Are you looking for a way to hold online office hours with your students? How about a review session on some difficult course content? Perhaps there is a snow day or other emergency that keeps you away from campus and you want to teach your class online.
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You have a couple of great solutions! Consider using Zoom, UD’s new online, web-based videoconferencing platform. Zoom offers audio/video sharing, screen sharing, a built-in whiteboard, polling, breakout rooms, recording and many other features. Accounts are free to all faculty, staff, and students. Simply go to udel.edu/zoom and click the Sign-In button to log in with your UDEL credentials. Click the Help button to download a getting started guide, and find links to online tutorials.
If you are a Canvas user, you can use either Zoom or Canvas Conferencing, a built-in tool in your Canvas course. Found on the course’s menubar, Canvas Conferencing allows you to create a conference with one or more students or the whole class. The session can be recorded, and the recordings are available for two weeks. Similar to Zoom, it has screen sharing, a built-in whiteboard and polling. To learn more about getting started creating a conference in your course, consult the Canvas Instructor Guide.
Remember, for online office hours, whether using Zoom or Canvas Conferencing, discussions that are confidential with a single student should be confined to just those participants. Make sure other users cannot join in. In Canvas Conferencing set up the conference with just that student. If using Zoom, either schedule meetings with individual links for each student, or set your meetings with the waiting room feature turned on, so that the only people you allow to enter the room may join you.
To learn more and see a comparison chart: (Desktop Video Conferencing Options)
