10+ Things to Add to Your Community Action Toolkit

Vintage wooden toolbox filled with tools for woodworking
Image Credit: Toolbox by Florian Richter on Flickr,
used under a CC-BY 2.0 license.

As I mentioned on my List of 10 on hashtags, I’m working on a series of assignments and classroom activities that will support the “Digital Assignments for Activist & Justice-Oriented Projects” presentation that I’m giving at the Computers and Writing Conference this year. In this list I’m moving on to community action toolkits (see examples below) and several overarching assignments.

First, let me explain what these toolkits are. Imagine you have a group of people all interested in a specific cause, but unsure how they can promote their work and gain other followers. That’s where these toolkits come in. They provide some background on the cause and why it’s needed, and, then, they outline how to promote and participate in the common cause.

Because community action efforts are typically grassroots movements, toolkits help those organizing and promoting their cause. Toolkits can include advice on reaching out to community supporters, the media, and the public. Further, they can include step-by-step instructions for common tasks that support community efforts, such as writing letters to politicians and government officials as well as to media outlets such as letters to the editor and comments on news websites. The name of these collections, toolkits, are a perfect analogy: these collections provide the tools and resources that a community effort can use to promote its cause.

Deciding on the Composing Strategy

These assignments and activities present opportunities for students to create their own community action toolkits, focusing on the ways that writing and digital composing contribute to activism and social justice efforts:

  • Individually-authored Toolkits: Use this assignment as a course-long project by asking each student to create their own toolkit, working individually. Based on the length of your course, suggest the number of documents students should compose. If appropriate for your course, choose specific items students need to complete. Allow for some choice among options as well.
  • Small Group-authored Toolkits: Arrange students in small groups, and have each group choose a community effort for its focus. Ask each group member to contribute to the toolkit by creating one (or more) components of the report. The entire group is responsible for framing the toolkit and ensuring consistency in the overall document.
  • Class-authored Toolkits: Choose a community effort as a class, and have each student in the class contribute to the overall class-authored toolkit. The class can begin by collaborating on design guidelines to make the assembly of the document smoother.
  • Individual Projects: Instead of creating a complete toolkit, choose any of the components listed as an individual writing assignment. For example, everyone in the class writes an FAQ on a local community action campaign.

Choosing a Local Focus

If possible, students will choose a local community action efforts and create their toolkits to support those efforts. The activities can work for larger efforts as well; however, students may find that resources already exist. For example, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has published a StopBullying.gov Community Action Toolkit that takes on the campaign to end bullying in schools. Rather than duplicating such work, students can provide resources specifically focused on what the local community needs.

When working on local community efforts, students can also benefit from closer access to the audience and stakeholders for their toolkits. For instance, students working on an anti-bullying campaign on campus can connect with administrators and faculty who support their cause and with some persuasion, possibly have their toolkits adopted for local use.

Deciding on Media for Interaction

In addition to choosing the kind of community action students explore, you can narrow their projects to particular kinds of interaction—anything from fairly traditional print communications to highly visual or interactive broadcast or social media. Here are the most obvious options:

  • Open Guide: Students can write a general guide without restrictions. Anything that fits the genre goes. Students can decide if they want to focus more specifically.
  • Guide for All Media: Students ensure that their guide covers a variety of media, including print media, social media, video and broadcast media. A broader toolkit of this sort is perfect for class-authored toolkits, as it broadens the list of components to include.
  • Guide for Social Media: Students focus specifically on community action that uses social media as the primary communication tool. Resources in the toolkit would focus on sites such as Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and TikTok.
  • Guide for Broadcast Media: Students produce broadcast-ready videos that can be shared on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Videos can also be embedded on websites and in blog posts as well as distributed to local media outlets (e.g., open access channels and local community television stations).

