Mitigating Technical Issues in Online Course Planning
Reflecting
upon the way technology can produce “frustration
and dismay” among online teaching staff and students, it is essential to
understand that instructors, as well as learners, can face technical issues
before an online course begins. How many times we have heard things such as, “I can’t access the information on the
website.” “My login or password doesn’t
work.” “I don’t have a clue how to
use the platform.” And you will probably account for more examples or
catchy phrases that students get to use. The list can be countless, yet they
all point out towards the same direction, “a high
or very high affective filter.”
What can be done to mitigate technical issues before one starts
teaching online? As a former blended learning instructor, I
have learned to use different storage sites to allocate information for my
courses. Depending on the kind of navigator the learner uses, some of the
course content becomes “invisible” to them. In other words, although Google
Chrome is a great web navigator, it has some technical issues not every single
student is able to fix, due to the plugins needed to run applications such as
audio, video, or text that is embedded in blogs, wikis, etc. At times it is
much more advisable to either use Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer, which
supports many more applications without the need of downloading or activating
plugins.
Going
beyond the problem with plugins, what kind of
resources can be used by instructors while getting ready to teach online? If
the teacher has a personal website such as blog or wiki or uses some kind of
LMS provided by the university to post information for students, you may
consider using the following online resources to avoid or mitigate technical
problems. There are a good number of tutorials on youtube in case the
instructor [or perhaps the student] is not yet familiar with the tool provided
below.
Type of information shared with students
|
Webpage or free web service to use
|
Videos or Vodcasts
|
Personal youtube channel (public)
|
divshare.com
for private videos
|
|
https://vimeo.com/
for
public videos
|
|
Podcasts or Audio Files
|
Personal account on 4Shared (public)
|
divshare.com
for private podcasts
|
|
Zippyshare
to download files
|
|
Filefactory
to download files
|
|
Text files (docs, PPT, spreadsheets)
|
Slideshare
for
public or private files
|
Scribd
for public or private files
|
|
Google Drive
to share info
|
|
Dropbox
to share info
|
|
Visual Presentations
|
Prezi
for public or private presentations
|
Powtoon
for public or private presentations
|
|
Online Quiz Creation
|
Google
Forms to have students send you the answers
|
Jot Forms
to have students send you the answers
|
|
My Quiz Creator
to have student self-assess themselves
|
There
are many more resources available to support instructors and their teaching
when transitioning to VLEs. But this is a “handsome” list of free resources for
teachers, and why not for learners.
Oftentimes,
the learners are the ones with technical problems. What can be done in their
case? As an instructor with blended learning experience, I tend to encourage
learners to use youtube tutorials to understand how a
platform, LMS, etc. is used (visual-kinesthetic learners), or I advised them to
get a manual on Slide Share or Scribd
to follow a step by step explanation on how to use them (linguistic-kinesthetic
learners). If possible, I also try to take students into working cooperatively
to find practical solutions for their technical problems
(interpersonal-kinesthetic learners). [There may be other sources of manuals
usually in pdf formats online.]
Working
with my students at the university, I have to admit that one of the best tools
I have used to help them fix technical problems is Team
Viewer. Team Viewer is light software that can be installed
to provide remote assistance to students or to colleagues. This software allows
you to actually view what your student [or partner] sees on his/her screen and
to execute tasks on his/her computer. Talking to them on the phone and providing
assistance is not the same to talking on the phone and working together on
his/her PCs or laptops.
Finally,
make sure that you find assistance with the IT personnel at your university.
Many of them can give you useful tips to help students or yourselves.
E To
fully develop and comprehend this teaching issue, it’s advisable to research
and expand these areas:
1
|
How
to cope with technical problems in VLEs
|
2
|
How
to mitigate technical issues in VLEs
|
3
|
Online
resources for online instructors
|
4
|
Online
resources for online learners
|
5
|
Instructor
assistance in online learning
|
Professor
Jonathan
Acuña-Solano
ELT
Instructor, Course Designer & Teacher Trainer based in Costa Rica
Freelance ELT Consultant four OUP in Central America
For
further comments or suggestions, reach me at:
@jonacuso –
Twitter
Other blogs and sites I often write for my students at
the university are:
Feel
free to download a copy of this article over here.
Mitigating Technical Issues in Online Course Planning by Jonathan Acuña
Mitigating Technical Issues in Online Course Planning by Jonathan Acuña
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