Log in to your Canvas course. In Canvas, any place that has a Rich Content Editor like a page, assignment or announcement can have a video embedded.
In any Rich Content Editor, click on the rainbow sun Kaltura Media button (see below), and select the video you would like to embed. This will upload the video to Kaltura and place it in your content, once you save.
Using the Media Gallery
Log in to your Canvas course, and choose Media Gallery from the course sidebar. If you are do not see the Media Gallery option:
Go to Settings in the course sidebar.
Select the Navigation tab.
Find the Media Gallery menu item, click the cog (gear) icon, and choose Enable.
Click Save at the bottom of the page to update the course sidebar.
Click Add New.
Select Media Upload.
Click Choose a file to upload.
Select the file you wish to upload from the file manager.
Give the file a name, description, and any desired tags.
Select the proper permission from the Copyright Permissions drop-down menu.
This work, “Sharing video in Canvas using Kaltura”, is a derivative of “Lectures” on a website created by CTLT, used under CC BY. “Sharing video in Canvas using Kaltura” is licensed under CC BY-NC by ETS.
No. Online courses are not typically offered as online correspondence courses. Students progress through the course as a group or cohort, engage in activities together, collaborate and submit assignments by the same due date, with all of this facilitated by the instructor.
How should I think about my course, now that it will be online?
Thinking about adapting a face-to-face course to an online format will require some ingenuity and learning of new strategies and tools. The most important thing to remember is that this is an iterative process that you don’t have to go through alone.
Would my F2F course syllabus change in any way when going online?
There would be minor changes. For example, you may change your office hours to virtual office hours. If you change any learning activities you may want to update that as well.
How much time do I need to be online?
There is no set time to be online. It can vary depending on many things, for example, if you have prepared your announcements in advance, that will save you time during your course. Many teachers new to online may invest a lot of additional time at first, then develop strategies to reduce how much time they spend as they learn more about the tools they are using.
How do I take Attendance and ensure students are accessing materials online?
Attendance is typically not taken online. Student engagement as well as task completion are normally used in online courses to gauge their progress through a course. If a check for understanding is required, you can create formative quizzes, which are not graded, or have the grade factor into a participation mark.
How can I manage my time online and my student’s time?
The best use of teaching time online, is to focus on course facilitation vs presenting content. This may include things like making announcements (text or video based), releasing course content modules, discussion participation, responding to student inquiries, providing feedback on learning activities. Regular communications about due dates, for example, will help students stay on course. Use the built-in Canvas features to include dates in the assignments or discussions for example. Include a course schedule in the course syllabus.
How can I support students in their use of technology?
The truth is, this is challenging. The best strategy is to keep your presentation of learning materials and assessment strategies simple, so that students do not encounter unnecessary barriers. If you encounter challenges using certain tools and technologies, there is a high chance your students will as well, so try to use tools within your comfort zone to start, and learn more at your own pace. If you’re using canvas, each course has a link for students that provides an initial overview of the platform.
I want to hold regular Online Meetings with my students. Should attendance be mandatory?
While live online sessions in an online course do provide opportunities for conversation and collaboration, compared to more asynchronous approaches, video conferencing can present barriers to student learning in the form of availability in different time zones, access to hardware such as webcams and microphones, and access to a broadband internet connection. For this reason and to ensure equity, any live online meetings should be recommended for students but not mandatory. Providing a recording of the live session, as well as asynchronous activities for students to complete as an alternative is recommended.
How do I establish and facilitate a learning community?
Communicate early and often with your students, to model how online communication works. Start the course with a ‘getting to know you activity’ that serves as an icebreaker and lets everyone learn about their motivations for taking the course, and their personal interests in doing so. It is also recommended to take a more informal approach in online discourse, so that students feel comfortable have a dialogue and engaging with new ideas.
Should I respond to all student posts in discussion areas?
No, you do not need to respond to every student. If discussion prompts foster conversation online, you can skim through responses and only intervene to build upon student conversation or steer them back in the right direction, if they go off course. These should be student-centred activities.
What is the best way to contact students?
For start of term information such as how to access the course, Faculty Service Centre mail
For ongoing updates in your course, such as weekly topic introductions and debriefs from the previous week, us canvas announcements
For contacting individual students within canvas, use the Canvas Inbox.
Can I have guest lecturers attend my class online?
Yes, you can. Contact ETS to let them know who the access is for and when this access will be needed. Access to courses outside of assigned academic roles does require approval from a Dept. Head or Program Director.
How can I translate my Lecture to an online format?
There are many ways to do this. You can record a lecture beforehand, being mindful of recommended time limits. You can also translate your content to a web Page in canvas, and add your own audio or video recordings throughout. You can also hold a live online lecture with your students, however due to challenges with access and meeting times, this strategy should be used sparingly.
How can I set up a Q&A area for students?
A good way to provide an area for students to both post questions and respond to each other’s questions is to use a discussion. This could be titled something like “Peer Discussion” or “Student Help”, and include a description about the purpose of the discussion. In Canvas you can “pin” the discussion to the top of the discussions areas so that it is easily accessed by students.
How can I present learning materials if my students don’t have a laptop or good access to the internet?
See ’How can I translate my Lecture to an online format’ above. In a nutshell, translating your learning materials to a simple format that includes, text, images and short videos will make them easily available to students in rural areas and those who may not have access to a laptop.
Can I upload my existing PPT slides in the course?
Yes. Canvas has a files section where you can upload files. You can then link to files directly from learning materials Pages, or anywhere else in your course. Note that if you have any videos embedded in your PPT slides, it is best to remove them to reduce the file size and to find a suitable online alternative.
I want students to watch a few videos but not download them. Is it possible?
Yes. You can upload the videos through My Media in Canvas and embed them in pages and discussions.
There is little you can’t assess online, however the form that your assessments take may look different. Alternative for activities such as student presentations, peer reviews and other common assessments may require different tools and implementations. Online learning does present many opportunities to assess in ways that are not possible in a face to face classroom. Feel free to contact ETS staff to talk about your needs.
How can students give presentations online?
Students have varied levels of expertise with tools. Give them the option to present in the format of their choice. Whether it is a PDF with text, images, infographics, a blog site or a video, they will find creative ways of presenting content that meets the course objectives and their learning goals.
How do I get students to communicate with each other for discussions
How your discussion prompt is phrased can have an impact on how discourse plays out. Discussion prompts should foster conversation and collaboration, so presenting case studies and asking for potential solutions to problems is a good place to start. Asking questions that usually only have a correct answer may lead to discussions falling flat.
With assignments being submitted online, you get the option to assign peer reviews yourself or do it anonymously. There are third party tools you can enable in Canvas such as iPeer for the purpose or use the native features in Canvas.
How can students upload and share their videos?
Students can directly upload their videos in the Canvas discussion boards when replying to a post. They can also use the My Media option in Canvas to upload and share videos. This option is recommended for large videos and in courses where students are required to upload them regularly.
Yes. In fact, including group activities in online courses is strategy that is encouraged as it helps to engage students. There are a number of ed tech tools that can be used. A good start is to use Canvas Groups. Blackboard Collaborate has features that allow for group meetings. And Mattermost is another option.
Is it still possible to have some synchronous sessions with my students?
Yes, however one of the affordances of online courses is the ability for students to learn on their own time. If you do include synchronous sessions with students, it is recommended that you either provide a recording or other documentation that can be accessed by students as needed.
Post an Announcement in text or video at the start of every week to both introduce the next week’s topic and to wrap up the previous week, making sure to highlight relevant course events and student discourse.
Participate in online discourse (e.g., discussions, group chat, etc.). Instructors do not need to respond to every student, as online courses should be more about student discourse. The instructor should contribute to push the conversation forward, or to bring the conversation back, if it deviates.
Hold online office hours as needed through a web conferencing platform such as Bb Collaborate Ultra or Zoom.
Provide timely feedback to your students on their assessments. You can use voice or video feedback options in Canvas. Students appreciate this as it feels like you are meeting with them individually.
To ensure students are progressing through the course and engaging on the same activities together you can:
Check results for the initial Learner Experience Survey provided. This can inform how to adapt the design of your course and your instructional strategies for the rest of the term.
If multiple students have similar questions about an assignment or activity, update the instructions for these items to ensure clarity for other students.
