QUERCUS SUPPORT
Quercus Course Quick Set-Up List for Instructors
10 Step-list to quickly set up and publish your Quercus Course
Perhaps this summer has both felt very long and very quick - but, it's Labour Day weekend, which means that the first day of class is not very far away. Many of you likely have plans to put the polishing touches on your Quercus courses. We are sharing this 10-step set up guideline to help you focus your limited hours and help to ensure that you're starting your course on the right note. This guide takes you from your starting point (customizing your Quercus dashboard) right through the middle (organizing your course content) and finishes with publishing your course (and sending a welcome announcement).
If you're at the end of a longer re-design process, you might be interested in a more in-depth checklist - see the full Remote/Online Course Design Checklist. This longer, more detailed guide takes you through online/remote course design strategies and provides practical ways to implement evidence-based effective strategies. This checklist is ideal both for assessing your implemented course design (do you have everything? did you miss anything?) and as a starting point to begin thinking about course design.
|
|
Are you re-using materials?
When using content online/remotely, copyright usually remains similar to the use outlined for in-person courses. There are exceptions (you can contact your local librarian at the Engineering and Computer Science Library). Fortunately, you're not on your own during this process - there are resources that help ensure that you are using content within your class fairly and equitably. |
|
|
NEW EDTECH TOOL
Zoom is provisionally licensed for one year at U of T
Just in the nick of time, U of T is providing pro Zoom accounts to faculty, staff and teaching assistants (and hopefully students in the near future).
Set up your Zoom account (based on scenarios)
Many already have Zoom accounts, whether they were licensed divisionally, were purchased independently, or were perhaps basic (free) accounts provided during Zoom's "free" period at the end of Winter 2020's term. If you have an existing Zoom account using your @utoronto.ca email address, you'll want to find your situation within one of the account scenarios on the Academic and Collaborative Technology (ACT) Zoom Information resource.
Review how to administer your Zoom account in your course
Once you've figured out your account set up, please review the management of Zoom within your course. Since the tool is not integrated into Quercus, it requires a bit more manual work to embed into your Quercus course. We've covered the major steps on our guide to administering Zoom, including how to decide if Zoom is the right webinar tool for you, setting up your paid Zoom account, scheduling Zoom session, sharing links to the sessions to your course (so students can attend), recording your sessions, and uploading your recordings to a streaming services, and, finally, sharing those recordings back to your students via Quercus.
Curious about other webinar tools? See our comparison table detailing which webinar tool you could use (and when). Many will use a combination of tools, based on the type of activity they are running, and this is absolutely ok. The key thing is to consider the benefits and drawbacks of each tool and ensure that they align to the type of session you are hosting. |
|
|
In recent EdTech Lessons Learned Session, "The Quirkiness of Quercus: Debriefing on the U of T Engineering Academy," outreach coordinator Claire Heymans shares her experiences with building a program to support (over 900!) students online as they transition from a (truncated) high school year into first year. She reviewed strategies implemented to foster community building, shared successes with ice breaker activities, and even a few tricks to make sure students are reading right to the end of your posts. |
 |
|
NEW EDTECH TOOL
Crowdmark is available Faculty-wide!
Another news item hot off the proverbial presses is that Crowdmark will be officially licensed across the Faculty for the upcoming academic year (thank you Alex Tichine!). Crowdmark is particularly effective for assessments that involve uploading digitally scanned handwritten work for marking and feedback. To help you decide which assessment tool is right for you, see our comparison table that features Quercus Quizzes, Quercus Assignments, and Crowdmark Assigned Assessments.
How can you get started with Crowdmark?
-
If you'd like to learn more about Crowdmark, please register for one of their upcoming "Moving your Assessments Online" sessions.
-
Review the "how to administer Crowdmark in your course" documentation on how to manage the Crowdmark workflow.
-
If you do not have an existing Crowdmark account, please email fase.edtech@utoronto.ca for a "magic link" that will allow you to create your account.
-
For any technical questions, please contact Crowdmark support directly at support@crowdmark.com.
|
|
Several innovation projects leveraging virtual labs developed by Labster have been undertaken in undergraduate and graduate contexts at U of T in recent years. Faced with the challenge of remote teaching in the coming months, the use of these online labs on common STEM topics may provide an effective option for additional courses across many program areas. For more information about the Labster platform, please see: Everything you need to know about virtual labs.
Congratulations to FASE profs participating in the pilot: Prof. Dawn Kilkenny, Prof. Jon Rocheleau, Prof. Jennifer Farmer, Prof. Ariel Chan, and Prof. Frank Gu! |
|
|
EDTECH WEBINARS
Upcoming Bb Collaborate Sessions
Please join the EdTech Office staff for a session on teaching with Bb Collaborate! We are running two identical sessions on two different dates. Blackboard Collaborate Ultra (Bb Collaborate) is UofT’s institutional web conferencing tool (see their getting started with Bb Collaborate guide). With Bb Collaborate, you can meet with students in real-time for lectures/webinars, tutorials, and online office hours. The sessions are open to everyone in the FASE community - instructors, teaching assistants, staff - if you're using Bb Collaborate, this session will be useful to you.
To get you ready to use Bb Collaborate in your Quercus courses, we are offering a "Teaching with Bb Collaborate Ultra" session. In the session, you will learn how to set up Bb Collaborate Ultra in your Quercus course (see how to enable it in your Quercus course) and how to use its interactive features to facilitate teaching and learning remotely.
How can I register for the session?
To register for an upcoming session, click on a registration link below (the sessions will be the same; select which works best for your schedule):
What should I do if I can't attend the session?
If you cannot attend the session, please use the above sign up forms to indicate that you'd like to receive a recording. We'd be happy to email you one after the session is completed.
Miss one of the previous lessons learned webinars?
You can watch all 8 of the EdTech Lessons Learned webinars via the button below. |
|
EDTECH OFFICE BLOG
Recent blog posts
|
|
TRAINING AND SUPPORT
This week's top EdTech questions:
-
How do I add automatic captions for MyMedia videos? When adding captions to your videos, using both Microsoft Stream in conjunction with MyMedia can provide captions and video privacy.
-
How do I convert an existing @utoronto.ca basic Zoom account to a U of T pro account? This was one experience when converting an account. There have been reports of small variances, but this is the general gist of the process.
-
How can I request a MyMedia account for my course? If you are uploading video content for a course, it might make sense (we would recommend this) to request a MyMedia account specifically for each course versus uploading video under one teaching team member's UTORid. This allows access to see the videos regardless of who uploaded the content and it can be helpful to provide some organization to your videos by course.
-
How do I publish a course? You must publish a course before students can access it and its contents. Students cannot see unpublished courses and content.
-
What are the latest updates for Microsoft Teams? This month, the University of Toronto community can expect to see several updates to their Microsoft Teams experience. With these updates come several new and useful features that will enable staff and faculty across the University to make the most of their online meetings.
|
|
|
Looking for 1-1 support? We're happy to schedule individual (or teaching team) consultation(s) to review your course and current stage of design. |
|
|
|
|
|
