Free Resources to Help with Remote Learning in 2022 by Dian Schaffnauser.

SUNY Online is pleased to host and showcase several diverse presentations from our SUNY campuses in celebration of National Distance Learning Week (NDLW), November 8-12, 2021. The webinars are designed to generate greater awareness and appreciation for distance learning, discuss current issues and emerging trends, highlight best practices, and recognize leaders in the field.

Please Join the NCCC Online Learning Dept. is presenting Optimizing High-Quality Digital Learning Experiences, on Monday, November 8th from 1:00-1:45pm.

Open SUNY/SUNY Online – Your Resources for Remote Learning During Covid-19

SUNY has created a website dedicated to Support Remote Learning during Covid-19 for Campuses, Students and Faculty/Staff.  They provide technology tools, webinars/training and much more.

Check out – Tea for Teaching

Check out this great resource created by John Kane and Rebecca Mushtare.  They run the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching at the State University of New York at Oswego. This website offers a series of podcasts of informal discussions of innovative and effective practices in teaching and learning. 

This month we are highlighting Principal 7: Good practice respects diverse talents and ways of learning. I recommend that you take a few minutes this week to learn about UDL (Universal Design Learning).  UDL allows educators to provide a spectrum of activities, assignments, and assessments that can increase opportunities for all facets of learners.

Here are some resources that I highly recommend:

Faculty Focus Article – UDL: A Systematic Approach to Supporting Diverse Learners
TOEP – Web 2.0 Accessibility Discovery Resources
Magna Commons*

Universal Design for Learning: How to Improve Satisfaction and Retention for Students at All Learning Levels
Using Universal Design to Support All Online Students

Atomic Learning* – Learning Styles

* Must log into Blackboard to view Magna Commons and Atomic Learning content.

 

Remind text messaging!  At times throughout the semester, do you wish you could get a quick message to your students?  I would highly recommend using Remind to communicate with your students. This tool is free! Many students already have knowledge of this service because it is used in most high schools to communicate with their students. This service allows you to quickly push out messages to your students without giving them access to your personal cell phone number.  You choose if the service is one way or allow students to text you back.  This is all done without exchanging phone numbers.

To learn more about Remind visit their channel in YouTube.

This trick is for those of you using the Blackboard Grade Center.

As the semester is winding down we are constantly getting the question “What are my grades” or “How am I doing”.  In the Blackboard Grade Center the faculty view is showing all students grades making it hard to sit down with a student and go over their grades.

Blackboard has a quick feature that you can use to hide all rows except one.  To do this go the Bb Grade Center, point to the students last name and an arrow will appear to the right of their name.  Click the arrow and select “hide other rows”. This will show only the one students data. To display all the rows again go back to the student’s last name click the arrow and select “Show All Rows”.

As a tip of the week I would like to share an article by the University of Oregon and their Teaching Effectiveness Program.  I decided to send this out to all faculty because of the success that has been seen in student engagement in online discussions. After reading this article you may decide to incorporate online discussions for assessment in your on campus classes.

Online discussions open the door for those student that never raise their hand in class or don’t want to open their mouths in class.  You might find that one of these students has a lot to offer in an online discussion! They might just surprise you if they have time to think about what they want to say or have time to research their ideas.

http://tep.uoregon.edu/technology/blackboard/docs/discussionboard.pdf

Donna Simiele
Niagara County Community College
eLearning Technology Support Coordinator

Since MyBrainShark is discontinuing their free service I would like to offer a few alternatives to sharing PowerPoint Presentations. Each one of the options below offers different services from transcripts (based on slide content), embed links, and video transfer just to name a few.

If you are using Microsoft PowerPoint 2013 I would recommend using the video feature built into the software for sharing narrated PowerPoints. This feature converts the narrated PowerPoint into an MP4 file format that can be uploaded to YouTube. YouTube provides the ability to close caption the video making it ADA compliant.

SlideBoom

SlideBoom is a valuable tool for educators because it enables voice-overs, is interactive, and free!

Features of SlideBoom:

• Free version available
• Automatic transcripts to PowerPoint presentations.
• Allows editing to accent areas of your presentation using a pencil or highlighter.
• Embed presentation in blogs and LMS
• Narration/audio available when created in 2003-2007 versions
• Using iSpring you can create voice over and narrations – there is a free version of this software – this is required to embed YouTube Videos in presentation
• Features that are not available; embedded video/links only, only supports version 2010 or lower, when saving a 2013 version to the old file format you lose narrations, Limited private sharing for free version
• Free vs Pro Specifications
• http://www.slideboom.com/

AuthorSTREAM

AuthorSTREAM is a powerful online presentation sharing engine that not only allows you to upload your PowerPoint presentations online for free, but also assists you to share them with your friends, students or co-workers located across the globe.

Features of AuthorSTREAM:

• Free version available
• Automatic transcripts to PowerPoint presentations.
• Converts to video (only allows one presentation conversion for free)
• Embed presentation in blogs and LMS – Private presentations cannot be embedded
• Limited private sharing for free version
• Features that are not available; No analytics for free version, minimal private settings
• Free vs Premium Specifications
• http://www.authorstream.com/

SlideShare

AuthorSTREAM is a powerful online presentation sharing engine that not only allows you to upload your PowerPoint presentations online for free, but also assists you to share them with your friends, students or co-workers located across the globe.

Features of SlideBoom:

• Free version available
• Analytic reports
• Allows for embedding YouTube Videos from within the presentation
• Allows for re-upload and keeps analytic reports
• Converts to video (only allows one presentation conversion for free)
• Share and Embed presentation in blogs and LMS – Private presentations cannot be embedded
• Slideshare is linked to LinkedIn connecting both accounts
• Features that are not available; narration/audio
• Free vs Premium Specifications
• https://www.slideshare.net/

PowerPoint to Video Feature

This feature creates a MP4 file format that can be loaded to YouTube. This feature allows you to keep narration and timings for your presentation.

MyBrainshark

If you are using PowerPoints in your course I recommend using a service such as myBrainshark to host your presentations. This free service offers many features (listed below) that can be used for instructional materials. One tool within Brainshark allows you to track number of views. Another tool in Brainshark allows you to place a poll or survey at the end of the presentation or podcast. Also built into this tool is the ability to upload content directly to YouTube.

“MyBrainshark is an online service that enables you to easily create, share and track on-demand multi-media presentations.  All you need is an email address to register for an account on my.Brainshark.com. There’s no charge. You’ll be creating and sharing on-demand presentations in minutes. Simply upload a PowerPoint presentation or other document; add your voice by phone, microphone or MP3; and enhance your content with video clips, photos, surveys, polls, attachments and more. With myBrainshark, you can also analyze the impact of your online presentations by tracking when, how often, and from where your presentation is being viewed via visual dashboards.”

Resources:

My.Brainshark.com website
“Quick Tour” Demo of myBrainshark
How to upload and narrate a PowerPoint Presentation on myBrainshark
Creating Podcasts using myBrainshark
Example of a Podcast using myBrainshark: