Multiple Tools for Multiple Means

If you need some inspiration for communicating your expectations, take a look at the first column of these grids! On the last page in this module, we learned about presenting information effectively and equitably. With those considerations in mind, see if there are applications that will help you to communicate across modalities, or to use these applications to cover those other domains of the community of inquiry model: social, teacher, cognitive.

Also remember to try to keep most of your communication in the “low-bandwidth” half of this matrix:

Bandwidth vs Immediacy Matrix

You’ve likely already used a few of these applications—VoiceThread might be the newest one that you’ve used, but that is the application we used to complete the Anticipatory Discussion Activity where you identified the “core” of your course.

Audio & Video Recording
Description: A media recording that allows an instructor to share a web cam, a separate video recording, and audio simultaneously: think “talking head” videos.

Applications

Examples

Considerations & Cautions

Guides & Instructions
Kaltura Capture
  • Create short videos explaining how engage with the learning resources for the week.
  • Create short snippets of your lectures to help students through the muddiest point.
  • Create brief recordings of yourself explaining an assignment prompt.
  • Ask a guest lecturer to send you a video introducing themselves to include in a transcribed interview. Host the video in Kaltura
  • Ask your students to record short responses to discussion prompts.
  • Ask your students to respond to larger in-depth questions using a video as the medium.
 This is the tool that is most often used for audio and video recordings. CATL and UW System have A LOT of documentation about it.

Kaltura recordings would be considered high-bandwidth.

Check your upload speed, using a tool like Speedtest. If it’s slow for you, consider how long it might take a student to download it.

Video size matters. A 250 MB video can take, on average, a little more than a half-hour to upload.

Remember to make short videos; student’s internet may not allow them to stream the content.

Consider making the video “downloadable.”

Create captions or an alternate way to get the same information in a different format (e.g. captions, transcript, written out instructions).

 Although there are many different tools you can use to create media pieces for your course, within the UW System, we recommend using Kaltura Capture for creating media content.

For general information about using Kaltura as we strive to reach students online, please see Kaltura— Continuity of Service.

  1. First, follow the instructions to download and install Kaltura Capture.
  2. Next, you will want to familiarize yourself with the user interface of Kaltura Capture.
Canvas Media Feedback in SpeedGrader In SpeedGrader, an instructor can leave students media feedback: video and audio, or just audio. Some weirdness with Adobe Flash might make using Safari to leave media comments difficult.

Can sometimes be more efficient when offering students feedback on their assignments.

 Here is the Canvas guide for leaving feedback within SpeedGrader.
Zoom
  • Create short recording during your synchronous session explaining how engage with the learning resources for the week.
  • Create short snippets of your lectures to help students through the muddiest point.
  • Create brief recordings of yourself explaining an assignment prompt.
  • Record parts of a synchronous session to allow all students to hear what a guest lecturer might say
 Zoom’s primary functionality is as a synchronous web meeting tool. You can record web meetings and presentations, and you can store those recordings within a recordings area. For more information on Zoom, see these guides.
Microsoft Teams
  • Create short videos explaining how engage with the learning resources for the week.
  • Create short snippets of “the muddiest point” if you use Teams to present information to students.
  • Create brief recordings of yourself explaining an assignment prompt.
  • Record parts of a synchronous session to allow all students to hear what a guest lecturer might say
  • Ask your students to record short responses to discussion prompts.
  • Ask your students to respond to larger in-depth questions using a video as the medium.
 Microsoft Teams was created to help people communicate synchronously and asynchronously; but it was not intended for longterm video storage. If you create recordings, and want to keep them, remember to download them to store in Kalutra. Here is the Microsoft Teams guide from the IT Help Desk.

 

Audio Recordings or Podcasts
Description: Audio only recordings that may or may not be edited for presentation to students. Instructors could record audio and upload to Canvas/share elsewhere; or record and edit the audio to create something they’ll use over and over.

