host)
Mana Tadayon – Student, ASG President (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

Stay great,
S.A.F.E. Topics Podcast Team

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

It’s Our Classroom, But Whose Culture? – A SAFE Topics Podcast

Hello campus community and happy Friday!!!

All of us on the SAFE Topics Podcast team are super excited to announce the release of our latest episode, “It’s Our Classroom, But Whose Culture?” We were left in disbelief after the recording finished because the conversation was so good!!! In this episode we delve into the idea of academics as a culture. Our hosts Sean and curry were joined by some awesome MiraCosta College faculty members that included Jade Hilde (Letters), Alexis Tucker Sade (Anthropology), Rica French (Astronomy), Karl Cleveland (Media Arts & Technology), and Rick Cassoni (Computer Science & Information Technology). This episode was so great that we had to split it into two parts! Join us and listen in to part one!

I would also like to announce and officially welcome our newest member of the SAFE Topics Podcast team! Mana Tadayon (Associated Student Government President & Chair) will be joining the team as our student co-host and we can’t be more excited! 🙂

Ways to Listen!

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

What to Listen For

  • Do you consider an academic discipline a culture? 
  • “Linguistic Bias” and preparing our students for upper division culture.
  • Acclimating students to a disruptive culture and experiencing resistance.
  • Academia itself is rooted in a culture that has many subcultures.
  • Teaching hegemony and the culture of dominance.
  • “Disruptive literature becomes literature.”
  • “I’m not your instructor, I’m your facilitator.”
  • Changing the language in our classrooms.
  • The importance of the first five minutes on day 1 and creating trust.
  • How we take for granted that “going to school is a good thing.” 
  • Doing nothing is problematic. 
  • Difference between classroom, discipline, and institutional culture.
  • When a student asks, “Does this count?”
  • The underlying culture of a consumer system in education.
  • The commodity of education tying back to race, ethnicity, and culture.

Mentioned in the Episode

The S.A.F.E. Topics Team

curry mitchell – Faculty, Letters (Co-host)
Sean Davis – Faculty, Sociology (Co-host)
Mana Tadayon – Student, ASG President (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

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