Trying to prep for 20/21

[AlwaysColdHands]

Arghhhh!!
We seem to be gearing up for two scenarios:

1. Blended, with reduced f2f, prioritised for year 1, but expectation that all students will come onto campus at some point (staggered times, small groups etc etc). Logistical nightmare to say the least, all delegated down to academics to propose solutions.

1. Wholly online in case of further lockdown

So I may need to transform an undergrad module into an online version with bells and whistles AND got to take on a new postgrad course. How to do this with no school and nursery ???? Dreading the summer and feeling so stressed about September..........who’s in the same boat? 😥
Misery loves company and all that.....

I think it's inevitable.

Most of them seem to be online only OR business as usual. I don't think they've really thought it through. Also, some of the State governors have made no restrictions at all so they have huge community transition rates.

I'm about to record my first lecture for next semester. Have wandered around the house and found a location with an okay background.

It took AGES to get the information about who was teaching what - I had planned to do this in July! Now it is all crunched into the few weeks before the students return, when I have many other things to do as well...

My teaching is all small group seminars, which is supposed to be face to face, but I still don’t know whether I will have a teaching room and, if so, whether it will be for the usual two hour slot or just for an hour. So, basically, no idea whether I’ll need to create asynchronous materials or not.

I’ve given up even thinking about it. It’s impossible to prepare if you don’t know what you’re preparing for. I’m taking the rest of August off apart from a couple of PGR supervisions.

I feel a lot of us are willing to do things, if we knew what those things were! But this extended period of uncertainty is draining goodwill.

Lecture recording failed. This was one of my few lecture-sized blocks of un-scheduled time. And this lecture needs to be ready in the next three weeks. But apparently the software has updated significantly since I used it at the end of last semester, and my machine doesn't support it anymore. I tried two other devices sitting in my house and failed (Including a brand-new birthday present). But the machines in my office are actually older than the laptop I have - I'm still downloading some things to see if I can make it work. I may need to see if I can go into a lecture theatre and do it - but that needs even more time for the commuting, as I'm not yet allowed back into my office, so it would have to be into lecture theatre and back home. (And not sure I'm willing to make the trip if I'm not guaranteed this won't happen again!)

Yet another reason I wanted to do it months ago... when my software still worked!

Do you need to use that specific software, @murmuration ? Recording on PowerPoint is very simple and effective, and you can export the PPT as a video file and upload it to you university's streaming service very easily. Our academic technology people actually recommend this over the dedicated lecture recording software.

I think we have some choice, but PPT "voice over" is specifically not one of them (although I'm not sure what exactly they're going to do if someone uploads one...I highly suspect some staff may just go ahead and do so) This was the software I understood! If I can't make it work, I will have to explore what the other options are.

That's bonkers. Once you've exported your PPT as a video and added it to the stream, it's just like any other video.

The ones we're meant to use have some kind of online integration with the VLE and it pops into the correct place for the students to see. And you need to record while connected to the internet. But I've definitely heard that you can record offline and upload a video file later, so I don't see how they are going stop people from using any video recorder they like. Although trying to figure out how to do that would be yet another thing, so I'll put my first effort into the ones that work easier. Maybe that's all their hoping... and only the really dedicated or really frustrated will use one of the 'disallowed' methods.

It's looking likely that I will be allowed to teach my UG module online in semester 1 (which is what I requested). We use Yuja for lecture recording and it works fine. If all goes according to plan, I will just need to be on campus for 4 x 2 hour PG classes. I'm planning for all dissertation supervision to be done over Teams.

Is anyone having the joy of learning how to use Blackboard Ultra on top of everything else?

Our stupid streaming service has a fairly small maximum upload and my image heavy lectures and powerpoints are just too fat for it. Oh I am hating this like crazy.....

We have been told to record all lectures now for all teaching up to April. That's about 140 hours of lectures for me to squeeze in to two weeks! And without kids yelling "muuuuuuuummmm" in the background. Impossible!

Are there even 140 hours in the next two weeks??
We in contrast are only allowed to use the recording rooms to record weeks 1-5 of term 1...

I still don’t know what my teaching arrangements are: apparently SOME face to face contact but no timetable. No idea how to plan.

And today, SAGE recommendations are that it should be online by default, at least for the first two weeks.

Would give my right arm for some clarity.

Independent SAGE. Not SAGE.

(Not necessarily disagreeing.)

They also recommend that socialising is restricting to students residential bubbles. This is highly unrealistic (without strict lockdowns being imposed), but at least acknowledges that classes form only a small fraction of the interactions between students.

I feel like its just a sh*t show waiting to happen, to sum it up crudely. I constantly have my head in my hands and the discussions amongst my team show we’re all so stressed trying to work it out (despite all actually being on annual leave at the moment).

(Thank you for the SAGE Clarification) 👍🏻

On that advice:

wonkhe.com/blogs/universities-get-some-sage-advice-on-reopening-campuses/

I’ve just realised that my university will start moving students onto campus earlier than usual so that they can do so in a staggered way. So between that week of moving in, plus freshers week, they’ll have been on campus for over two weeks before they have their first class. Does the university management really think that young people, away from home from the first time, are going to exercise caution and socially distance during that period of free time? Or is it more likely that, as in the US, they’ll be partying away, irrespective of whatever behaviour contract they were made to sign?

I did a lot of online teaching between March and July. My first years were meant to be on placement but werent allowed so with two weeks to prepare we brought the second year theory teaching forward and taught them that online.

We tried some pre-recorded sessions and also live sessions which were also recorded for anyone who,couldn’t make the live. They much preferred the live sessions on BB collaborate so that’s what we’re running with for the new first years.

I’ve always chunked My lectures with group activities breaking stuff up so am just going to do that using the breakout rooms to facilitate that. Not really sure how the timings will work out but will suck it and see.

I'm worried about timings too but I'm also planning to use breakout rooms for discussion. Now to work out how to use them in Teams. I'll see if I can round up 4 colleagues to pretend to be students! DH also uses Teams for work so I suppose we could use 5 devices between us!

@worstofbothworlds

I'm worried about timings too but I'm also planning to use breakout rooms for discussion. Now to work out how to use them in Teams. I'll see if I can round up 4 colleagues to pretend to be students! DH also uses Teams for work so I suppose we could use 5 devices between us!

I think Teams is better than Blackboard you can share documents more easily and the breakout rooms are less clunky.

I am really worried about the impact this is going to have on student mental health and that we are going to get a lot of students who struggle with being isolated and find it difficult to make friends.

I'm going to try a live lesson in Collaborate with a couple of colleagues next week hopefully. The breakout rooms feature seems useful but I need some practice!

Really wish my university would ask students to wear masks during the 6 hours of face to face class time, not just in corridors. The 'bubble' idea is going to be impossible I think. There are too many options so every year group will be mixing...I really don't want to bring covid home to wfh DH and my 3-year-old within weeks of term starting again. I had a bad time with it (most likely, but never tested) in late March and don't know what would happen if I got it again.

Feeling tempted to pack in this career altogether since I can't find any jobs at another uni that's handling this with more logic and sense. One of my female colleagues has put in notice already. But of course I'm overqualified for most normal jobs...and I earn more than DH so it's not easy to just go freelance or something.

Well, at least the sun is shining outside, I should go enjoy it while it lasts...

worstofbothworlds - I found this video quite helpful on how to use breakout rooms in Teams:

Thanks for that. It was useful.

Has anyone switched to blackboard ultra? It’s better than the old version in some ways, but it’s taken me a good week to attend all the training sessions and figure out how to use it. Just what we need when having to prep for online teaching