Applications

Examples

Considerations & Cautions

Guides & Instructions
Canvas Media Feedback in SpeedGrader In SpeedGrader, an instructor can leave students media feedback.

An instructor could also use the speech to text button in SpeedGrader to quickly add text to a student’s feedback file.

 Some weirdness with Adobe Flash might make using Safari to leave audio comments difficult.

Can sometimes be more efficient in offering students feedback.

 Here is the Canvas guide for leaving feedback within SpeedGrader.
Kaltura Capture
  • Create short audio recordings of you explaining assignments.
  • Create short audio recordings of you responding to general feedback from discussions.
  • Create short audio recordings of you reading through some quotes you’ve pulled from the readings to accompany a guided questions reading sheet.
  • Record an interview with a guest lecturer and post it, as well as a transcript in your course.
  • Ask students to respond to discussion prompts with a summary statement to accompany their textual discussion.
 Remember to make the equivalent information in the audio recording available via transcript or alternative representation Here are the recording options available via Kaltura Capture recorder.
Audacity Each of the examples above could be accomplished with Audacity; however you would still need to host the files you make in Audacity within Kaltura so that it’s cloud hosted.

Audacity allows you to edit your audio within the recording window.

This might allow you some flexibility if you want to develop audio editing skills!

 Audacity is an open source application—the IT Help Desk does not have administrator privileges, so only use this if you’re confident in your own ability to troubleshoot.

Remember to make the equivalent information in the audio recording available via transcript or alternative representation

 Here is where you can download Audacity for your operating system.

Here is the online manual for Audacity.

 

Screen Recordings or Screencasts
Description: A media recording of a person’s desktop, specific application screen (like PowerPoint) that usually also captures the web cam’s audio.

Applications

Examples

Considerations & Cautions

Guides & Instructions
Kaltura Capture
  • Record yourself going over an assignment prompt while Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat is open.
  • Record yourself solving a problem using Excel functions.
  • Record yourself filling out a graphic organizer that students might use to complete readings for the week.
  • Record yourself as you “Think Aloud” through a problem set.
  • Record yourself annotating a draft student paper so that students know how you use a rubric.
 Kaltura Capture was built to address this issue: wanting to record your screen and audio.

It has tools built into  allow you to draw on your screen, immediately clear it, and draw polygons to highlight specific parts of your screen.

Try to keep the recording(s) under 10 minutes given the drop off rate, and streaming considerations.

 Here is a guide from CATL about how to use the Kaltura Capture recorder.
Microsoft Teams
  • Hold a brief synchronous meeting where you might go over an assignment with a group of students–record it and then upload it to Kaltura.
  • Ask students to share their screen and record their session to illustrate how to “do” an assignment–record it, and upload it to Kaltura. This could be particularly good for Office Hours or TA study sessions.
  • Create short screen recordings by sharing your desktop and recording the meeting  to show students how to navigate the course.
 This might be a good option for recording part of a synchronous online meeting with the class where you’re reviewing an assignment prompt or problem set by sharing your desktop.

Try to keep the recording(s) under 10 minutes given the drop off rate, and streaming considerations.

Remember that since this is a video you might want to consider the plus-1 ideas for making transcripts of equivalent information.

 Here is the Microsoft Teams guide from the IT Help Desk.
Zoom
  • Hold a brief synchronous meeting where you might go over an assignment with a group of students–record it in Zoom, download it, and then upload it to Kaltura (consider adding captions!).
  • Ask students to share their screen and record their session to illustrate how to “do” an assignment–record it, and upload it to Kaltura. This could be particularly good for Office Hours or TA study sessions.
  • Create short screen recordings by sharing your screen and recording the online meeting  to show students how to navigate the course.
 This might be a good option for recording part of a synchronous online meeting with the class, but remember to keep the recording(s) under 10 minutes given the drop off rate, and streaming considerations.

Remember that since this is a video you might want to consider the plus-1 ideas for making transcripts of equivalent information.