Toolkit Components

Your Community Action Toolkit can include a variety of resources. Depending upon the needs of the community and the goals of the community action group, you can add information to tell readers about the group and its work as well as resources to help readers participate in the work of the group. Once you determine who your readers are and establish the purpose for your toolkit, choose among the following items to include in your toolkit:

  1. Background on the Campaign & Need
    Every toolkit needs some background information that explains the cause and persuades readers to join in working for change. Tell the story of your cause and the needs it will serve. Remember that stories make your cause personal, so focus on a specific person or people who have or will benefit from the campaign. Be sure that your background information convinces readers why the cause is important to the community. Keep your paragraphs short and clear, and add photos that help tell your story.
  2. Timeline
    Provide a fast review of the key accomplishments the community has reached and the levels of need that exist. Your timeline can include past events as well as upcoming milestones. Try using a tool such as Knight Lab’s TimelineJS to create an online timeline for a web-based toolkit.
  3. Info Sheet or Fact Sheet
    People interested in the community effort can use the fast facts from an info sheet or infographic to convince others to support the cause and to promote the group’s work. Create a one-page sheet that provides the most important details about the cause and how the community works to solve it. See the “Intimate Partner Violence and Transgender Communities: Factsheet” (on page 7) for an example of the genre. If your toolkit is to be a print document, you might increase the size of your info sheet to a two-page spread. Incorporate document design and graphical details to make the info sheet easy to understand. Use the Fact Sheets resources from Kent State to learn more about info sheets.
  4. Infographic
    Identify significant data related to your cause and create an infographic that visually presents the details.
    Read the article “Designing Effective Infographics” (2018) from the Nielsen Norman Group to find out more about infographics. You can find Infographic templates on sites like CanvaVenngage, or Easel.ly. [Teaching Note: For a more structured assignment, use The Infographic Project from Writing Commons.]
  5. Campaign Schedule/Key Dates
    If the community action group has upcoming events, create an agenda or a calendar that indicates the dates and provides those who use the toolkit with the basic information they need to participate in the events. For events that take place regularly (like an annual activity), you can point to past resources to show the successes the campaign has had. Adobe Express (formerly Spark) and Canva include calendar templates.
  6. Case Studies
    Stories will draw people into the campaign, as they read how others faced challenges and worked to succeed. Add case studies or success stories to the toolkit to demonstrate the impact that the community effort can make. Tell the story from a participant’s point of view, integrating quotations and descriptive details that show the reader how community action has made a difference. Photographs of the people in the story will emphasize that these are real members of the community who have benefited from community action. For examples, see the Appendix: Stories of Success (p. 71) in the Be the Change—Community Action Toolkit. If you have before and after images that you can include, use the Juxtapose tool from Knight Lab to create slick comparisons that show the change.
  7. Instructions on How to Participate
    Readers who are new to the community need instructions that show them how they can participate in the work of the campaign. Choose activities that fit your toolkit, and provide step-by-step details on how to accomplish them. For a social media toolkit, for instance, you can provide instructions on how to participate in an Instagram Hop, a Tweetstorm or a Twitter Chat. Consult the technical writing resources on Writing Instructions for help with the genre. Read the StopBullying.gov Resources (p. 33) for an example of step-by-step instructions.
  8. How to Contact a Politician
    Add instructions on how to contact government officials and elected representatives to ask for support of the community action project. Include step-by-step details on how to identify specific people to connect and how to compose effective messages. Further, provide sample letters, text messages, and phone/voice mail scripts that readers can use as models. Consult Section 1. Writing Letters to Elected Officials from the Community Tool Box for examples of what this section can include. To understand how audience effects toolbox documents, compare Contact Elected Officials (written for family adults) and Contacting Your Representatives (written for youth advocates)—both from the Community Action Toolkit: A Guide to Advancing Sex Education in Your Community.
  9. How to Write an Op-Ed or Letter to the Editor
    Letters and public statements can share the community action through newspapers and television sites as well as through blog posts and similar forum sites. Add instructions that show members of the community how to compose their messages and provide advice on submitting them to local media outlets. The “Writing Opinion Editorials and Letters to the Editor” resources from the CDC’s “Community Action Toolkit: A Guide to Advancing Sex Education in Your Community” (2021) are a good model. You can also find useful ideas in Tips for Working with the Media (p. 22) from the StopBullying.gov Community Action Toolkit.
  10. Shareable Images or Videos
    Create a collection of easy-to-share images and videos that community members can post in their social media networks. Focus on images and videos that focus on your main message without any clutter. Videos can focus on public service announcements, brief testimonials, and news from the community. Follow the guidelines for image size and shape and video resolution and length that are recommended on the sites where they will be shared. For instance, choose square images to be shared on Instagram.
    Section 19. Using Social Media for Digital Advocacy from Justice Action Toolkit | Community Tool Box outlines useful background information. The shareables and Twibbon resources in the 2020 Global 16 Days Campaign Social Media Toolkit and Social Media Posts for COVID-19 Vaccine Boosters are useful examples.
  11. Sample Posts
    Compose ready-to-post status updates that community followers can easily copy and paste on their social media networks. As with shareable images and videos, Section 19. Using Social Media for Digital Advocacy from Justice Action Toolkit | Community Tool Box provides useful tips. Text Messages for Community-Based Organizations to Encourage Vaccination and the Community Action Month- Mini Toolkit #1 provide sample text messages to copy and use. In addition to posts meant to be copied and pasted, consider other kinds of messages that community members may find useful. The Social Media Safety Toolkit for Veterans, Their Families, and Friends, for example, directly addresses the possible issues that their community may face by including Sample Responses to Posts and Tweets That Indicate Emotional Distress (p. 4).
  12. Slideshows
    Design PowerPoint, Keynote, or Google Slides presentations that can be used to share details about the accomplishments and goals with the community and that community members can use to encourages others to participate in the efforts of the group. Check out the Presentations section (pp. 12–18) of Effective Tools for Communications and Leadership in Indian Country for useful advice on creating presentations. For examples, the sections of the Justice Action Toolkit | Community Tool Box include Powerpoint presentations that summarize the information included on each topic in the toolkit. Use the tabs above the Main Section to switch to a link allowing you to download the presentation. You can also create slideshow carousels, or Stories, that rotate on social media sites like Instagram. See How social justice slideshows took over Instagram for more details.
  13. FAQ
    Gather a list of questions that community members may have about the cause or about the community actions to support it, and then provide clear answers to each one. Use the
    FAQs on COVID-19 Vaccines for Essential Workers in Agriculture as an example. Find advice on writing FAQs from ZenDesk’s “8 great FAQ page examples and how to create your own” or Truckee Meadows Community College’s “FAQ Writing Guidelines.”
  14. Glossary
    Go through your toolkit and identify words and phrases that community members may be unfamiliar with.
    Your list can include abbreviations and acronyms, proper names of relevant parts of the organization or of documents that the group relies on. For each word or phrase, explain what it is and how ti relates to the community. See the Glossary (p. 72) in the Be the Change—Community Action Toolkit for an example, and consult Writing Definitions from the Purdue OWL for help with the genre.
  15. Additional Resources
    Gather links to additional resources that provide community members with more information or tools to use as they work toward the community’s goals. Include direct links to the resources and short annotations that explain what the resource is and how it will help the community member. Add subheadings to help community members find what they need easily. For examples, see the list of Further Resources (p. 10) from the Community Action Toolkit for Addressing Intimate Partner Violence Against Transgender People and Social Media Suicide Prevention Resources and Additional Suicide Prevention Resources (p. 8) from the Social Media Safety Toolkit for Veterans, Their Families, and Friends. Consult the Annotated Bibliographies resources from the Writing Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for tips on writing annotations.

