All the Emojis are Here ... Zoom Reactions Have Changed Again!

Have you missed giving a Thumbs Down in Zoom or felt like the small suite of Zoom emoji options did not adequately convey your mood? If so, you will be pleased to know that Zoom has updated their Reactions again. If however, you are NOT interested in emojis, you will be pleased to know that you can ignore them, or even disable them for your meetings.

Beginning with 5.6.3 (706), you can access hundreds of emojis via the Reactions Button. Click on the three dots on the top right-hand side, and you will see the emojis organized by type:

Is there anything particularly useful for a class or collaborative meeting?

As you can see from the image above, this is an additional path to changing the skin tone of some reactions, and that’s helpful. In addition, the following reactions that used to be included as standard in Zoom, and have been missed by some instructors, are back.

Thumbs Down: Search for “thumb”

Busy / Just stepped out: search for “coffee”

These are too many emojis. Can you disable them?

Yes. In your Settings at umn.zoom.us, under In Meeting Basics, scroll to Meeting reactions you can either toggle between All emojis and Selected emojis or toggle all Meeting reactions off.

If you adjust your settings to turn off Meeting reactions, you can still leave non-verbal feedback on, so that participants can raise their hands. Here is what the Reactions Button looks like with those settings:

 

Assessment of/as Intercultural Learning

The shift to more online teaching and learning has included increased opportunities for online professional development. Recently, I attended the webinar "Assessment of/as Intercultural Learning in World Languages" offered through the ACTFL Special Interest Group on Culture. Dr. Tatjana Babic Williams and Dr. Aletha Stahl from Purdue University led participants through a thoughtful discussion of why and how learning can be assessed and then provided concrete examples of intercultural learning assessment tools and practices designed for use in language courses. In this post, I share highlights from their presentation, but I highly recommend looking at their presentation slides, which contain a wealth of information and links to useful resources. 

Assessment of Learning  /  Assessment as Learning

When we talk about assessment, we often differentiate between formative and summative assessment. Formative assessment usually occurs during the learning process and helps the instructor align future activities with learner needs; summative assessment happens after the fact and helps the instructor measure what students learned. Assessment AS learning, however, is a student-centered metacognitive process.Students learn through the process of setting goals, monitoring their own progress, and reflecting on their own learning. A great example of this is the BOSSA, a set of self-assessment surveys and protocols created here at the U of M to help students take greater ownership of the development of their speaking skills.                    

Backward Design for Integration of Intercultural Learning in a Language Program

In our language programs, we strive to chart a path across a sequence of courses for students to develop greater proficiency in reading, speaking, listening, and writing. What is unique about the Italian program at Purdue University, is that they have added intercultural learning to their curricular goals. Using backward design, they have identified desired outcomes, determined acceptable evidence, and aligned learning experiences targeting intercultural learning. For example, in the first-year, intercultural learning focuses on affective attitudes, such as openness and curiosity. In second-year, the focus shifts to cognitive skills, such as self-awareness and cultural worldview-frameworks. In the third-year, behavioral skills, such as empathy and verbal and nonverbal communication, are emphasized. 

          

Tools and Examples for Assessment of Intercultural Learning

In the Italian courses at Purdue, students complete intercultural simulations and exercises, followed by reflection assignments and debriefing sessions. Students measure their progress along a continuum (developing - emerging - proficient) based on the AAC&U VALUE Rubric for Intercultural Knowledge and Competence. 

Instructors, in turn, do not award credit based on where students fall along the continuum, but rather on the completion, complexity, and effort demonstrated in their self-reflection.                     

In addition to these self-reflection assignments, students also complete pre and post likert-scale surveys. These surveys are based on the AAC&U VALUE rubrics for both Intercultural Knowledge and Competence and for Global Learning. In contrast to the written text format of the self-reflection assignments, these surveys are a quick tool to prepare students for a learning experience and to summarize what they have learned.  

Shared Resources through the Intercultural Learning HUB at Purdue University

The final highlight of the webinar was the introduction to the Intercultural Learning HUB, an online repository of classroom exercises, assessment tools, scholarly papers, research projects and more. Access to the HUB is free. Once you are logged in, be sure to check out these two collections: Activities Easy to Adapt for World Language, and Assessment of/as Intercultural Learning in World Languages.                    

Intercultural learning is an aspect of language education that has been gaining attention and traction in recent years. In addition to the 2019 ACTFL publication "Teaching Intercultural Citizenship Across the Curriculum: The Role of Language Education," there are frequent announcements of online webinars, such as two offered by CERCLL in May. In the future, we hope to have more discussion about intercultural learning at the U of M.