With the cancellation of face-to-face courses and the shift to online classes, we want to help you develop a plan to stay connected. Read on to discover which learning technologies we recommend for maintaining communication with your students and colleagues. Additionally, check out Transitioning to Teaching Online for information on the pedagogical approaches to teaching online.
For tips on virtual teaching, please visit: https://keepteaching.ubc.ca/ Before checking out our recommended tools below, consider reading through our guides to:
Zoom is a web-conferencing tool that supports real-time meetings and lectures, and allows for easy media file upload and sharing, including Powerpoint presentations. Other available features include live chatting, screen sharing, collaborative annotating, digital whiteboards, breakout groups, and local recording to a personal device (ie laptop). Zoom can host 250+ users in one session.
Zoom accounts are currently separate from Canvas accounts, so to get started you will need to request an account to get started. Please email av.helpdesk@ubc.ca to request a UBC-hosted account, which is FIPPA compliant and well-suited for lectures and class meetings. Indicate you would like to setup a new Zoom account with UBC, provide your name, email (first.lastname@ubc.ca), Faculty (ie, Faculty of Education) and Unit (ie, ETS). The AV Help Desk will process most requests within 1 business day.
UBC Faculty and staff who signed up for a personal Zoom account (directly on the Zoom website) should request to be transferred over to the UBC Education License, which has additional security measures and functionality. Send a request to av.helpdesk@ubc.ca and indicate you would like your basic Zoom account to be moved to the UBC Zoom License. Provide your name, email (first.lastname@ubc.ca), Faculty (ie, Faculty of Education) and Unit (ie, ETS).
Participants can enter sessions without creating an account; a link to the virtual meeting room is all they need to join the conversation.
For online meetings and teaching sessions using Zoom, remote support will be provided via phone, email or chat (Zoom Chat). For Zoom sessions, support can be provided as a co-host of the session or moderator. Requesting support should be requested with at least 1 business day lead time.
Please note that there will be limitations on what the AV Support team can troubleshoot remotely if issues relate to user hardware or network connectivity.
Provide a brief summary of what your session is and what you will need help with
Once we receive the request, an AV support staff will be in contact to further discuss needs and make the appropriate arrangements.
Requesting AV Support for large online sessions (Webinars, Town Hall, Virtual Events) with expected participants 200+:
For large online or virtual sessions such as a Faculty Town Hall, we will require at least 2-3 business day notification in order to provide the necessary assistance with planning and setup for the virtual session.
Provide a brief summary of what your session is and what you will need help with
Once we receive the request, an AV support staff will be in contact to further discuss needs and make the appropriate arrangements.
Mattermost Chat
Mattermost is an open-source chat tool that facilitates collaboration by supporting text chat, group messaging (via public & private channels), file sharing/uploading, and tagging/searching. Real-time and asynchronous communication are combined, meaning quick flurries of messages and threaded discussions can coexist in an “anytime” communication environment.
Educational Technology Support (ETS), a unit within the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia (UBC), is conducting research into the supports instructors use in their work involving the development of online learning experiences.
The purpose of this project is to explore university teachers’ learning design processes through a descriptive study highlighting their processes in developing new and revising existing online courses in a higher education setting. A primary focus is to explore the sources of support teachers engage with (e.g., workshops, online tutorials, peer expertise), along with the perceptions more novel approaches such as guided guided design processes supported by an instructional designer or learning designer.
The Faculty of Education at UBC would like to learn more about how university teachers work to design online learning experiences. As part of this effort, we are conducting a study to investigate university teachers’ existing practices in their design work, how they may engage with instructional supports, and with their peers. If you are currently engaging in online course development (or design) or have done so in the past and would like to participate, please contact ETS at ets.educ@ubc.ca. Participation is completely voluntary, and a consent form will be provided which contains a detailed overview of what is involved should you choose to participate.
If you work at a higher education institution and would like to participate in this study and contribute to the understanding of design practice for online learning, choose an option for participation below.
If you have any questions about the project, please contact Stoo Sepp at stoo.sepp@ubc.ca or 604.827.0489
How to participate
There are 2 options for participating, both of which will take approximately 20-45 mins to complete:
To participate in the survey, click the button below. Consent information is embedded within the survey.
A word doc version of the survey is also available, if you'd prefer to take more time. Instructions on how to submit are contained within the document.