Example Toolkits

Center for Community Health and Development. (2020). Justice Action Toolkit | Community Tool Box. Retrieved May 6, 2022, from https://ctb.ku.edu/en/justice-action-toolkit

Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. (2020). 2020 Global 16 Days Campaign Social Media Toolkit. Global 16 Days Campaign. Retrieved May 6, 2022, from https://16dayscampaign.org/2020-global-16-days-campaign-social-media-toolkit/

National Association for State Community Services Programs. (2016). Community Action Month- Mini Toolkit #1. Retrieved May 6, 2022, from https://nascsp.org/community-action-month-mini-toolkit-1/

National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs. (2017). Community Action Toolkit for Addressing Intimate Partner Violence Against Transgender People. National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs. Retrieved May 6, 2022, from https://avp.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/ncavp_trans_ipvtoolkit.pdf

National Congress of American Indians, & Pyramid Communications. (2011). Effective Tools for Communications and Leadership in Indian Country. National Congress of American Indians. https://www.ncai.org/news/tribal-communicators-resources/NCAI_ConferenceBooklet_FINAL_SinglePage.pdf

Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS). (2018, November 18). Community Action Toolkit: A Guide to Advancing Sex Education in Your Community. SIECUS. Retrieved May 6, 2022, from https://siecus.org/community-action-toolkit/

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2021, December 16). COVID-19 Community-Based Organizations Toolkit. WECANDOTHIS.HHS.GOV. https://wecandothis.hhs.gov/resource/community-based-organizations-toolkit

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2017). StopBullying.gov Community Action Toolkit. Retrieved May 6, 2022, from https://www.stopbullying.gov/sites/default/files/2017-09/community-action-toolkit.pdf

