Distance Education Newsletter

Kapi‘olani Community College | May 1, 2020

Welcome, Summer!

The end of the most terribly tense and chaotic semester ever is only days away! Phew! Of course, the future is still uncertain, and our grip on the "new normal" may still be tenuous. But the antidote to feeling out of our depth is community! And as it happens, community is also the antidote to isolation. So after a much-needed and well-deserved deep breath, we welcome you to dive (or tentatively wade) into the DE Community this summer. We're here to help! We can offer a little training, a lot of support, and/or a sounding board as you work out how to be your unique and amazing self in the online environment. So whether you want to swim out to the windsock or just get your feet wet, we want to help you find ways to enjoy the experience. Together.

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The Teacher of the Month Is: YOU!

In this newsletter we want to feature all of the Kapi‘olani CC faculty and staff for doing an incredible job during these uncertain times.

Thank you for:

Rethinking your class in a moment’s notice and moving it to an online format.
Learning how to teach and provide services remotely even though you may have had very little experience or preparation.
Helping your students during uncertain times, making exceptions and adjusting expectations, all the while keeping quality education a focus.
Assisting your colleagues as they navigate new technology, new modalities, and new guidelines.
Staying positive and sharing positive messages and ideas.
Staying motivated and creative through 6+ weeks of zoom meetings, virtual class sessions.

TOPP To Go!

Mahalo to those of you joining us in TOPP To Go! this month - we are loving this sense of community and are greatly appreciative of everyone sharing their questions, challenges, ideas and insights! Our community includes individuals with a range of experience in online teaching across multiple disciplines and campuses. We not only have instructional faculty, but counselors and student support faculty and staff joining us as well. We know this has been a challenging semester and we've been asked to offer another round of TOPP To Go! during the summer when folks may have greater time and space to engage...and so we are! Please consider joining us for TOPP To Go! during Summer I. Watch the News & Events bulletin for more info. And if you'd like, feel free to hop in and poke around our current TOPP To Go! site if you'd like a sneak peek :) Here's a little teaser to explain the TOPP To Go! concept...

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FERPA Guidance for Online Lectures and Recordings

Is student consent required...

to record an online synchronous class meeting?
to share the recording with students in the class?
to share the recording with other classes?
to post it publicly?

What if a student joins via phone and the number is displayed?

Is a recorded lecture considered an education record?

Get answers to these questions and more in this UH resource: FERPA Guidance for Online Lectures and Recordings

The New Google Sites Available to Google@UH Users

Looking for a tool to create beautiful web pages quickly? As of April 1, the New Google Sites is now available for Google@UH Users! This new version is very different from the Classic Google Sites, with easy drag and drop functionality and features like embedding items from Google Drive, Youtube, and other external sources. Access it from your Google Drive > New > More > Google Sites.

You can even collaborate with other users in real-time.

Convert your Classic Google Sites to the New Google Sites by following this tutorial. Your existing Classic Google site(s) will be retained until the end of 2021 so be sure to convert them sooner rather than later! For additional details, visit the ITS alerts page. [Courtesy of UH Online Innovation Center]

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Digital Accessibility Tip (Hyperlinks)

Tim Berners-Lee randomly picked blue for hyperlinks when he invented the World Wide Web in 1990. But did you know that blue color is not included in color blindness? In other words, almost no one has a blue deficiency. Thus, we reserve underlined and blue for hyperlinks as blue can be seen by everyone.

Phrases, such as “click here,” “learn more,” or “link to” for a hyperlink text will fail because these expressions are useless for screen reader users to understand what the link is and where the link will lead them to after clicking. The best practice of making a hyperlink accessible to all users is to develop a meaningful hyperlink text describing a URL link instead of simply copying and pasting the entire URL address into a text edit window.

A descriptive hyperlink text should contain 3 pieces of information:

where the link is going
the purpose of the link
what happens when the link is clicked

For example: visit Kapiʻolani Community College Credit Programs (opens in a new window) for more information.

Alerting the user when opening new windows by either placing an external link icon after the link text if applicable (see screenshot below for an example) or adding a short sentence in brackets/parentheses to indicate.

