Course continuity during COVID-19 pandemic

• COE COVID-19 Faculty and Staff Resources – A comprehensive compilation of very useful information and links.
  
  
• Keep Teaching – https://provost.ncsu.edu/faculty-resources/keep-teaching/
  This site provides lots of great information about academic continuity planning, including the following targeted information:
  • Strategies for teaching, communicating with students, distributing materials, running labs, etc.
    
  • Resources – Includes descriptions of the various software programs available (Moodle, Zoom, etc.) and links to each.
• Tips for preparing to teach online – This page has some very helpful technology tips about ways to use Zoom, Moodle, Google docs, and more. It also includes a link to a small repository of completed course continuity plans.

• The Wolfware Resources page is a convenient place to find links to Zoom, Mediasite, Moodle and more.

Videoconferencing / webcasting

• Google Hangouts Meet – NC State G Suite accounts using Hangouts Meet now have the ability to:
  • Host a meeting with up to 250 participants.
  • Live stream for up to 100K viewers within the NC State domain.
  • Record meetings to Google Drive.
  • View a YouTube tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhuF6U3Ehbw.
  • Get more information from OIT
    
• Zoom
  • Zoom dashboard (ncsu.zoom.us)
  • Overview/Getting started with Zoom (download link and installation instructions are available here)
  • Zoom training – recorded video sessions
  • 3 BTEC backgrounds for Zoom meetings
    
• More about Zoom and other tools – The Marketing and Communications group at NC State's Extension Service has compiled a great list of resources related to Zoom, videos, telework, and more. Scroll down to the section on Videos and Zoom Conferencing.

Voicemail/Audio conferencing

Review the voicemail and voice conferencing options available when working remotely. See more details about the array of solutions provided by NC State’s Office of Information Technology at https://oit.ncsu.edu/campus-it/web-conferencing-services/.

VPN

NC State’s Virtual Private Networking (VPN) service provides remote and highly secure access to mapped drives and other campus resources. See NC State VPN FAQ to get started; to access this FAQ page, you'll be asked to enter your Unity ID. This NC State Knowledge Base article describes how to log into VPN, which requires two-factor authentication.

Important: 7,500 VPN connections available to campus. Use VPN if you need it, but log off when you don’t, so connections are available for others. VPN is not required to access Mypack Portal, Wolfware or G-suite.

https://dasa.ncsu.edu/students/keep-learning/ – A bank of resources for students from the Division of Academic and Student Affairs.

The following documents contain information and resources for planning, developing, and producing video content for online instructional use:

• A super quick guide to creating online materials for lab courses (PDF)
• BTEC Lab Video worksheet (Word)
• Content Building Checklist for Instructional Videos (from Humber Polytechnic) (PDF)
• BTEC Media folder
• UNC System Digital Learning Initiative webinar on Virual Labs video recording. This video includes a presentaion from DELTA on transitioning to online labs.

A concise one-page document that provides an overview of how to make the transition from face-to-face to online instruction.

In the spirit of the KISS principle (keep it simple, sweetheart), we suggest you use your cell phone to record short video segments or clips. In addition to demonstrating processes and showing examples, videos can be used all types of assignments and assessments. Once recorded, videos can be uploaded to Google Drive (the simplest solution!). For help getting started, see either of the following:

• Take videos with your iPhone camera
• Record video on an Adroid phone

Tips

• Keep videos as short as possible—in the neighborhood of 2 to 3 minutes or less. A series of short videos is better than one long one for both pedagogical and technological reasons.
• Hold the phone in landscape (horizontal) orientation rather than portrait (vertical) orientation.
• If you are both shooting and narrating a video with a cell phone, use a set of headphones (wired or bluetooth) with a microphone for better sound quality.
• If you don't have headphones with a built-in mic, stay close to your phone's microphone. If you need to record a medium shot of someone doing something (i.e., you want to record activity that's few feet away from the camera), have someone else carry out the activity while you stand by the phone to record the audio.
• Use the BTEC Lab Video worksheet (Word) to organize the shots needed for your lab videos. If you want to request Brian Herring's services in filming or editing lab videos, submit the completed worksheet to him to arrange for a consultation and scheduling.
• Many more tips are available on BTEC's super quick guide to creating online materials for lab courses (PDF).

Questions? Please consult Brian Herring.

Note: If you are editing videos on your phone through iMovie or other video editor, you will need to save the edited video to your photo library before sharing it. Please contact Brian Herring for addtional instructions.