U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. (2022, February 10). Suicide Prevention—Mental Health [General Information]. https://www.mentalhealth.va.gov/suicide_prevention/prevention/index.asp

Verhoeven, Andii. (2014). Be the Change—Community Action Toolkit. World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts. Retrieved May 6, 2022, from https://www.wagggs.org/en/resources/be-change-community-action-toolkit/

 

 

Rethinking the Structure of My Online Assignments

Maroon front cover of the book Small Teaching Online: Applying Learning Science in Online ClassesFull of specific and practical suggestions, Small Teaching Online: Applying Learning Science in Online Classes (Jossey-Bass, 2019), by Flower Darby with James M. Lang, is a book I wish I had had when I first started teaching online. I’ve read the book twice, once when I bought it in Fall 2019 and again in January of this year as part of a book club I was participating in.

Early in the book, Darby urges readers to “Create assignment instructions that provide a clear rationale for the work your students will do, as well as clear directions for how they can accomplish it successfully” (p. 15). This advice holds for any teaching format: online, face-to-face, hybrid, flipped, hyflex–any of these teaching situations will benefit from clearly articulated directions and rationale.

When I read the book again this year, I rethought my assignment structure, based on Darby’s example. In the book, Darby describes the template she has designed for her assignments, using these three headings:

  • Here’s what I want you to do: I explain the task.
  • Here’s why I want you to do it: I explain the reason this task will contribute to the student’s success in class and beyond.
  • Here’s how to do it: I provide detailed instructions, rubrics, checklists, and exemplars to help students clearly see and understand my expectations. (p. 17)

I liked the directness of Darby’s headings, though I tweaked them a bit. After a bit of experimentation this Spring Semester, I have settled on these headings:

  • Goals: a list of the course objectives addressed in the assignment. (required in our program)
  • What I Want You to Do: a brief summary of the activity and its relationship to the rest of the course activities
  • Why I Want You to Do It: the reason I have designed the assignment and how it connects to larger course goals.
  • Where You Can Find Help: a list of references to the course textbook, and links to course webpages and other resources.
  • When to Do It: Relevant due dates and how they fit into the larger course schedule
  • How to Do It: the step-by-step instructions for the assignment.
  • How to Assess and Track Your Work: the assignment criteria, and details on feedback and revision.

Three of the headings correspond to Darby’s. I added Where You Can Find Help to make the resources in the textbook and other course materials easier to find. Previously, I added these materials in the step-by-step instructions, but students had to read through those instructions to find them. The change pulls those references out into a more visible location.

Our LMS (Canvas) adds details on the due dates and deadlines at the end of every assignment, but they are simple dates with no explanation. I added the When to Do It section so that I could explain the specifics of the suggested due date, the grace period, and the last day the work is accepted. All that information is in the LMS notation, but students have to understand the jargon that the system uses. I prefer to explain in plain English to avoid any confusion.

Finally, I added the section on How to Assess and Track Your Work, to provide links to activity checklists as well as peer review guidelines and assignments. Since I use an #ungrading approach, students need reminders on how the system works and what they need to do to track the work that they put into the course.

I know that is a lot of sections to develop for each writing assignment and class activity, but I hope it will guide students to the information that they need quickly. Now I just have to convert all my assignments so that they consistently use this structure before the Summer I Session starts on May 24!

 

Do You Know Where To Find The Answers?

Students are accustomed to the campus classroom, where the teacher is available regularly to remind them how to find the resources that they need to complete activities in a course.

Instructure’s Trenton Goble suggests the five questions on this infographic “as the foundation for improving communication processes–wherever and however learning happens.” Goble is addressing K—12 teachers, so I adapted the purpose of the questions to address the needs of college students.

Every teacher uses Canvas differently. My answers to these five questions tell students how I use Canvas tools in my course.

Infographic: Do You Know Where To Find the Answers?
Click image for larger version.

You can use the infographic as is, if it fits the needs of your course. It’s shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial Share-Alike 4.0 International License.

If you need to tweak the infographic to work for your course, visit the template on Canva (a drag-and-drop web-based design tool). You will need to create a free Canva login to customize the image.

If you do use the infographic, remember to also provide a transcript for students who cannot view the image. I handle this transcript by repeating the text beside the image itself, as you can see on this page from my current Technical Writing course.

