I haven’t been blogging because, well, global pandemic: What can I say that’s useful? Not much, really. I’m as gobsmacked and listless as anyone else, and I went 6ish months without childcare while trying to work full-time from home. Then, I spent the summer scrambling to backfill the mess that made. But, what I want to write about, because it actually is kind of nice, is teaching.

In the spring, I jumped online with a lot of internet experience and social media experience and, legitimately, zero online teaching experience. I chose asynchronous because it was the only way I could manage with my child at home, and because many students were struggling with web access. Also, I set up a class discord server, a platform that proved to be a big hit with students. Now, this fall, I’m teaching a radically different class for graduate rather than undergraduate students. And, I actually got to take time and thoughtfully set up my class. A few things have gone very well:

Whenever possible, make it accessible

I like making infographic-driven syllabuses. In many situations, they’re easy to read, and they work well as online documents. This semester, I figured out how to make one that is screen reader friendly. A win for accessibility, and a time saver for me, since previously I was making a plain-text version to have as backup. I’m glad that there’s a path here that works reliably for students and for me.

If you’re interested in making a more graphics-driven syllabus, I highly recommend using Canva‘s templates — I usually start with one for a resume and go from there. But, you can do similar things in many, many tools.

RTFM

RTFM is an old initialism for “read the fucking manual,” and indeed, usually I should. Often I don’t, but over the summer and as I was setting up my class for this fall, I took the time to actually read through the tutorials for Blackboard, rather than just winging it.

I still kind of hate Blackboard, but with the help of the tutorials and advice shared by our campus’s teaching and learning center, I managed to implement journals, upload video to and embed from Panopto (major time saver!), and even to lightly customize the class interface enough to make it feel a bit less impersonal and to ensure the menus as displayed mostly relate to what’s actually happening in class.

Keep it short and sweet

Lectures do tend to record easily, but they can also get really, really tedious fast. I know I often skip video tutorials in favor of text-based ones because I read faster than I listen. In classes, sometimes that’s true, too. I do record lectures, using PowerPoint to record narration and then exporting the video, but I try to keep them in the range of 10-15 minutes.

If I really, really need more time than that, I look at ways to split the content into a part 1 and part 2 or similar, so students are never stuck trying to deal with a lengthy video of me talking. This means I try to keep it to one major point per video, and honestly, that’s fine.

Addition, not subtraction

The pandemic has ruined a lot of things. I’ve had to cut some of my favorite teaching activities because they aren’t safe or feasible right now. Bummer. But, I don’t need to tell my students, over and over, how they’re missing out.

Instead, I try to focus on things they do get to have right now:

• The class is more flexible, both because it can be, and because it has to be. If a student is ill one week or can’t make a meeting due to a family crisis, most course materials are already online for them.
• We have much greater access to speakers and experts, since there’s no expectation of travel. Rather than bringing in 1-2 guest speakers, I’m collecting a solid dozen video bios from professionals so that students can learn about different career paths.
• More online help is available in general, and we have access to more robust teaching tools because the university took the challenges of pandemic teaching seriously.

All of these things add value to the class that my students benefit from. Yeah, I wish I could take them somewhere neat or buy them coffee. I can’t. I have been able to do a lot of other good things.

The cutest

I saw an article about K-12 teachers using Google Slides and Bitmoji to make personalized classrooms. The premise seems a little cute, a little silly, but also a nice way to make an online platform more personable. College teachers don’t have classrooms the way K-12 do. I don’t decorate; I don’t install; I don’t collect: I show up.

But, online, I can do something different. So, I made a Bitmoji version of my office and have used it both as a banner in Blackboard and as a part of my slide shows for lectures. It’s silly, but it gives the class a consistent look and feel online, and it also lets me show a little more of my personality in what can feel like a really sterile platform.

Here‘s a handy tutorial if you want to give it a try.

Really really real

In the spring, I recorded lectures during nap time. Unfortunately, my kid, as aware of things being weird and stressful as anyone, decided she hated napping and would scream for a long stretch before sleeping. She’s audible on a few of the lectures. Pay no mind to the human screaming! Nobody is being tortured!

Everything is so weird for everyone right now that it’s almost impossible to hang on to pre-pandemic standards of professionalism. I do my best, and I assume everyone else is, too. This is just not a good time in so many ways. I try to extend as much grace as I can to my students and to myself. None of us wanted this. None of us like this. We can only do our best and survive. Sometimes, survival is good enough.