Once you have video recorded, see Sharing Video Files (below) or get more information about Mediasite (more capabilities but more of a learning curve).

Equipment

To keep the phone steady while recording, BTEC has the following equipment available for your use:

• tripod adapter for phone
• 1 tabletop tripod
• 1 large tripod

We also have (1) a Canon photo camera that can record video and (2) a Panasonic video camera. Please check with Brian Herring for more information about any of these items.

Editing video

Here are some tutorials/instructions for editing videos with the Photos app in Windows 10:

• Create videos (Microsoft Windows support) 
• How to Edit Videos Using the Photos App in windows 10 (YouTube)
• How to use the Photos app video editor on Windows 10 — The ultimate guide (Windows Central)
• How to edit videos using the free Microsoft Windows 10 Photos app (Techrepublic)
• How to Use Windows 10’s Hidden Video Editor (How-To Geek)

Video (.mp4 or .mov) files should NOT be posted on Moodle. Instead:

• You can post them in a folder on Google Drive (My Drive). Then you can either share individual files with students (recommended for students' ease of use) or share that entire folder with students (a bit simpler for you but you'll have to provide more detailed directions about what you want students to access).
  • Share individual files to direct students to specific videos. For example, in your Moodle site, you can include directions to "View this video on centrifugation." Information about how to share Google My Drive files.
  • Tip: Add a note on your Moodle site reminding students that they need to be signed into their Google account to access the folder.
• If you use Mediasite to store/host your video(s), you can place a link to the file in your Moodle account.

The sections below outline the process and discuss pros and cons of some options.

Recording

1. Learn how to record narration. (Source: GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences.) You can check out a headset with a microphone from Jennifer Sasser. Please return it promptly when finished. Windows 10 users, learn more about installing a microphone and checking volume settings.
   
   
2. Please note these tips:
   • Save your file often so you don't inadvertently lose a lot of narration if you run into a technical problem and the file crashes.
   • Split a large PowerPoint file into smaller, separate files (i.e., slides 1-10, 11-20, etc.). This will make the content more granular for students (a good thing) plus keep file sizes small (also good).

Saving and exporting

1. Suggested file format: ppsx, for PowerPoint Show, which will have the recorded audio embedded in the file. First save the file in the usual pptx format, and then use the Save as feature to save it as a PowerPoint show. This will allow the student to click through the slides in slideshow view and hear the audio. The "normal" editing view is not available in a PowerPoint Show file. (Although with a little work, students can convert the Show file back into a regular pptx file.)
   
   Pros and cons: This format is simple to create and provides some minor protection for your source content. It also gives students more navigation control than they would have if the PowerPoint is exported to a video format (e.g., mp4 or mov file format). The downside is that students will have to download the file rather than play it in the browser.
   
   
2. Other formats – You can save the PowerPoint file and then export it as a video file (formats available through PowerPoint include mp4, the usual choice).
   
   Pros and cons: This format protects your source file (i.e., you're not distributing your PowerPoint file), but students have less ability to navigate through the slides. So if you go this route, considering providing students with a PDF version of your slides, so they can refer back to specific slides. Another con: Video files should NOT be posted in Moodle. It causes real problems.
   
   Note for mac users: PowerPoint 16 doesn't allow export to mp4, but the PC does. So the PPT could be narrated on your Mac then moved to PC for export to mp4.

Captioning Videos

How to:

• Add Closed Captions to a Presentation
• Create Your Own Captions Using YouTube's Caption Editor
• Edit Closed Captions Using the Mediasite Caption Editor

Captioning resources at NC State:

• OIT Accessibility web page about creating accessible videos
• Captioning grant info
• Captioning convenience contract
• NC State Extension Tips for Creating Closed Caption Videos (YouTube)

Sharing your recording with students

1. PowerPoint Show (ppsx) or regular PowerPoint (pptx) files can be posted in Moodle or shared on Google Drive (My Drive). Note that students will need to download the file. Files in native PowerPoint formats won't play through a browser.
2. Video (.mp4 or .mov) files should NOT be posted on Moodle. Instead, you can post them in a folder on Google Drive (My Drive). You can set the folder to be shared with NC State users who have the link. A link to this folder could be placed in your Moodle site. (Tip: Add a note on your Moodle site reminding students that they need to be signed into their Google account to access the folder.)