This text version of the infographic gives you another option for sharing these ideas with the students you teach. You can also skip the infographic altogether, copy and customize the text from the transcript (linked above), and publish the resulting version as an Announcement in Canvas.

Infographic ceated on Canva.com. Transcript at tracigardner.com/fivequestions. Images from The Noun Project Pro. Inspired by Trenton Goble’s “Fundamental Five: A Framework for Improving Communication Processes.” Content text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial Share-Alike 4.0 International License.

This post originally published on the Teaching Online 911 blog.

How to Restore Deleted Files in Canvas

My favorite hidden feature in Canvas is the ability to restore files and other resources that you have deleted.

Warnings:

  • Warning IconThe tool is not 100% effective, so be cautious when you remove information from your course.
  • The tool only restores your content. Any related student submissions or responses may not be restored.

Use these instructions to restore items in your course:

  • Navigate to the Home page of the course where the file previously existed.
  • Click in the address bar in your browser after the course number:
    Link in Browser Address Bar
  • Remove any other information in the address bar.
  • Type /undelete after the course number in the address bar:
    Browser Address Bar with /undelete Added
  • Press Enter, and the browser will load a page with files and other resources that have been deleted from the course:
    Restore Deleted Items Page
  • Find the item in the list that you want to restore.
  • Click the Restore button next to the item you want to restore:
    Restore button on Restore Deleted Items page
  • Click the OK button, and the item will be restored:
    Confirmation Dialog on Restore Items Page with OK button

This post originally published on the Teaching Online 911 blog.

Ten Ways to Improve Educational Videos

Webcam on a computer monitorThe move to online courses has many of us working to create videos that replace the explanations of concepts and demonstrations of skills that we would customarily do in the campus classroom. The strategies below help make those videos more effective.

  1. Focus
    Cover only one topic in your video. Focusing on one topic allows students to hone in on the ideas by lowering the cognitive load. They can take clearer notes and recall the information more effectively. Equally useful, later when a student needs to review a specific concept that is unclear to her, she can quickly find the exact video that addresses that topic.
  2. Keep it short
    Effective videos are approximately 6 minutes long (Guo et al., 2014). Longer videos include more information than students can remember. Breaking your course content up into
    shorter videos increases students’ ability to comprehend and recall the information.
  3. Forecast
    Provide an overview of the point you will cover at the beginning of your video. Your forecast will serve as an advance organizer, telling students what to watch for and providing structure for the video (Ibrahim et al., 2012).
  4. Reinforce
    Highlight, or signal, key terms and main ideas in the video by emphasizing them verbally and including the terms on screen (Ibrahim et al., 2012). Place text on the screen near the portion of the image it corresponds with in order to reduce students’ cognitive load (Mayer & Moreno, 2003; Mayer, 2008).
    Ideally, the complementary terms and graphics will match those included in your opening forecast (see #3 above), reinforcing the information further.
  5. Limit distractions
    “Weeding” irrelevant content out of your videos increases students’ attention and retention (Ibrahim et al., 2012; Mayer, 2008). Extraneous information in videos includes unrelated background music and sounds as well as irrelevant and purely decorative visual elements.
  6. Use basic recording features
    You don’t need an entire production team to create effective educational videos. Guo et al. (2014) found that higher production features actually decrease student engagement with videos. Just set up a webcam at your desk for videos, or use screencasting software for demonstrations from your desktop. Focus on what you want to teach students, and forget all the bells and whistles.
  7. Set the stage
    Check the background for what students will see in your video. If the video shows a shot of you talking, check what is behind you and remove anything that is unnecessary or unprofessional. If the video shows your computer desktop, remove any irrelevant icons from the desktop and close software that you aren’t using. In particular, be sure that you have no filenames or open files on screen that reveal private information. Taking these steps ensures that students focus on the content, rather than random information in the background.
  8. Add closed captions
    Captions help all students, not just those with hearing loss. In a 2014 study, “students commented that the captions made it easier to take notes, improved understanding by watching and reading, helped them learn the spellings of words, enabled them to watch the videos with the sound turned off, and enabled them to follow the videos more closely, as the captions helped focus attention” (Berg et al.).
  9. Name videos specifically
    Students will make better use of the videos you record if you choose specific titles and filenames. If your videos are named Lecture 1, Lecture 2, etc., students have no idea of knowing what content they will find. A student trying to find a specific concept won’t know which one to choose. If the videos were instead named plant cell structure and photosynthesis, students would know exactly what each covers.
  10. Provide supporting materials
    A video alone can help students understand key concepts and learn new skills. A video accompanied by explanatory and descriptive text, related activities, and relevant textbook readings can do even more. Thomson, Bridgstock, and Willems (2014) found that “video is much less effective when it comprises the sum total of the standard lecture/learning experience” (p. 71). Supporting materials, in other words, can make a difference in what students learn and retain.