The easiest way to return it would be to scan and send back to Dr. Stoo Sepp - you can do this using the email feature on most office photocopiers, or you can use a scanning app on your smartphone to capture the signed form.
After returning your signed consent form, Dr. Sepp will follow up and schedule an interview time with you, either online via Zoom, or in person on UBC's Vancouver Campus after COVID-19 related precautions have been lifted.
References
Bennett, S., Thomas, L., Agostinho, S., Lockyer, L., Jones, J., & Harper, B. (2011). Understanding the design context for Australian university teachers: Implications for the future of learning design. Learning, Media and Technology, 36(2), 151–167.
Bennett, S., Agostinho, S., & Lockyer, L. (2016). The process of designing for learning: understanding university teachers’ design work. Educational Technology Research and Development, 65(1), 125–145. http://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-016-9469-y
Postareff, L., & Lindblom-Yla ̈nne, S. (2008). Variation in teachers’ descriptions of teaching: Broadening the understanding of teaching in higher education. Learning and Instruction, 18(2), 109–120. doi:10.1016/j.learninstruc.2007.01.008.
Stark, J. S. (2000). Planning introductory college courses: Content, context and form. Instructional Science, 28(5), 413–438.
This study has been approved by UBC’s Behavioural Research Ethics Board (approval #H18-02631)
Victoria Surtees is a lecturer and course developer at the Department of Language and Literacy at the Faculty of Education. She teaches and develops courses and workshops in the TESL Certificate program and the Ritsumeikan Program, as well as teaching in the BEd program. With a career inspired by her love of language, Victoria has broad experience as an educator and researcher in second language acquisition and internationalization, and as an online course developer.
Specifically within the Online MEd in TESL cohort, Victoria designed and developed the online version of the first course to be offered within the program – LLED 489B: Applied Linguistics for Teachers. Since then, she has gone on to design an online academic literacy module called “General Orientation to Academic Life”, which uses an increased number of impressive digital interactions created through H5P and Qualtrics to introduce new Japanese students in the Rits cohort to UBC and UBC practices. With technological support from ETS in the use of H5P, Victoria prioritized digital interaction, along with representation and multimodality, when designing all the online content for her courses.
Read on to hear Victoria speak about her background and experience in online learning design and teaching international audiences.
Let’s start with some background information – what did you study and what lead you to teaching and lecturing at the department of language and literacy?
VS: Going way back – I was a French immersion student, and I loved it. I also did German and Spanish; I did all sorts of things in my undergrad that were related to language, including a study abroad year in Lyon, France. I fell in love with the city so I ended up going back. I got sucked into the world of university teaching at that point. I taught for several years at universities, just with a bachelor’s degree. I actually started designing materials for online learning there. They had online modules for English language learners, and I got to design content for those.
I then came back to Canada to do my Masters at Concordia. I decided to go for applied linguistics, which is basically language teaching. I did courses in computers and language learning there as well, and I also designed a module for training Francophone nurses in English. It used embedded speech recognition technology, which was super cool. I designed, filmed, uploaded, programmed, and did everything for that.
So that’s my background! These days, I’m mostly about second language acquisition and learning, and internationalization– those are my two big areas. For the past seven years, I have been teaching in the TESL certificate program, the Ritsumeikan Program, and the BEd.
You mentioned your background in study abroad and international studies – did that inspire your interest in online learning as a way to reach a broader audience and improving distance education?
VS: No, I think my interest in online learning is related to my interest in design. International students have diverse needs and when designing content, it’s important to anticipate those needs and embed support because as a teacher you only get to see what they do online, whereas when you’re in the classroom you can see if they’re looking panicky or confused – you can invite them to office hours and such. You can’t do that as easily online.
Would you say that is the greatest challenge you’ve had with online teaching?
VS: I’d say the greatest challenge is the variability in the amount of skill of the students in terms of navigating online learning. Understanding where they’re at and then on the fly trying to develop support to help them figure it out, I’d say that was the bigger challenge.
Have you noticed any benefits to teaching international students online versus in the classroom?
