Post 415: Attract Students To Your Zoom Lecture With Colorful WordArt in Your Announcements

 

This is a great way to attract students to my Week 3 Zoom Lecture. The graphic is brightly colored and really hooks the viewer to the post.

Then, I give the students my agenda for Week 3 to entice them even more to attend my Zoom Lecture, and then last but not least, I give them the magic key to the kingdom--my Zoom Link and passcode!

At the end of my class, students write that they love my Zoom sessions the best because of the fun graphics, useful practice examples for the Grammar quizzes, the colorful page background, and the thick lecture notes I give them about the assignments of that week!

My guilty pleasure is that I love making the graphics and the lecture more than I like giving the lectures on Zoom! I am a wannabe graphic designer and writer, not as much a public speaker!

Post 414: How Assigning Peer Reviews For Students Have Come a Long Way Baby!

 

 How Assigning Peer Review For Students Have Come a Long Way Baby

 

 

 

 

  In Canvas, you can automatically assign Peer Reviews to each student. Wow! That is quite an advancement in technology. Now you just press a button and the LMS automatically gives each student another student paper. 

    When I first started teaching online, I remember I had to manually download each student paper. Then, I had to upload to each student newsgroup or folder another student paper for students to download to comment on.  Assigning Peer Review to other students used to be a time consuming task. I had to keep track who had handed in a paper, then I had to make sure each student got a different paper.

   At my school when I heard that each student was to be assigned a paper to peer review, I remember asking my boss where to upload and download student papers expecting a long time consuming task ahead of me.

   My boss laughed and gave me a screencast video which showed me that you just check an option when you edit your assignment and that's it. Peer Review assigning is done. After you check the option for required peer review for each student, then each student will see their assigned Peer Review in their calendar or agenda. All I have to do is grade that each student had peer reviewed somebody else's peer review.

   Also, no need to wait for students to post their rough drafts to a forum either. You just check an option and then grade. No sweat.  Sometimes, technology can do wonders!

Post 413: Narrative Essay Writing Topics

 

Post 412: Teaching with Zoom: A Guide For Complete Beginners by Keith Folse

 Book Review: Teaching with Zoom: a Guide for Complete Beginners

 

 

I am definitely an absolute beginner to Zoom. This book, by Keith Folse, an ESL teacher like myself was very useful in helping me understand how to use Zoom.

For instance, Folse was very clear in teaching the reader how to schedule a Zoom meeting and he made sense of all the different options involved in scheduling a Zoom meeting. He gives advice on which options makes the most sense, and which options do not make sense for him.

When I was scheduling my Zoom class for my new Canvas class start, I found myself referring constantly to Folse book. I was able to understand what I had to do. Since Zoom Tech Support is so difficult to reach, having a Zoom Teaching book written by a fellow English teacher like myself was very illuminating indeed.

 Folse talked about every option of the Zoom classroom.  He gave advice on the best ways to teach ESL students by breaking them up in groups in the Break room and he showed how easy it is to create break rooms in Zoom in easy to understand English.  Folse also uses graphics and pictures of the Zoom options to help the reader further understand what he is talking about.

I am gradually getting more comfortable with Zoom. I, so far, have mastered using the Share Screen option very well.  I am now used to giving Zoom lectures and asking students listening comprehension questions during my lecture.

Thanks to Folse's advice, I have decided to use my bookshelf as my virtual background, since according to Folse, this fits the role of an English teacher.  Before I read Folse's book, I had been trying to decide what virtual background to use so students do not see my messy apartment.

In addition, knowing what books your professor reads helps students get to know me better as a teaching English professional, which as Folse says, fits my role as English teacher.  

If you are new to Zoom, I highly recommend reading this book so that you too can become more proficient with Zoom.  

Folse, Keith. (2020) Teaching With Zoom: A Guide For Complete Beginners.  Wayzgoose Press.

Post 411: Is it possible to get timely Zoom Tech Support?

 Post 411: Zoom Tech Support, wherefore art thou?

 

When I first started using Zoom on Canvas, the interface between Canvas and Zoom was buggy. When I used Student View, I could see my Zoom meetings under the Zoom buttons. I was able to see the meetings and the recurring dates. I was able also see the Zoom join buttons making it easier for students to simply join the Zoom meeting by pressing the Join button.

However, when students started emailing me, they said they could not see the Join buttons, and that in fact, there was nothing there for them to join as none of the meetings were showing up on their screens. I then double checked by going into Student View, and I could see the meetings.

When the one guy we have for Tech Support chimed in with the students, he said he could not see my meetings under the Zoom button.  I said, "Why not call Zoom Tech Support to figure out a fix?" That's when I learned how the pandemic had overwhelmed Zoom Tech Support so much that no way can anybody get through. This means you are on your own if you have Zoom bugs to fix.

I have gotten very good at fixing Zoom bugs on my own by going to Youtube or watching the many other training videos other schools have put out on troubleshooting Zoom bugs. I do wish there was a readily available Zoom expert who could give me shortcuts and best practices physically or over the phone to make my learning curve learning Zoom faster and shorter.

Keith Folse, in his book, Teaching with Zoom: A Guide for Complete Beginners says, "I would forget about trying to contact Zoom directly for any kind of support. Because of the unprecedented demand for Zoom now, other teachers and I have found it almost impossible to get a timely response." (Folse, 159)

I attended a Zoom live training workshop called, Zoom for Educators. The Zoom expert teacher said there were 700 students in the class. It was a great class where the Zoom teacher went over the basics of Zoom and then answered our questions at the end of the class.  I learned a lot about Zoom from that class, and I recommend you all to take it if you are an educator using Zoom.

In that Zoom for Educator Live Training class, There were 150 questions  from 700 students that she answered in less than 5 minutes. When she got to my question, she simply said, 'Yes'. I got barely a nanosecond answer to my question if I can use the same Zoom meeting classroom for two Canvas classes.  And that's the only time I got to consult with a Zoom expert on anything!  I had to wait until the very end of the class before she would answer student questions too!

This means the ratio of Zoom expert to teacher is 700:1. Wow! Zoom is an extremely popular video conferencing tool!  It really is hard to get a hold of a Zoom expert to ask questions. Folse suggests educators join Facebook groups where educators exchange best practices with each other on using or teaching with Zoom. I will join such a group and will write a blog post about it next time.

I agree with Keith Folse that the pandemic is unprecedented and has caused all colleges and schools to suddenly go online and to use Zoom as their virtual conferencing tool. I now wonder if Zoom can handle the load of all colleges suddenly going online and using Zoom. In addition, it is not only colleges using Zoom, but high schools, middle schools, elementary schools, even daycare schools are all using Zoom.

 This fall, many colleges are opening to have face to face classes, only to close again after the first coronavirus infections are detected. I get the feeling we will see a lot more Zoom in our teaching futures, and I hope Zoom can handle the load without crashing. The big question is 'Can Zoom handle the load?' and only time can tell!