References

Berg, Richard, Brand, Ann, Grant, Jennifer, Kirk, John S., & Zimmerman, Todd. (2014). Leveraging recorded mini-lectures to increase student learning. Online Classroom, 14(2), 5.

Guo, Philip J., Kim, Juho, & Rubin, Rob (2014). How video production affects student engagement: An empirical study of MOOC videos. Proceedings of the First ACM Conference on Learning @ Scale Conference — L@S ’14, 41—50. https://doi.org/10.1145/2556325.2566239

Ibrahim, Mohamed, Antonenko, Pavlo D., Greenwood, Carmen M., & Wheeler, Denna. (2012). Effects of segmenting, signalling, and weeding on learning from educational video. Learning, Media and Technology, 37(3), 220—235. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2011.585993

Mayer, Richard E. (2008). Applying the science of learning: Evidence-based principles for the design of multimedia instruction. The American Psychologist, 8. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.63.8.760

Mayer, Richard E., & Moreno, Roxana. (2003). Nine ways to reduce cognitive load in multimedia learning. Educational Psychologist, 38(1), 43—52. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15326985EP3801_6

Thomson, Andrew, Bridgstock, Ruth, & Willems, Christiaan. (2014). “Teachers flipping out” beyond the online lecture: Maximising the educational potential of video. Journal of Learning Design, 7(3), 67—78. http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/jld.v7i3.209

Photo credit: 7 Best HD Webcams in Pakistan for 2019 by Sami Khan on Flickr, used under public domain.

 


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This post originally published on the Teaching Online 911 blog.

Using Google Forms to Jump Start Your Video

Red Jump Start Cables with red handles and black handles, on a TableNow that everyone is teaching online, active learning strategies like minute papers and muddiest point are hard to manage spontaneously. In a campus classroom, you can ask everyone to share responses out loud or on a piece of paper. In an asynchronous online class, students aren’t able to participate in quite the same way.

Google Forms can give you a quick and easy solution. Create a form with the question you want to use to begin a presentation or demonstration, students respond using the form, and you use their responses to frame your presentation.

Create Your Form

  1. Log into your Google Drive account.
  2. Create a new Google Forms file, using Google Help if you need more details.
  3. Give the form file a straightforward title (such as “Presentation Topic Survey”).
  4. Add a description or explanation if desired. I added details on how I would use the survey.
  5. Change the question type, if necessary. I changed the question to “Paragraph” so that student have room to write a few sentences as their response.
  6. Add the one question that you want students to respond to. I used the question “What topic have you chosen for your presentation? Give me specific details in a sentence or two.”
  7. If desired, click the Palette icon on the upper right and customize the appearance of the form.

My example Presentation Topic Survey shows what the resulting form looks like. You will notice that I added a second question asking students for contact information if they wanted a personal response. That step is completely optional.

Share Your Form

  1. Click the large SEND button in the upper right corner of the page. The options shown in the screenshot below will appear:
    SEND Form Options, described in the text below
  2. Choose one of the following options to share your form:
    • Click the envelope icon to send the form to students by email, and fill out the remainder of the SEND form accordingly.
    • Click the link icon to copy a hyperlink to the form that you can share with students.
    • Click the angled brackets icon to copy the code that you can use to embed the form on another webpage.
    • Click the Facebook icon or the Twitter icon to share the form on social media.

Prepare for Class

  1. Log into your Google Drive account.
  2. Open the Google Form that you created.
  3. Click the “Responses” link at the top of the form.
  4. Use the Google Help instructions to view the responses in a variety of ways.
  5. Review students’ responses just as you would review answers they shared on paper.
    • If desired, remove any answers that do not meet the requirements or focus of the assignment.
    • Look for patterns to address with the class. In my example, I would look for answers that were strong and specifically focused to highlight. I would also look for those topics that could be improved by focusing more specifically.
    • Copy the responses to a word processor file, if desired, to share the answers with the class.
  6. Choose two or three strong examples and a few examples to demonstrate how to improve the responses.

