Communicating with students
You can give updates to your class through the Course Announcements forum (already set up at the top of every course) in OpenLMS/Moodle, which also allows you to record an audio or video message via Panopto. This forum is set to a Forced Subscription status, so all students in the course will receive an email regarding the post within thirty minutes of posting.
You can use your Outlook email, or Quickmail (use Quickmail block on right-hand side of course home page) for announcements as well, although this may be more manageable with smaller class sizes.
You can set up CarmenZoom meetings, which would be ideal for small-class or small-group video conversations.
Note: COTC Students DO NOT have access to initiate Zoom sessions, they can only attend zoom sessions that faculty have created via CarmenZoom.
Learn more:
Engaging and interacting with students
Zoom Meetings
You can schedule one-time or recurring meetings in Zoom, where you’re able to use your webcam and share your screen with students. With very small classes, you can have students participate with audio and video; with larger classes, students can participate with chat and poll functionality. Zoom meetings can be scheduled through your OpenLMS/Moodle course for easy inclusion of your whole class list. Note: COTC Students DO NOT have access to initiate Zoom sessions, they can only attend zoom sessions that faculty have created via Zoom.
Learn more:
- Zoom Scheduled Meetings(link is external)
- Zoom Help Center: Polling for Meetings
- Join a Zoom Meeting
- Scheduling a Zoom Meeting
- Zoom Meeting Controls
- Joining and Configuring Audio and Video
- Zoom Breakout Rooms
Moodle Discussion Threads
For asynchronous (not live) written messages, you can use the Open Forum activity in Moodle. If you want to have students discuss material they have prepared, create a graded discussion and have them attach photos and files.
Zoom
You can also set up Zoom meetings, which would be ideal for small-class or small-group video conversations.