If the hyperlink contains a downloadable file, please indicate the file type (e.g., PDF, PPT, Word) in the hyperlinked text. For instance, Kapiʻolani CC Spring 2020 Academic Calendar (PDF) [opens in a new window].

If a doc is for print, please place the original link address or a shortened URL after the link text. For example: Kapiʻolani Community College Credit Programs (URL: http://go.hawaii.edu/A9H).

Additional Resources:

How to Add An External Link Icon after Text in Laulima (video, 1:05)
Stop saying "Click Here!" Create Meaningful Links (video, 2:28)

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Zoom Fatigue or Zoom Gloom

Do you feel extra tired and exhausted after being done with a zoom class session? You are not alone. National Geographic recently published an article on a new phenomenon called Zoom Fatigue or Zoom Gloom, although it is not limited to Zoom but any prolonged meeting via a video app.

Humans communicate not just through words but also via facial expressions, body movements, and other non-verbal cues. In a standard classroom we don’t just stand still and talk at the board but we move around and interact with students on many non-verbal levels. In contrast, “a typical video call impairs these ingrained abilities, and requires sustained and intense attention to words instead. If a person is framed only from the shoulders up, the possibility of viewing hand gestures or other body language is eliminated.” Furthermore, the article shares that our brains are much more taxed trying to process the many small video screens (gallery view) while also multi-tasking with the technology aspect of delivering the lecture, and getting our points across. So next time you feel especially exhausted after a class or meeting, just give yourself a break and try some of these suggestions to lessen the Zoom Gloom:

Try standing up or walking around during your work meeting if possible.
Take appropriate breaks and turn off all screen activity allowing your brain to rest. Stretch, drink some water, or do some exercise.
Limit your video calls to only those that are necessary.

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Grading During COVID-19

In an effort to address the unprecedented, sudden, and required shift to remote teaching and learning mid-semester due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the UH system has enacted a grading policy for Spring 2020, which allows students to select a credit/no credit grade for their courses that have been disrupted. After the usual grading period, students will be able to view the letter grade that they have earned and will have the option to request to change from a letter grade to a credit/no credit grade by May 22, 2020.

More information can be found at the following sites. Students should refer to the FAQ site for possible implications regarding the credit/no credit grade option and contact their academic counselor with any further questions.

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FS DE Committee Updates

The FS DE committee had a busy and productive year. The following highlight some of our initiatives and accomplishments:

We developed the very first KapCC Excellence in Online Teaching award which was approved by Faculty Senate and the Administration. We hope to honor our first awardee by Spring 2021
We continue to pursue answers regarding the status of training to teach online and compensation as we believe that training is invaluable in ensuring quality online education
The DE Class Review Process was passed by Faculty Senate and the Administration and is set to pilot in Fall 2020. The BaRe and CoRe rubrics were developed and finalized.
We researched the UH late registration policy shift and are reviewing data to show success rates of students adding courses in the second week of classes.
We began conversations with the Honda International Center to assist in offering more online courses to our international students.
We assisted in the development of the vision and mission statement for the new DE plan.

If you have questions about online education-related issues, or have items you would like the DE committee to discuss, please contact your DE department representative. If you would like to become a member of the Faculty Senate Distance Education subcommittee, let us know. You can serve as a voting member representing your department (one per department) or as a non-voting member.

A huge Mahalo to all the current committee members. Thank you for an exciting and productive year!

Beryl Yang - Arts & Humanities (NV)
Cera Kim-Sunada - Nursing (V)
David Mendonsa - EMS (V)
Helen Torigoe - CELTT (NV)
Jamie Sickel - CELTT (V)
Kelli Nakamura (Vice Chair) - Arts & Humanities (V)
Kristie Malterre - Student Affairs (V)
Laure Burke - HOST (V)
Lauren Tamamoto - CULN (V)
Leaugeay C. Barnes - EMS (proxy)
Leigh Dooley - Distance Ed Coordinator (NV)
Melissa Nakamura - College Advancement and Continuing Education (V)
Mindy Case - Math & Sciences (NV)
Neghin Modavi - Social Sciences (V)
Nadine Wolff (Chair) - Math & Sciences (NV)
Rachel Lindsey - Math & Sciences (V)
Satoru Shinagawa - LLL (V)
Susan Dik - BLT (V)
Susan Jaworowski - BLT (NV)
Veronica Ogata - Student Success Coord. (V)

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Please Take a Moment to Support Our Graduates!