Use the Responses in Your Video

  1. Prepare to create a lesson to share with students. This post will focus on producing a 5 to 7 minute video. You could also create a handout or audio recording.
  2. Begin your video session in a synchronous forum like Zoom or using your favorite video recorder to share asynchronously.
  3. Open your video by referring to students’ responses. You can share a link to the responses or a link to the word processor document you created with the responses.
  4. Review the qualities of a strong response. For my example, I would talk about how a strong topic is specific and well-focused.
  5. Point out strong responses and explain why they succeed.
  6. Review weaker or incorrect responses and demonstrate how to improve them.
  7. End your video by reviewing the qualities of a strong response.
  8. If desired, give students a follow-up activity to complete:
    • For synchronous meetings, ask students to share ways they can improve their responses in light of the examples.
    • For asynchronous videos, have students share their ways to improve responses in a discussion forum or email.

Photo credit: Jumpstart cables by Michael Pedersen on Flickr, used under a CC-BY 2.0 license.


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This post originally published on the Teaching Online 911 blog.

Online Is Different from Face-to-Face

 


This post originally published on the Teaching Online 911 blog.

Explain What to Do in an Emergency

Red push button on the wall labeled, Emergency Stop for ComputersProviding students with instructions on what to do in an emergency is always a good idea. It’s even more important now as all classes are moving online and many students are relying on technology resources more than they are used to.

You may be thinking, “Oh, I will wait and deal with trouble if it comes up.” It’s nice to be optimistic, but trust me, eventually something will come up. You may not think of it as an actual emergency, but a panicked student may. Add the complication of the sudden reliance on resources students don’t have experience with, and the panicky emails are sure to start filling your inbox.

How to Address Emergencies Before They Happen

  • Brainstorm a list of the basic hurdles students are likely to encounter. Consider the issues that have occurred in previous courses you have taught, and reflect on challenges you and those you know have had as they work online. Combine any challenges that will have similar responses (see the example below).
  • Outline what students should do in each situation. Include specific details that will walk students through their response. Students coming to this list are anxious. They not catch the nuances of what you say, so be sure that everything is clear and concrete.
  • Emphasize trust and calm in your explanations. Let students know that you take their situation seriously. Maintaining a sense of calm will do much to solve the challenge. Panic can make everything worse. If you persuade students to remain calm and trust that you will help them, reasonable solutions to the problems will become easier to accept.

An Example Policy

Here’s a version of the emergency policy that I use with my courses. The policy (like all content on this site) is content is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial Share-Alike 4.0 International License; thus, you can copy and customize the policy to use with your course.

Emergency Policy for Technical Writing

Slogan Keep Calm and Carry On shown on Red British War Poster with white letteringProblems with vt.edu websites, LinkedIn Learning, or Canvas
If something goes wrong with one of the websites we are using, don’t panic. Send me an email message, since I may not know there is a problem. I will fix it if I can, and if necessary, I’ll adjust any due dates or expectations. If appropriate, contact 4-Help and explain the situation as well. Once you have contacted me, keep working as you can until the situation is resolved.

Problems with something in your world
If something goes wrong for you personally, send me an email message explaining the issue and relax. We can come up with a solution. Things such as a broken computer or a change at work that messes up your schedule fall in this category. Getting sick or having an accident (such as a broken bone) also fall into this category. Your situation may feel horrible, but we can work it out. Don’t worry if I don’t respond immediately. It just means I’m not at my computer.

Emergencies and the 911 policy
If you have an emergency, first take care of any immediate danger. Make sure everything and everyone is safe before you worry about this course. When you can, email me and begin the subject with 911. For example, a subject line might be “911 Struck by Storm.” Give me the details in the message (e.g., The storm knocked out your power. Your work is going to be delayed until things are fixed). Save these 911 messages for emergencies please. I give 911 messages priority and answer them ASAP. Again, don’t worry if I don’t respond immediately. It just means I’m not at my computer. When I get back online, I will do whatever I can to help.

Photo: Emergency Stop by Daniel Nisbet on Flickr, used under a CC-BY-SA 2.0 license. Keep Calm and Carry On Poster, from the UK Ministry of Information, used under a CC0 Public Domain license.


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This post originally published on the Teaching Online 911 blog.

Turn Your Handout into a Video

You can make a simple video that pairs key information from a short handout with images using the free web-based tool Lumen5. You can edit the video components (the text on screen, how it appears, and the image shown). As you are moving course materials online, Lumen5 can be a quick way to add a visual element to your course materials.