Live Lecturing: Record the Good Stuff & Share with Students

Ever since the start of remote learning and using Zoom, last spring 2020, there have been many resources that have become available to students that many have come to value. One feature that many students have really appreciated is professors having their lectures recorded. Recorded lectures are a great way for students to watch if they are absent from class. It also provides a great opportunity for students to rewatch the lectures to clarify important points and is a great resource when studying and preparing for exams. 

If you’re teaching in Zoom consider, as a service to your students, either recording the whole class or even better, recording just the elements that are most likely to be useful to students who miss class or need to review content later, such as lectures, demonstrations or unit introductions. 

If you haven’t recorded in Zoom before, first read the very useful and complete instructions the university has provided, and make sure you have the students’ consent to record. Minnesota state law requires giving notice (Tennessen warning) prior to making a recording. Learn more about FERPA guidance as it relates to online classes and COVID-19.

Once you’ve done that, here are some simple tips to ensure your recording is easy and useful:

When to initiate the recording: 

With Zoom, you can turn on automatic recording when you schedule the meeting OR you can start and stop the recording during the live meeting. Although automatic recording is the safer option (you don’t need to worry about forgetting), the result will be a long recording that will take time to process and you will need to edit. If you start and end the recording during the meeting, you may not need to edit your video at all. You can also create multiple recordings from a single Zoom lecture, and they will appear as separate files. This will help students easily find the relevant content.

Local or Cloud Recording? 

Cloud recording has more options and integrates easily with Canvas. Cloud recordings are automatically moved to the trash after 180 days, but if you are recording as a service to your current students and do not need to retain the content after the semester, that is not a problem. A local recording may be of higher quality and it will process faster. Just make sure you know where your recording is saved so that you can find it again!

Check Your Recording Settings

Some Zoom settings can be set on either the Zoom client or the Zoom website (umn.zoom.us) but in the case of Recording, change your settings on the website. A direct link to the Recording settings is: umn.zoom.us/recording. You can see below that there are several options for Cloud Recording. Please note that these are global settings, not meeting-specific settings, and if your recording needs change, you will need to change your settings:

Put the Spotlight on you! 

Although you need your students’ permission to record a class session, they do not need to appear in your recording at all. Your recording of a lecture or presentation will be easier to follow if the video is not jumping between you and your students. Before you start the part of your lesson you want to record, Spotlight yourself. The Spotlight feature ensures that even if students unmute their mics, only you will remain visible. To Spotlight yourself, find the image of yourself, and click on the three dots. This will bring up additional video options. Choose Spotlight for Everyone. 

This is different from Pin, because it ensures that everyone in your meeting sees the same video source and you know that only your video will appear on the recording. Here are some caveats to this strategy:

• Spotlight is only an option for meetings with three or more participants.

• You can Spotlight more than one participant, which can be useful in-meeting, but the recording will probably just capture the active speaker (whether or not the active speaker was in the Spotlight).

Google Sites: Student Portfolio

Following up on a previous tip about Google Sites, one effective use of Google Sites is to have students create an online portfolio throughout a semester.  An online portfolio can be an effective way for students to curate their work and allow them to retain agency over it as it is not tied to the course Canvas site. Students create the work, share the site with the instructor, and are free to reference the site and/or add to it long after the course is finished, as well as grant access to other people whenever they choose. 

For example, during my Practicum course in my M.A. program, the instructor had each student compile a portfolio with a Google Site that included: 

• Cover Letter 
• Teaching Philosophy 
• Selected Journal Entries 
• Observation Reports 
• Time Log 
• Revised Lesson Plans 
• Materials from Recorded Lessons 
• Reflective Statement 

As the semester progressed, students added materials (typically PDFs in my case) as they were completed. Being able to access everything from a single home page made everything very easy to organize and reference throughout the semester. After all of the components were in place, each student granted our instructor access to the site so they could provide assessment and feedback. 

If an instructor has a specific structure or format in mind, they can experiment with the various layout settings found on the right side of the home page, possibly make some adjustments, and then share the site with the students. Students can duplicate the site template the instructor has created, and contribute their own materials. 

To duplicate the site click  on the three dots in the upper right and select “Duplicate site”. Now they have their own copy which they can populate with their own materials. They then allow the instructor access by sharing the link to the new site. 

As mentioned earlier, a great feature of Google Sites is that I continue to have access to the site. The materials are not stored only in the instructor’s Canvas archives.

