Carry On Teaching

Provide Your Course Resources Online

In times of planned/unplanned events, offering a class session online is a proactive way to maintain academic continuity when meeting face-to-face is not an option. St. Joseph’s University online Learning Management System, Canvas, provides solutions that allow faculty to engage with their students in a multitude of ways.

Please see this relevant article by The Chronicle of Higher Education: Moving Online Now, How to keep teaching during coronavirus

Fall 2020 Reopening Faculty Meeting - Passcode: KgY8k^H?

Every course section has a corresponding course shell in Canvas. To access your course(s), please log into the MySJC Portal and select the Canvas link located under SJC Applications area. The Dashboard (main page) should contain your current courses; however, clicking on the Courses button will direct you to a full list of your courses.

The Canvas Browser Recommendation page contains the latest information regarding supported Internet browsers when using Canvas.

All courses in Canvas must be published in order for students to have access and receive communication.

Faculty Provided Tutorials

Several faculty members have created tutorials on how to use some of SJC's technology. These tutorials can be found on the Carry On MediaSpace page.

Some instructional video ideas include, but are not limited to, the following:

How to use video messages in discussion posts
How to set up assignments using rubrics and Turnitin within Canvas
How to hold virtual office hours
How to use the Conferences tool in Canvas to hold live, online discussions
Tech tips for promoting class discussion and engagement.

Note: MediaSpace is currently experiencing trouble loading. You may come across an API Error. If this occurs, please refresh the page until the content appears again.

Mobile Access to Canvas

Canvas Teacher App: Instructors can use Canvas’s native iOS and Android apps to accomplish many of the actions available on the full web version. Instructors can: email students, view student progress, post announcements, create and participate in discussions, and easily grade assignments. Download the Canvas Teacher app on Android and iOS devices.

Communicate with Students

Keeping in touch with students is vital during any changes to your class(es)—whether a planned absence on your part, or because of a crisis impacting all or part of campus. You'll want to let students know about changes in schedules, assignments, procedures, and broader course expectations. Early and frequent communication can ease student anxiety, and save you dealing with individual questions.

Announcements Add announcements for due dates for assignments and projects, changes to your syllabus, corrections/clarifications of materials, and exam schedules. Adding an announcement will generate an email notification students. The Canvas course must be published to send announcement notifications.
Inbox (email): You can use Inbox to communicate with individual students or groups of students without having to enter email addresses in your regular email. Make sure your Canvas course is published to use this feature and that you have placed a nickname on your course card located on the dashboard. The nickname needs to include the course term, SP20, FA20, etc..to easily select the correct course to email.

Discussions: Canvas provides an integrated system for class discussions, allowing both instructors and students to start, and contribute to as many discussion topics as desired. Discussions can be graded or ungraded, and participants can post text, video, and audio, as well as files depending on how the instructor sets up each topic. Graded discussions seamlessly integrate with the Canvas Gradebook. Discussions allow for interactive communication between an entire class or group, allowing for a level of engagement that closely aligns with the in-class experience. Discussions are asynchronous.
- - For ideas on creating discussion topics, please see the various tip sheets located within Canvas Discussions.

Additional Resources

Emailing Students from Student Planning

Faculty may email students directly from the Roster tab located within the Section Details of a course in student planning. Gmail must be set as the default mail service prior to emailing.

Please follow the links below to set Gmail as the default in the Chrome and Firefox browsers.

Firefox Browser - Changing the Use Mail (default) link
Chrome Browser - Changing the Default Mail Option

For more information on Student Planning, go to Self-Service - Search for Sections.

Post Key Class Materials

Modules: Use modules to share asynchronous content. In a module, you can add pages, files, assignments, quizzes, external URL, and external tools. You can hide or show entire modules or specific items in a module.

SJC Course Templates: Faculty can now download course templates from Canvas Commons. There are three templates that you can download directly into your Canvas course shell.

SJC Course Template: A course template is available for faculty to import into their course shells. This provides a full course template which includes a Getting Started module, Overview pages, and Reflection Questions for synchronous meetings with your students. Watch the video titled SJC Course Template.

SJC Virtual/Hybrid Synchronous Courses: You can download a template of this course to use in your own canvas course shell. The template course provides an example of a 14-week course structure that includes a Homepage, Getting Started, and Overview pages (either on campus or zoom) that you can modify for your use. You can also refer to the virtual and hybrid synchronous course requirements document as you are building/designing your course.

Add course content such as your class notes, readings, and presentations.
Syllabus: Use this tool to share your syllabus.
SJC Academic Integrity - Post this document within your Canvas course as a reminder about academic integrity. You can have a discussion with your students and have them sign off or acknowledge the pledge.