An Example Handout and Video

The video below was created with the text from a webpage that explains my labor-based grading system and a tip-filled infographic on how to do well in the course. The result is the following video:


Video Transcript

The video took me about three hours, though most of that time was spent searching for appropriate, diverse images and for the background music. The result is far more interesting than a Zoom video allowing students to watch me read the information to them.

How to Create Your Own Video

The process is straightforward:

  1. Create a free login on the Lumen5 site.
  2. Use the Create Video button at the top of the dashboard page, which you reach after logging in.
  3. Choose one of the available options (start with a blog post, paste in text script, use a media file, or begin with a template), as shown in the image below:
    Video Options in Lumen5 (start with a blog post, paste in text script, use a media file, or begin with a template)
  4. Provide the text for your video, following the on-screen prompts.
  5. Wait while Lumen5 uploads and processes your text, adding images and key phrases to the video slides.
  6. Edit the slides as you wish, changing the placement of the text, editing the text, choosing new images, and changing the options for the images, all shown in the screenshot below:
    Lumen5 edit screen, showing different layout available and other options.
    Notice on the upper left that you can also choose different media, templates, and music for your video when you are editing.
  7. Click Publish when you are happy with everything, and the video will process and then prompt you to download.
  8. Share the completed video as you like–in your CMS, on YouTube, or elsewhere.

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This post was inspired by a piece written for Bedford Bits: Convert Handouts to Videos with Lumen5 and originally published on the Teaching Online 911 blog.

Ten Tips for Moving Your Class Online Quickly

You’re probably working away at moving your class online. Even with the extra week to prepare that some of us have been given, there are weeks of work ahead of us. We’ll all have to rethink activities, change things that aren’t working, and give up on some things that are beyond the possible right now.

Your work will be easier and more successful if you keep these ten tips in mind:

  1. Choose online tools you know. This is not the time to innovate. It is hard enough to migrate all your course materials online. Don’t add to your workload by choosing a new tool to do it. Whatever you’re using is good enough.
  2. Remember time zones matter–as do personal schedules. Students are no longer in the same place and time. They are spread all over the globe. Their time zones are different and their personal obligations are different. Asynchronous work (work that doesn’t require everyone to be online at the same moment) allows everyone in the course a fair opportunity.
  3. Keep it as simple as possible. The activities and expectations should be clear and straightforward. Break things out into smaller steps, rather than creating one larger activity. You’ll help students keep track of what they need to do when they can complete an activity in one sitting.
  4. Let students track their own work when they can. Ask students to keep track of how they are doing in the course. They can keep a log of what they have posted easily, for instance. All you have to do is review their logs. That’s much easier than you having to keep track of every thing that every student has done.
  5. Allow reasonable accommodations and exceptions for everyone. With the many additional demands and challenges we are facing, we can all use a little extra help right now. Give students who ask for more time an extra day. Allow students whatever they need, as long as it’s reasonable.
  6. Share accessible resources. There are students in your class who will not have the resources that they need. It may be their textbooks, class notes, or library books. If you can share PDFs or offer alternatives, do so. Students may have no other option if you cannot provide them an alternative.
  7. Be clear about your availability. When classes meet on campus, students know when they can find you. If all else fails, you’re about just before and after class meets. With classes online, students have no idea. Will a response to that urgent email message take a few hours or a few days? Be specific about when you are online and working so they don’t worry needlessly. For example, tell students something like “I am usually online and answering messages weekday afternoons, from 1 PM to 3 PM, Eastern.”
  8. Explain yourself. Tell students the reasons behind your choices and decisions for how the course proceeds. Don’t expect students to guess what you’re thinking or expecting. With all course interactions online, you can help things run much more smoothly by explaining logistics and other class decisions.
  9. Encourage students to help one another. Create a space in your course resources where they can ask one another for help. Whether the questions are about the course, Internet connectivity, or which grocery stores are open, students can help one another–and their effort will reduce your workload while building community.
  10. Give up on perfection and absolutes. Set reasonable expectations for yourself and your students. It would be nice to imagine there will be no Internet or software issues and that students have access to all the resources that they need. It’s not likely to happen that way however. Scale back your plans, allow for changes as needed, and have alternatives and back-up plans ready. You’ll thank yourself later.

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This post originally published on the Teaching Online 911 blog.