Proctorio, Zoom and More! Language Testing Program Tips for Remote Assessment

As we approach the end of a fully remote academic year, we're asking instructors and programs to reflect on what they have learned from the experience. In the first in a series of posts, Monica Frahm, the Director of the Language Testing Program, and her team, including Mary Gilchrist, Anna Hubbard and Joanne Peltonen, are sharing some tips they have picked up from a year of administering all of their proficiency tests remotely. Their remote proctoring system uses a combination of live proctors and technology (Proctorio, Zoom) to administer proficiency tests in listening, reading, writing, and speaking.

Tips from Monica Frahm and the Language Testing Program Team

Proctorio

• Experiment with Proctorio settings to achieve an acceptable level of test security without overwhelming the technical capabilities of students’ computers. Using too many Proctorio options will crash computers.
• Create a system check quiz for students to practice using Proctorio before the test. Instruct students to complete Proctorio system checks at least one day in advance.
• Students can go to https://it.umn.edu/proctorio-student-guide#pass to troubleshoot technical issues with Proctorio. There is a list of common issues, as well as links to chat, call, or email with tech help.
• Before you commit to using Proctorio, think about whether it is required for the type of assessment you are administering. IT has a comprehensive site about Proctorio, including Use Considerations. 

Zoom

• Zoom updates frequently. Check for Zoom updates on the day of testing. Be prepared to alter procedures or change standard instructions when using Zoom to proctor a test.
• Designate roles in Zoom if you have multiple instructors/TAs helping. (Ex. One person admits students from the waiting room and greets, one person puts students in breakout rooms, one person troubleshoots any technical problems, etc.)

Other

• Have backup testing options available and be flexible with students. Technology can change without notice. Some students do not have a strong internet connection and may have to share computers at home.  

Google Sites: Bring it all together and collaborate

You probably use many tools in the standard Google Suite, like Docs, Sheets, Slides, Email and Calendar. If you’ve overlooked Google Sites, check it out. You might find that it’s a great tool for collaboration that allows you to make existing resources available in a single location. It is also one of the easiest ways to create a new website, because no intervention from IT or administration is required. Anyone who can create a new Google Doc can also create a new Google Site. This means that it can be used for a long-term project or to meet a short-term need. It can also be a public site available to everyone, or a private site, limited to collaborators or students in a class.

Here are a couple of examples of public Google Sites:

• FRIT/GNSD Hub
• CLA Summer Course Offerings
• Conservation Seminar Series

This post will not go over all the details about how to create and manage a Google Site. Google has a Learning Center available with training and a cheat sheet that walks you through the basics of creating a new site. If you’re creating a public site that may require university branding, see the Google Site Brand page.

You may hear Google Sites referred to as the “New Google Sites.” That is because the product was significantly revamped in recent years, and the older, Classic version was recently retired at the university. If you tried the Classic version of Google Sites, and were underwhelmed, give the current version a chance.

Google Sites is designed to integrate with other Google products, like Docs and Slides. This means that you can use it essentially as a window for existing documents. For example, I maintain a private Google site that manages all materials for a long-standing committee. I write the minutes from each meeting as individual Google Docs, and display them via a single Google Site. This means that instead of sharing a folder full of documents with committee members, I can share one web address that provides a portal to all materials. In addition, the individual Google docs are the “master” documents, so when I update a Doc, the newest version is automatically available on the Google Site.

Google Sites is also a convenient tool for collaboration, as students or other collaborators can work on their own files, and use a Google Site as a way to display a unified final product.

How can you use Google Sites in language education? One way is to assign students to create a portfolio of work that they will retain ownership of after the class is finished. Stay tuned for an upcoming tip with more information on that idea.

100th Tip of the Day!

This post marks the one hundredth Tip of the Day. One year ago we began publishing one manageable tip each weekday to highlight resources available to language instructors teaching in a remote environment. As we headed into spring break in March, 2020, with the increasing spread of the pandemic, it became evident that we would eventually need to make use of online technology to conduct classes some time in the near future. The Language Center scheduled a workshop to orient language faculty to the newly acquired Zoom environment. We scheduled this workshop in the Jones computer classrooms several times during spring break to accommodate the schedules of the participants. The actual plunge into remote learning was so sudden that several instructors actually participated remotely. By the Monday following spring break the workshop itself was conducted remotely in Zoom.

That workshop could only be a general orientation to the Zoom environment. We covered how to set up a recurring Zoom meeting, how to use the chat function, how to see the list of participants, how to share your screen, and how to create breakout rooms. That was (we hoped) enough to get us started, but there were still a number of things that can be done in and through Zoom, as well as a number of ways to use existing technologies in new ways. We started the Tip of the Day  blog to highlight these functions and to respond to questions that could be useful for a wide audience.

