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Urgent Tech Needs

If you're here, you are likely in class or just about to start class and have pressing tech questions. This site will quickly guide you to the resources you need to make quick decisions.

Getting a DTEN and Other Tech

Does your room have a DTEN - NLU's companion touch screen for bimodal course delivery? Here is a list of Rooms with DTENS

Do you need a DTEN, Teleconferencing Audio, or other technology?

Contact LITS: On Campus: Extension 4357; Off Campus: (866) 813-1177; Email: helpdesk@nl.edu

These videos will guide you through connecting your DTEN to your Zoom room. You will be asked to log-in to access the Panopto videos below.

Introduction to the DTEN board

As a general rule, launch Zoom from your laptop first, then connect the DTEN to your Zoom room.

Then, you'll want to share your laptop audio with the DTEN board, so students on Zoom and in the Classroom can hear any media you're sharing.

Quick Decisions

Do you have students who suddenly cannot attend class? 

Here's a Bimodal Decision Tree to help guide your next move.

If you decide to run class bimodally, the resources in the drop-downs below can help.

Should you decide that a Bimodal option is not ideal, please see the ideas for make-up assignments in the drop-down below.

Bimodal Adaptation for Group work
  1. Use breakout rooms to group online students into small groups of 2-5 students in Zoom.
  2. Group F2F students in similar size groups. Ask at least one student from each group to join Zoom.
  3. Assign each online and F2F group a task (reading, topic to research, controversial debate issue, authentic challenge from the field of study) and let them get to work on it.
  4. After some time to discuss in their small groups, pair a group of F2F students with an online group and ask them to share their progress on the task.
  5. Ask the groups to present (with participation from at least one online and one F2F student).

*If muting audio in the classroom so online students can discuss, be sure to monitor chat.
**DTEN essentially joins class as a participant. It can be moved to each breakout room as a way for you to “rotate” around the digital space. 

Bimodal Adaptation for Slides that Need Work
  1. Create a set of class notes with blanks for important information or with incorrect information.
  2. Post one set of slides to D2L for F2F students and share one set of slides in Zoom chat.
  3. Offer a competition between F2F and online students to see which team can find all the errors/omissions in the slides first.

*If muting audio in the classroom so online students can discuss, be sure to monitor chat. 

Bimodal Adaptation for Fishbowl
  1. Ask students to record themselves completing a task using Screencastify (Chrome Extension).
  2. Then, play the video for the class and have students submit notes using Padlet, Google docs, or Jamboard - or just provide feedback as a group.

*Add Chrome Extension - Students may need to pin the extension to find it later. Clicking the puzzle piece in the upper right corner of Chrome will help them pin the extension. See image here. Click here for a Screencastify Overview Video

Pro/Con List
  1. Use Google Docs to create two versions of a pro/con list for a topic.
  2. Assign one to online students, assign the other to F2F students.
  3. After 10 minutes, swap the pro/con lists and students to weigh in the other list.
  4. Come together and solicit feedback from all, ensuring that you hear from a mix of online and F2F students
Concept Map - Swap for Feedback
  1. Use Jamboard to create two slides, each with a different concept map.
  2. Assign F2F students to one map and online students to the other.
  3. Students can use post-its or images to build the concept map.
  4. After 10-15 minutes, ask students to switch to the other map and provide feedback.
  5. Come together and solicit feedback from all, ensuring that you hear from a mix of online and F2F students
Concept Map - Station Rotation
  1. Create several concept maps in Jamboard.
  2. Create several breakout rooms online and several small tables of F2F students.
  3. Assign each breakout room and F2F table a different Jamboard Slide.
  4. After about 10 minutes, have groups rotate to a different Jamboard Slide.
  5. Come together and solicit feedback from all, ensuring that you hear from a mix of online and F2F students.
Collaborative Summaries - Ask students to summarize an article, piece of research, news article, video, etc.
  1. Create several concept maps in Jamboard.
  2. Create several breakout rooms online and several small tables of F2F students.
  3. Assign each breakout room and F2F table a different Jamboard Slide
  4. After about 10 minutes, have groups rotate to a different Jamboard Slide.
  5. Come together and solicit feedback from all, ensuring that you hear from a mix of online and F2F students.

*If the article/media is short, this could be done repeatedly, or as a station rotation.

Article Review

Option 1:

Find a current event article on a news site that relates to themes from the week’s content. In 1-2 pages, reflect on the following questions:

  1. What perspective are you bringing to this article? How do your life experiences impact how you interpret this article? Will this bias your interpretation of the article?
  2. What cultural impacts do you note? For example, what commentaries does the article make or present regarding different nationalities, races, religions, sexual orientations, or socio-economic statuses?
  3. What themes do you note in this article? Identify 1-2 themes and explain their significance.
  4. How does this article or the themes you identified in question #2 relate to what you’ve learned so far in the course?

Option 2:

Identify a current event article that relates to themes from the week’s content. In 1-2 pages, reflect on the following questions:

  1. What perspective are you bringing to this article? How do your life experiences impact how you interpret this article? Will this bias your interpretation of the article?
  2. What cultural impacts do you note? For example, what commentaries does the article make or present regarding different nationalities, races, religions, sexual orientations, or socio-economic statuses?
  3. What themes do you note in this article? Identify 1-2 themes and explain their significance.
  4. How does this article or the themes you identified in question #2 relate to what you’ve learned so far in the course?

TedTalk Analysis

Find a TedTalk related to this week’s content, or by a speaker you respect.

  1. Explain why the speaker inspires you. Why do you connect with them?
  2. What biases might the speaker have?
  3. What cultural impacts do you note? For example, what commentaries does the person make or present regarding different nationalities, races, religions, sexual orientations, or socio-economic statuses?
  4. From your perspective, how does the speaker’s message relate to the content from the course this week?

Create Your Own TedTalk

After reviewing this week’s materials and readings, think of a personal experience that connects to the content. Tell that story and detail what connects the story to the course content from this week. Record your telling of the story on your phone or laptop (using Panopto in D2L). The length of this video will depend on your story.

Semi-structured Interview

Conduct an interview to learn about this week's content in a different way. You might choose someone working in the field or someone who works with professionals in the field. For example, you might interview a teacher, or a school counselor who works with teachers regularly. You may interview a police officer, or case worker from a local clinic, who might work with officers from time to time.

Use this week's material to develop one or two topics for your interview. Then, develop 2-3 questions to understand each topic through your interviewee's perspective. Ask any follow-up questions as the conversation develops.

Submit your questions along with the responses (or recording, if the interviewee agreed to be recorded). In addition, include a brief summary of your impressions of the interview. What emotions or thoughts (yours or theirs) stood out to you? Also, identify any cultural themes that you note. For example, what commentaries does the interviewee make or present regarding different nationalities, races, religions, sexual orientations, or socio-economic statuses? 

Google Trends

Google shows the statistics of all of the queries it gets. Head to trends.googl.com and enter "Covid-19" as an example of how this site works. Note that it sets "Past 12-months" as a default.  This can be changed to different time frames to better understand how people searched this topic at different times. You can also scroll down on the page to see related topics and queries. This gives you an idea of what people are interested in knowing about the topic.

After reading this week's assigned readings, use this site to search for one or two themes relevant to this week's content. Is there a great deal of engagement with this topic on Google (see the Interest Over Time graph)? Why might some parts of the country be more interested in this topic (see the US Map)? What are the related topics and queries (below the US Map)?  

Present your findings in 2-3 PowerPoint slides. In addition to mentioning trends in engagement from the questions above, what does this data mean to you? What insights does it give you into the themes you searched?

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