Department Training

We have heard from several departments and have scheduled training during your department retreats. If you need to schedule either a department training or would like to receive individual training, please reach out to the IT Help Desk or specifically to Michael Garwood. Contact information for the IT Help Desk can be found in FAQ130.

A special "Hyflex for Discussion-Based Pedagogy" training will be held on Monday 10 August at 2pm in MH207

Please RSVP (whether you're coming in person or attending remotely) at the following link: https://malone-edu.zoom.us/j/98643561896?pwd=RWJxRDNTcDlFbWhVSE1yUGZxYjVZdz09

Delays in Camera Hardware Delivery

The bad news: Despite our best efforts, we do not expect to receive shipment of the Owl Pro cameras until the second week of the semester. The Owl cameras are a key piece of hardware that will allow remote synchronous students to attend classes.

The good news: We are working with our hardware vendor to source alternate temporary hardware that will be in place for the beginning of class that will work almost as well. They have agreed to allow us to return that hardware to them once the Owls are in place.

Zoom and Google Meet

Based on the survey results (thank you to the eighty of you who completed the survey), we have acquired a site license that will allow all teaching faculty access to both platforms for the 2020-2021 academic year. Zoom was chosen as the preferred platform 2:1.

Zoom set up and security updates

We are currently configuring Zoom for Single Sign On. Any faculty who purchased zoom on their own in the spring or who are maintaining their own accounts will want to cancel their personal subscriptions.

We will send out an update to all faculty and staff when the service is ready for use.

Starting 27 September, Zoom will require that all meetings have a Passcode or a Waiting Room enabled for all paid accounts. Read the following article for more information: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360045009111

Google Meet

Google Meet is completely configured and ready to go. We will retain access to the recording and advanced functions for the 2020-21 academic year. Additional features of Google meet (breakout rooms and waiting rooms, etc.) are slated for release in late September. This article outlines those changes: https://www.blog.google/outreach-initiatives/education/new-meet-features-for-edu

Zoom and Google Meet Recording Sharing

The amount of space for storing video on the Zoom platform will need to be managed on a faculty-by faculty basis. For posting recordings of your class times for asynchronous students as well as for review by in-person and synchronous students, please do not retain them in Zoom cloud storage and instead export then upload those files into Moodle or elsewhere. Doing the math on our combined storage, each faculty will have about three hours of storage apiece to manage. Recordings should be offloaded/exported from Zoom cloud and uploaded to Moodle on a daily basis.

Google Meet storage is unlimited and recordings are automatically shared to all meeting invitees. Remember to either give students instructions for accessing the class recordings or upload copies of the recordings into Moodle.

Jamboard Virtual Whiteboards

The whiteboards will not be usable when the class is meeting via Zoom or Meet. The camera cannot adequately pick up any writing on the board. There will be a touchscreen Chromebook with a stylus in each Hyflex classroom that you can use to connect to the Google Jamboard web service.

We recommend that anyone who intends to use the "whiteboard" begin familiarizing yourself with Jamboard as soon as possible. Single sign into Jamboard at: https://jamboard.google.com

You can even begin to set up "jams" ahead of time for your classes and share those by adding the file to your meeting invite or invites. Google will prompt you to share the jam with either read only or edit access to all of the invitees on the event (your students in the case of a class meeting).

A call to faculty who depend heavily upon the whiteboard for teaching. Please reach out to us to talk options. There is a hardware version of the Jamboard. We have one installed in the CL224 tutoring room in the newly renovated Timken Center for Study and Testing in the library. We are considering the addition of one or two of these boards in key classrooms, but need feedback from faculty before investing in the technology further.

Thursday, August 6, 2020

HyFlex Classroom Update for August 6-7