As of today, the site has been visited more than 7000 times. The past few months have seen on average over 1000 visits each month. A large concentration of tips have focused on Zoom. Some topics have been repeated as Zoom has evolved and brought about changes in the way things are done. We have also covered topics dealing with Canvas, Google Docs, Google Slides, Powerpoint, Jamboard, as well as general topics related to language teaching. You can access tips on any of these topics through the Categories list at the right. The Language Center has a team that now plans and contributes to the Tip site. You will  see posts from Beth Kautz, Carter Griffith, Chee-ia Thao, Dan Soneson, Jonathan Prestrud,  Stephanie Treat, and Diane Rackowski (emeritus). In addition to Language Center staff, language instructors have contributed tips from their experiences. Many thanks to Brian Barnett, Emily Groepper, Ginny Steinhagen, Kate Paesani, Lauren Goodspeed, Lydia Belateche and Zhen Zou for their useful ideas.

The most visited posts of all time are the following:

• Share a Video with Sound in Zoom
• Create your own Whiteboard in Google Slides
• Show or Hide Zoom Meeting Controls
• Creating a Background Image in Jamboard
• LC Elevator + Canvas = Easy Media Streaming for Your Students!

We invite you to explore and revisit the tips collected here. You can use the options in the sidebar to the left to search for tips: you can enter keywords in the search box, you can search for tips by topic, you can view lists of tips posted by month in the Archives section. And you can choose to subscribe to the blog to get an email notice as each tip is posted. 

Remember:

The Language Center is here to foster the teaching and learning of languages. You can call on us to collaborate with you in designing course materials and activities, to connect instructors with one another to learn from each other, to share ideas and expertise in language teaching and learning, and in the application of technology to promote it. We are here to collaborate with you in setting up partnerships for language exchange through TandemPlus, in sharing courses with other Big Ten universities through CourseShare and with other campuses within the U of Minnesota system, to partner in research into language acquisition, proficiency development, and the application of technology, to consult with on curriculum development and course design,  to provide professional development opportunities for all instructional staff in language departments, to provide and administer proficiency assessments for placement and to certify completion of the CLA language requirement, and to provide opportunities for students to learn languages not taught on our campus that are personally or academically meaningful to them. 

The LC communicates regularly through ElsieTalk, our weekly newsletter, and through this Tip of the Day blog. As we begin to transition back into a “normal” in-person teaching environment, it is not hard to imagine that we will take with us some of the lessons learned in this year of remote teaching and learning. We may have discovered some aspects of technology-mediated activities that are more engaging and interactive than they can be in person. There may be some affordances that technology provides that you might prefer to continue accessing, even if meeting daily in person in the classroom. We aim to explore those affordances with you and to continue sharing what we learn both through ElsieTalk and in our next century of Tips. 

Thanks for hanging with us!

Record Timed Oral Production in Zoom

In October we presented a process for allowing students to record their conversations in a Zoom breakout room. This process is an excellent way to record interpersonal communication, and we’ve used it for recording the interpersonal section of the Integrated Performance Assessment (IPA).  When recording a conversation, we used randomly assigned breakout rooms with two people in each room.  

You can also record students individually in Zoom. This task might be similar to the simulated oral proficiency interview or to an individual chapter oral exam. 

The following procedure is a quick way to control an individual recording session, providing students with a specific task, determining how long they can think about their response, and determining how long they will have to complete the task.

To set up this activity, you will assign each student to their own breakout room and set a timer (in one-minute increments) to automatically close the breakout room, thereby limiting the time students have to complete the task.

For an overview of all the steps involved in this task, see the previous post.  Below are the instructions for setting up the breakout rooms with a timer.

Enable student recording in the participants list. You still need to enable recording for each individual student.

Set the parameters for the breakout room session:

• Open the breakout room control.
• Set basic parameters

1. Select as many rooms as there are students. This way each student is assigned to their own breakout room.
2. Select “Assign automatically” Each student is assigned their own room.
3. Click Create to assign the rooms

• Set the timing parameters

            Click the settings button at the bottom left of the breakout settings window (the cog icon).

            Select the appropriate settings as depicted below:

1. Checking  “Automatically move…” opens the rooms without asking students if they wish to enter. 
2. Checking “Auto close breakout rooms…” will limit the time they can spend in the breakout rooms. 
3. Enter the number of minutes you want them to speak. It appears this is possible only in 1-minute increments.

