The Emergency Response In response to the coronavirus pandemic, FIU transitioned over 400 face-to-face classes to remote learning. It was no small task. Success not only depended on the cooperation of different FIU administrative bodies, but the patience, ingenuity, and creativity of faculty, students, and instructional designers. To observers of higher education, the current health […]
Category: Online Educators
So You Think You Can Zoom?
At this point, several weeks into remote learning, we’re all debating whether we need to download Tik Tok and we’ve become experts at Zoom. Or have we? Zoombombing – Protecting Your Class Zoombombing was added to our vocabulary in March as stories started emerging about hackers “crashing” zoom classrooms to disrupt chats, display inappropriate backgrounds, […]
Course Copies: Updating Your Summer Courses
In late March, it was announced that FIU’s Summer 2020 A & C semesters would continue as remote or online only. As we continue with remote learning, you may want to begin preparing your summer courses. If not building your course from “scratch,” you might need to perform course copies to get existing content into […]
Emotionally Intelligent Online Teaching
Leading Distance Learners Through Uncertainty In the quick pivot to all-online teaching, faculty everywhere are rising to the challenge of implementing practical and innovative ways to preserve academic continuity amid campus closures. They also find themselves in a peculiar position of leadership. Whether their courses were online all along, or are part of the overnight […]
Rapid Remote Learning Activities
Online Teaching Techniques for Quick Course Conversions As campuses worldwide take steps to prevent outbreaks of COVID-19, faculty are suddenly challenged to quickly pivot face-to-face classes into the online learning world. This rapid switch to remote teaching offers a fantastic opportunity to explore new approaches to engaging students in our materials. However, the urgency surrounding […]
Harnessing the Power of the Feedback Box
Impactful Feedback Most instructors rely on end of term evaluations to collect student feedback; at which point, it is too late to make any significant changes. Rather than relying on post-mortem analytics, the Feedback Box Canvas integration allows faculty to address areas of concern throughout the current term, providing opportunities for intentional reflection on potential […]
Accessibility: Designing for All Students
What Is Accessibility? Most likely you’ve heard about web accessibility. You may be aware of the Disability Resource Center (DRC) at FIU. You probably have received a notification about a student in your course who needs accommodations. However, accessibility encompasses more than extending deadlines or allowing extra time for exams – the most common accommodations […]
EdTech Tools to Increase Student Engagement
PlayPosit: Increase Engagement with Videos Using videos in online learning may not sound ground-breaking or innovative, but that’s because you’re not using PlayPosit yet. PlayPosit is a tool that provides an intuitive, easy-to-use editing platform for creating interactive videos, also known as “bulbs.” You can use videos you create or content you have curated from […]
Teaching Diverse Learners
FIU Online’s monthly Faculty Webinar series explores relevant instructional strategies and effective ways to use technology in an online classroom. The latest webinar offered best practices and tips for teaching diverse learners using Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Multiple Intelligence Theory (MI) to meet the varying learning needs of a highly diverse student population. […]
FIU brings Virtual Reality to Realities 360
Bright minds convene each year in San Jose, California, to discuss the latest developments in the use of virtual reality for training and education at the Realities 360 conference. For the past two years, FIU faculty and staff have been among them, presenting their innovative work to an audience of peers. Realities 360-Futures Made Of […]