Surviving Disaster: Hybrid/Online Class
Listen to the story
You are teaching a fully online course using web-based tools. You record lectures then post them in the Blackboard learning management system. Students access course content, take tests, participate in discussions and complete assignments within Blackboard. Occasionally you and your students have live online meetings through conferencing systems such as Zoom or Google Hangout. You regularly post announcements in Blackboard to help guide the class, remind students about deadlines and provide news. Email is the primary communication tool between you and students. You also have their phone numbers.
Just after the first week of the semester, your city encounters a hurricane. You lose Internet connection in your home, though you still have power and cell phone signals. The campus is closed for an unknown period and you do not know whether or not Blackboard still functions normally. Your to-do list for the class is to:
- Update course content and schedule post-hurricane access
- Communicate to students regarding their current status
- Provide the entire class access to Blackboard so that they can still complete the course.
Are you prepared?
You can check your readiness level with the following 5 steps:
- Consider updating your syllabus with an extended schedule or condensed course content.
Design a communication strategy based on availability.
- When Internet is available, you can use Blackboard communication tools such as announcement, or email to reach students.
- Tutorial for creating email listserv. Please encourage students to check the email that they registered in Peoplesoft, because that is the email that appears in the instructor's roster.
- If your cell phone has a data plan, you can also use Blackboard mobile app. Instructor Download | Student Download
- Contact your students, using one of the communication tools previously selected, regarding the upcoming assignment.
- Remind students to check back for course changes, revisions, and due dates
- You can select one of the assessment tools below for students to submit an assignment:
- Blackboard assignment
- Creating a test in Blackboard and then set up test settings
- Blackboard discussion board
- Using email for students to submit papers or writing assignments.
5. Did you decide how you will distribute your lecture?
- Consider saving lecture recordings on a cloud based server and then sharing the link in Blackboard or through email. Office 365, a UH supported product, provides OneDrive for hosting files in the “cloud”. You can find tutorials at https://www.instruction.uh.edu/knowledgebase_category/one-drive/. You can also select third party products such as YouTube or Vimeo based on personal preference. Please be careful to protect your recordings if you select a commercial tool.
- Think about adding your voice to your PowerPoint presentations.
- Contact your Instructional Designer for customized assistance.