If you leave all the other boxes in this section unchecked, students will automatically enter the breakout rooms when you Open All Rooms. The rooms will automatically close at the end of the time you specify, and they will not have extra time after the rooms close.

At this point, you can present the specific task and give them an amount of time to think about how they might complete the task. Then, when you want them to start recording a response, click Open All Rooms. 

Sharing the task

There are several ways to present the task. The easiest way is to write out the task in the Chat. Because the chat persists, even in breakout rooms, students have access to the task while recording.

What if the task involves an image? Let’s say, you want your students to describe an image or narrate a story based on a set of images, or perhaps want them to compare two images. You can use the Chat for this as well. In the Chat window, click the File button and navigate to an image file that you want to share with the students. 

A link to the file appears in the chat, and students can download and open the image.

Another option would be to place the task and the image (or images) on a Google Doc or Google Slide. You can post the link to the document or slide in the chat. Students can access the document or slide by clicking on the link, and they will continue to have access to the elements of the task when in their individual breakout room. 

Further Tips

You can have more than one recording in a synchronous session. Ask the students to stop the recording after each task and to initiate recording again for each subsequent task.

You can ensure that each student is recording by observing the icon next to their name in the Participants list. Make sure the icon appears for each student before opening the breakout room, and make sure the icon does not appear when the task is complete.

One trick: if you have time in your session, ask the students to leave the Zoom meeting and to log on again right away. By closing the session, their recordings will be generated and saved on their computer. When they return, you can walk them through the process of locating and uploading the files to ensure that the recordings are all collected properly.

Where are recordings saved?

By default, Zoom creates a “Zoom” folder within the Documents folder of your computer. When recording to the computer, Zoom creates a sub-folder within this folder and places the recorded video of the meeting if you elect to record the meeting and save the video to your computer. This is also the folder where Zoom places a file containing the text of the meeting’s chat.

Open your Documents folder, locate and open the Zoom folder. The folder for each session is labeled with the date and time of the session  (e.g. 2021-04-12 08.44.31) and the name of the meeting. By default, Zoom saves both a video file (labeled "zoom_") and a separate audio file (labeled "audio_only_ ") for each recording. Should there be more than one recording per session, the label of each one contains a  sequential number. Students can upload each video file to a Canvas assignment for you to access. 

Although there are other options for recording students, such as FlipGrid and within Canvas, none include the option to limit the number of times students can record nor the amount of time they have to complete the task. This method encourages students to produce and record spontaneous speech to address specific tasks. Give it a try and add to the comments below to let us know how it goes.

Activity Dashboard: A Google Suite Tool for Collaboration

If you’ve ever seen the Upward Zig Zag Arrow icon on the top, right-hand side of your Google Doc, Sheet or Slide, and wondered what it is, this icon launches the Activity Dashboard. This dashboard can be helpful if you collaborate using Google Suite or assign Google activities to students.

Here is the icon, and it looks and works the same on a Google Doc, Sheet or Slide.

What can you use it for?

In a previous post, I explained that the Activity Dashboard is one of two ways you can email collaborators from a Google Doc. What I have since discovered is that I find it the superior method of starting an email. The File menu method begins with all collaborators selected for email, and the Dashboard method begins with no collaborators selected for email. If you’ve ever started an email from the File menu, accidentally deleted someone from your Send list, and had to abandon the email and start over, you’ll understand why I prefer the Dashboard method. I also like the fact that you can order your potential recipient list by name or last viewed date.

This brings me to another use of the Activity Dashboard: getting an overview of engagement. It is not a precise instrument, but it will give you an idea of who has accessed the document (by document I mean Doc, Sheet or Slide) and when. You might visit the Dashboard to see if you need to send out a reminder of an approaching deadline, or to confirm that most people have had a chance to access the document. You can also see viewer and comment trends, which may be useful in some circumstances.

If you are an Owner of the document, you can access the Sharing History for a reminder of who has been added or removed from the document. The Dashboard is also where you can adjust your Privacy Settings if you do not want others to see when you accessed all Google documents or this particular document.

What should you not use it for?

Do not use the Activity Dashboard to assess individual participation or performance. As mentioned, users can adjust their Privacy Settings to opt out of sharing their viewing history. The Dashboard also may fail to track some document access, particularly if the user still has the document window open.

What if all I can do from the Dashboard is adjust my Privacy Settings?

In that case, you only have View or Comment access to the document, and would need to ask for Edit access before you engage with the Dashboard.