 For more information about using Zoom, see this handy guide.

 

 

Collaborative Annotation
Description: A document that can be edited by more than one person at once, or allows more than one user to author a document using comments or direct in-line editing.

Applications

Examples

Considerations & Cautions

Guides & Instructions
Office 365
  • Post your syllabus in Office 365 and share a link with your students that will allow them to comment on the document. They can ask questions about your expectations and you can respond or change the document as needed.
  • Post an example of an assignment that needs work; ask students to use a rubric to “assess” the assignment and give the example paper/assignment feedback. This could be a preliminary exercise for a paper so that students know what to expect.
 Office365 and OneDrive are applications that the IT Help Desk supports. You can rest assured knowing that should your students need more support, we have someone that they can reach out to. How to collaboratively edit a Word Online document
VoiceThread
  • You could post your syllabus as the artifact upon which you would like students to provide comments within VoiceThread.
  • You could post a scan of a reading and have students add comments to it about points that need clarification.
  • You could post a document with questions on it so that students can add their threads to it.
  • You could post a rubric for your course and add audio/video clarification at the criterion where most students get hung up.
 VoiceThread is integrated into Canvas, but VoiceThread also has a help form here. How to use VoiceThread
Google Documents
  • Post your syllabus as a Google Doc and share a link with your students that will allow them to comment on the document. They can ask questions about your expectations and you can respond or change the document as needed. Remember if you share a link where anyone can comment, students could post questions anonymously.
  • Post an example of an assignment that needs work; ask students to use a rubric to “assess” the assignment and give the example paper/assignment feedback. This could be a preliminary exercise for a paper so that students know what to expect.
 Google applications are not something that the IT Help Desk supports, but many students tend to use Google Docs because they’re more familiar with how to use its features. Google Docs Help Center with more information about collaborating and sharing documents.

 

Annotated Assignments & Examples
Description: A method for explaining expectations that allows instructors to use anonymized student work from past courses, fabricated examples the instructor has created themselves for purposes of demonstration, or combinations of parts of student work to provide students with concrete examples of what they are assessing.

Application

Examples

Cautions & Considerations

Guides & Instructions
Kaltura Capture
  • Record yourself walking through using a rubric to assess a student artifact.
  • Record yourself walking through multiple parts of multiple examples where parts of student work was good where some of the work needs more development.
 Remember to make short videos; student’s internet may not allow them to stream the content Here are the instructions to download and install Kaltura Capture. Here you can familiarize yourself with the user interface of Kaltura Capture
Office 365
  • Post an anonymous example of an assignment that needs work; ask students to use a rubric to “assess” the assignment and give the example paper/assignment feedback. This could be a preliminary exercise for a paper so that students know what to expect.
  • Post an example of a student’s work and then add comments to it. Share a link with your students that will allow them to comment but not edit.
 Office365 and OneDrive are applications that the IT Help Desk supports. You can rest assured knowing that should your students need more support, we have someone that they can reach out to. How to collaboratively edit a Word Online document
VoiceThread  

  • You could post a scan of a reading and have students add comments to it about points that need clarification.
  • You could post a document with questions on it so that students can add their threads to it.
  • You could post a rubric for your course and add audio/video clarification at the criterion where most students get hung up.
 VoiceThread is integrated into Canvas, but VoiceThread also has a help form here. How to use VoiceThread
Google Documents
  • Post an anonymous example of an assignment that needs work; ask students to use a rubric to “assess” the assignment and give the example paper/assignment feedback. This could be a preliminary exercise for a paper so that students know what to expect.
  • Post an example of a student’s work and then add comments to it. Share a link with your students that will allow them to comment but not edit. Remember that if you share a link that allows “anyone to comment” students can post comments anonymously.
 Google applications are not something that the IT Help Desk supports, but many students tend to use Google Docs because they’re more familiar with how to use its features. Google Docs Help Center with more information about collaborating and sharing documents.