Hold a Synchronous Class Online with Zoom

Zoom: Zoom is now integrated with Canvas. Zoom makes it easy to conduct synchronous (real-time) lectures for all users in a course. Once a meeting is started, you will use the navigation bar to moderate the conference. You will be able to share your audio, slides, chat, video, and desktop with students, helping you create a fully online experience. Tools like built-in polling makes it easy to engage students, and the ability to record your lectures means that you can make them available for later review.
Logging into Zoom and Hosting a Meeting: This video will walk you through using the host features of Zoom when you are the host of a meeting. To ensure you have full host functionality when hosting a Zoom meeting, you need to log into Zoom before entering your meeting.

Zoom Bombing and How to Avoid

You have probably read about a new form of trolling in which a participant uses Zoom’s screen sharing feature to interrupt meetings and classes. This is known as Zoom Bombing. Unfortunately, this has started to happen in the remote classroom environment here at St. Joseph’s University.

Please see the following document on Zoom Bombing and How to Avoid

Student instructions:

Students: Joining a Zoom Meeting

If you do not see Zoom on the course menu, you need to do the following:

Enter the Settings link within the course and Select the Navigation tab
Locate the Zoom link, click on the 3 dots and select Enable
Scroll to the bottom of the screen and click on Save

Sample Announcement or Email to Use for Moving Lecture to Zoom. Shared by Lisa Tafuro, PhD.

SPC325 Online Video Conference: Chapter 4, Phonation
Hi Everyone! In lieu of tomorrow's face-to-face Thursday class meeting, we're going to try a 'virtual' meeting, online, using video and audio. All you need is a laptop with a camera and microphone. If you don't have access to this technology, please reach out privately via email. For ease and simplicity, let's plan to meet ONLINE tomorrow during our regularly scheduled class time, Thursday, 3/12 at 3:10PM. Once online, I will explain how we are going to proceed with the course content. In preparation for our online meeting, please read and take notes on Chapter 4, Phonation. If you are not able to be present for the online meeting, the video conference will be recorded for your convenience. If you do not attend, please be sure to watch the recording and check in with your classmates as a group/collaborative assignment will be explained in detail. Copy and paste the following URL link into your browser for instructions, if you have trouble joining the conference: https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-12731-4152720127

In the Event of a Zoom Outage

In the event Zoom is experiencing issues, there are alternatives for meeting with students.

Google Meet - Host a meeting with your students through Google Meet.
Canvas Conferences - Host a meeting through Canvas Conferences from within your Canvas course.

Additional Resources:

Assess Your Students

Resources for Assessment

Canvas Tools for Assessment.

Assignments: Use this tool to collect student assignments, including documents, links, videos. You can then use Speedgrader to grade them with rich annotations and media comments. Once your assignment is created, make sure to add it to a Canvas module so students can easily access it. If you assign a video assignment, be sure to provide students with the following instructions: Kaltura Info for Students.
Note: Make sure you provide instructions to your students on how to access feedback you provide via Speedgrader. Select the Grades link, click on the title of the assignment, click on the View Feedback link.
Quizzes: Use this tool to design your quiz or tests. You can create a quiz with individual questions or you can create a question bank (pool of questions) to randomize quiz questions on a quiz.You can scramble the questions and/or answers, time each attempt, assign password for access, etc. Read on for more tips to keep your quizzes secure.
Turnitin: Turnitin is a plagiarism checker software that is integrated into Canvas. Student work can be compared against a database of websites and previous paper submissions from within the course and other courses, as well as other schools and universities.
SJC Synchronous Reflections Options: You can download a module on Reflection Questions for synchronous meetings with your students. The module contains four assignment examples, five discussion examples, and three quiz examples. Watch the video titles SJC Synchronous Reflections Options.
SJC Academic Integrity - Post this document within your Canvas course as a reminder about academic integrity. You can have a discussion with your students and have them sign off or acknowledge the pledge.

Accommodating your Students

If your students have testing accommodations that require additional time or cannot take the quiz with the general population of the class due to certain circumstances, you can accommodate that student based on their needs. Canvas allows you to change the quiz date and duration for a particular student.
As with quizzes, students may also require assignments due dates to be changed because of unforeseen circumstances. We advise that you first have a conversation with your student prior to making changes within your Canvas assignment or test.

Record a Lecture

Kaltura Personal Capture: Use this tool to easily create audio, video, and/or computer screen recordings. Kaltura can be accessed from within your Canvas course from the My Media link located on the course navigation menu. Created content can be embedded into a Canvas page for easy student viewing.
To request access to the Kaltura Interactive Video course, please send an email to techhelp@sjcny.edu.
Students must update browser settings for viewing Kaltura videos. Copy the following link and add to your Canvas course: Kaltura Known Issues and Resolutions.
Quick start to install Kaltura:

Windows Users: Click here to follow 10 quick steps
Mac Users: Click here to follow 10 quick steps.

SJC Libraries Remote Services & Support

Please visit SJC Libraries Remote Services & Support for information about accessing library resources from off campus locations.