On May 4th, we will launch a Graduation Celebration on our website and we need just a few minutes of your time to make it a success. Please post a congratulatory message (text, photo, video) to your program's Padlet wall to honor and celebrate the amazing achievements of our graduates! This is NOT a replacement for commencement. We plan to hold an in-person ceremony at some point in the future (details not yet available). This is a way for us to express to our graduates how proud we are of them now, as they complete their educational journey with Kapi‘olani CC.

Please post your message by Friday, May 1st so that when the Graduate Celebration webpage and Padlets go live on May 4th to students, families, and friends, they will be filled with messages of love and aloha! If every one of us - staff, faculty, admin - could take a moment to share a congratulatory message, it would have a great impact! Please feel free to leave messages on more than one Padlet, as you may have relationships with students across the curriculum. The messages are moderated (just to ensure things stay PG-13 once they're live on the Web) so it may take up to 12 hours before posts are viewable.

Graduate Celebration Info. and Padlet links

Mahalo for your kokua!

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Got Research? Looking for Answers?

Lama Library has got you covered! Check out the library's Remote Learning Assistance Guide, featuring free resources to help our campus finish the Spring semester strong! The library has some new, temporary resources featured here, which were granted by publishers in response to COVID-19, so check it out! Watch streaming videos, read ebooks, or find textbooks online. Get information about tutoring and peer coaching, or find scholarly articles to complete your research. Looking for magazines? Check out our temporary trial of Flipster! Or better yet, click the Contact tab and ask a friendly librarian for help.

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What We Are Reading, Listening to, and Watching Now

The Difference between Emergency Remote Teaching and Online Learning (EduCause Review, article)

"Online learning carries a stigma of being lower quality than face-to-face learning, despite research showing otherwise. These hurried moves online by so many institutions at once could seal the perception of online learning as a weak option, when in truth nobody making the transition to online teaching under these circumstances will truly be designing to take full advantage of the affordances and possibilities of the online format."

Mindfulness in the Online Classroom (Faculty Focus, article)

“Open synchronous meetings with broad, open-ended questions: How is everyone doing? Does anyone have any questions about anything beyond our classroom that I might be able to help with? How are your other classes going? The questions are basic, but the trick is to give students time to respond. A ten second pause between each question may be what someone needs to open up.”

Generation Z: Re-thinking Teaching and Learning Strategies (Faculty Focus, article)

Gen Z students are constantly on their cellphones and love social media and Youtube. We should rethink our use of technology, assessment, and tools to facilitate learning for our Gen Z students.

Free and Discounted Ed Tech Tools for Online Learning During the Coronavirus Pandemic (Campus Technology, article)

Find out what Web tools are free or discounted during the COVID-19 crisis. This list continues to grow.

Social Presence - Why It's Important in Online Courses (YouTube video, 1:25)

An instructor's social presence in an online course helps increase instructor-student interactions, student satisfaction, and perceived depth of learning.

Community Is the Secret to Successfully Enrolling Students in the Fall (Inside Higher Ed, article)

“As we prepare for next year’s incoming class and returning students, it may now be imperative for universities to create virtual communities in addition to virtual classes -- to make sure that the most interesting and important things continue to happen in the in-between times and spaces on our campuses.”

The Quotation at the End:

Just make videos. Don't sweat the quality.

"These kids have been watching YouTube their entire lives, and they’re used to bad cuts. They actually think that a poorly edited video is in some ways cooler or more authentic.”

--John Green, author (The Fault in Our Stars, Turtles All the Way Down) and co-creator of the CrashCourse educational YouTube videos (subjects include organic chemistry and European history, among many others); from the EdSurge podcast & article “How YouTube Star John Green Thinks about His Educational Videos”