Teaching (more) online

Moving teaching online, either partially (blended learning) or fully (distance learning), opens up educational opportunities for many students.

Online teaching should not be constrained by technology. Nevertheless, well-functioning and appropriate use of technology is a prerequisite for modern and effective online teaching. When choosing your platforms and virtual learning environments, pay attention to accessibility and inclusion. Here, we provide a few tips for online teaching.

Sharing video content

Youtube and Microsoft Stream allow you to share video content with any student or member of staff. Putting videos in these commercial services makes them faster and more accessible. You can use the services to share videos created in most formats. Note that you can add captions / subtitles in many languages to your YouTube videos. This is an extremely useful support for hearing impaired or non-native speakers.

Virtual classrooms

There are several commercial online collaboration and communication platforms, which can be used as virtual classrooms. For example, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Classroom, Zoom or Adobe Connect offer applications that enable users to deliver content through video, make audio calls and share documents. You can use them to record lectures or to teach tutorial / seminar sessions. Some of them allow break out rooms (e.g. Zoom, Adobe Connect) that enable to split students into smaller groups and for teamwork.

Add audio to PowerPoint slides

PowerPoint or Keynote enable you to add interactive audio narration to each slide within your presentation, which adapts your current presentations into interactive online content.

Pre-record lectures or feedback

Technology, such as Screencast-O-Matic, allows you to record your screen with or without a webcam. You can pre-record your presentation and use the editing tools to cut, insert, add overlays and provide closed captions.

Sources: Birmingham City University, Laurea University of Applied Sciences