VS: There’s the flexible learning benefit – they don’t have to be here at UBC. I find that for me, by reading their written posts, I can really take the time to reflect on things. Sometimes in the classroom when you have international learners or people who are not necessarily comfortable speaking out, they’ll be a lot more comfortable writing something in a post. It also means they can come back as many times as they want to look at things.
Talking about the LLED 489 coursespecifically, what was your process in developing that course and deciding which learning technologies to implement? Especially since you were the first to work on an online course for that cohort.
An interactive timeline of teaching approaches designed for LLED489B
VS: The goal of the program was supposed to be so people could do it after work, and they shouldn’t have to be at their computers at a particular time, so all components had to be asychronous. The modules also had to be calculated similarly to a face-to-face course, so thirteen modules for thirteen weeks. Those kinds of structural components were already built in, but I had a couple of principles that I attacked it with, the first one being to make sure that the objectives for each module were clear. In my course there’s a front page for every module that has the objectives, and reflection questions at the end. Another important component is that I wanted to create an actual community where they taught each other because they all have tons of experience, some have 30 years or more teaching experience! So I think for them it’s just as enriching to listen to each other. For that reason I decided to have them make three minute videos where they actually taught the content to each other every week, which was actually really hard because it was their very first course using and learning Canvas, and they also had to learn how to make a video, so there were some challenges there. But I think ultimately it was a really successful part of the course. Another part of my design process was that I wanted to include scaffolding for literacy, and particularly academic literacies within my course (finding online papers, APA, etc.). I integrated those skills because I knew it was the first course they would take. For the selection of readings, images, and videos, representation was a really big principle for me. I feel especially in English language teaching there’s a huge bias towards white native English speakers, and that’s a big problem. So for me, it’s really important to include scholars from different parts of the world, and Indigenous perspectives. That was important to me as a principle of design from the outset when I was making the curriculum.
What was your method for implementing digital interactions throughout the course?
Click below to listen to Victoria speak about the pedagogical use of digital interactions and H5P in her courses.
Digital flip cards designed in H5P by Victoria
Was this your first time using H5P?
VS: Definitely, but I didn’t find it that challenging to do. For every page I try to include something interactive. Or I try to break it up into some sort of multimodal component, whether it’s an image or an H5P activity or a video – I always try and include something. I don’t think there is any page, except the objectives pages, that are just text.
Did you get any student feedback on the course design and learning technologies used?
VS: I embedded an anonymous survey into the course – and I’d recommend this to anyone teaching a course for the first time – about how many hours students were spending a week doing the course and the kind of workload they had to get a sense of the student experience.
Since it’s the first class that that cohort takes, naturally you’re going to have way more problems and questions about technology in that course than you will in any of the other subsequent courses! I think it also kinda means that it’s natural that there is going to be some frustration and a little bit of a learning curve.
For LLED 489B, I took a lot of risks and some of them paid off and some of them didn’t!
But to summarize, representation, multimodality, interaction – those are all design principles that drive my approach.
Interested in using H5P in your course? Contact ETS at 604-822-6333 or email us at ets.educ@ubc.ca to learn more!
Teaching with technology this semester? ETS is offering instant support for instructors at Lunch Crunch! Drop by our table with any questions or conversation topics you have about Canvas or any other learning technologies. Continue reading “Lunch Crunch”
The year of the rat means a year of innovation and cleverness, and ETS is here to help implement this philosophy into your pedagogical goals, whatever they may be. Continue reading “Happy Lunar New Year from ETS!”
Library Online Course Reserves (LOCR) is a system that allows you to easily add articles, books, web links, and media resources to an online resource list for your course. You can browse and add items from the UBC Library Catalog, or upload PDFs for copyright clearance
Every course in Canvas has a “Library Online Course Reserves” link, but they are two separate systems. LOCR can be accessed directly (by you or your students) at https://courses.library.ubc.ca. Students can access LOCR through the direct link two weeks before the start of term, even before the course is published in Canvas.
Zoom is a web-conferencing tool that supports real-time meetings and lectures, and allows for easy media file upload and sharing, including Powerpoint presentations. Other available features include live chatting, screen sharing, collaborative annotating, digital whiteboards, breakout groups, and local recording to a personal device (ie laptop). Zoom can host 250+ users in one session.
Vancouver’s yearly hot chocolate festival is underway, this year featuring work from our learning designer director, Natasha Boskic.