Remote Teaching – Teaching Scenarios Mapping

This guidance has been designed to provide practical solutions to any academic staff engaging in remote and on-campus teaching in 2020/21. It maps typical teaching scenarios with delivery options available to them using technologies provided by UR in its eLearning Toolbox. All UR’s eLearning tools are secure and fully integrated with Moodle 2020/21 to help reduce preparation time and administrative overheads. By design they comply with regulations in force in the UK including the GDPR schedule, the Data Protection Act and UK’s web accessibility regulations under the Equality Act. It is based on:

  • Panopto (ReCap) for live streaming on-campus classes automatically to remote students and creating recordings for asynchronous artefacts published on the corresponding module sites in the VLE: Moodle 2020/21;
  • Blackboard Collaborate for a fully online classroom which can also be recorded and published automatically on the Moodle VLE.

In any case, we recommend that supplementary Blended Learning asynchronous activities are provided on the Moodle VLE to engage those remote students that are not able to attend a live class.

Teaching to on-campus and remote students simultaneously

If you have a large cohort and will be teaching multiple groups, we recommend that you keep sessions and interactions with on-campus and remote groups for the best possible student experience. However, if this is not possible due to student numbers or staff resources, please follow the guidance in this document below.

On Campus considerations

  • Whether a teaching session is captured and streamed with Panopto or delivered using Blackboard Collaborate, remote students will be able to view the screen of the teaching console PC’s and hear the audio from their lecturer in the teaching room. They will not see a video of the teaching room including anything that is written on the whiteboards.
  • All Panopto enabled rooms will feature a boundary mic at the front of the room. Please keep in mind that this may not pick up everyone’s audio for those watching remotely. It may help to repeat questions for the benefit of all.
  • Sessions on Panopto can only be scheduled centrally if the member of staff uses the teaching console’s PC in the room. For further information and help preparing, please contact moodle@roehampton.ac.uk or your local eLearning Adviser.
  • If the room changes once the session has been scheduled centrally for automated streaming and recording, it is the responsibility of the staff member to inform moodle@roehampton.ac.uk ahead of time or use the Panopto desktop recorder instead to start the recording or streaming. Please contact moodle@roehampton.ac.uk or your local eLearning adviser for support.

Panopto (ReCap) vs Blackboard Collaborate

If you are teaching on campus and have remote students joining the session, you have the option of either live-streaming and recording via Panopto or via Blackboard Collaborate.

  • Panopto’s Live Stream feature records the classroom’s teaching PC screen along with the audio of the presenter. All the details the students need to access the live stream and the recording are published automatically on the corresponding module site in Moodle 2020/21. Whilst a session is streaming, it is possible to enable a chat function so that students can ask questions, be involved in discussions, etc.
  • Blackboard Collaborate creates an online classroom where you can share presentation material, PowerPoint presentation or share your screen and material such as multimedia, webpages and applications. Collaborate’s communication features offer a choice of one or more of the following options to all participants – synchronous audio, video and chat tools. It enables a wide range of interactive activities using a collaborative whiteboard, polling tools and breakout rooms for groupwork. Online sessions can be recorded for reviewing or for those students unable to attend in real time.

We recommend that by default you opt for using Panopto sessions for live streaming. The scheduling and publishing process are largely automated to reduce preparation time and the administrative burden for staff. Panopto sessions are scheduled centrally by eLearning team based on the Teaching Timetable provided by Academic Services. Recording/streaming starts automatically at the beginning of the class. However, live streaming is more passive and if you are looking for a fully interactive experience online, we suggest using Blackboard Collaborate.

Mapping

Below is an overview of the different scenarios mapped out with the technologies we suggest are most appropriate for each situation:

No. Scenario Group work? Capture solution How? Group work solution How?
1. Teaching synchronous sessions to on-campus students only. N/A Staff can opt in to have their lectures captured via Panopto (no live stream) so students that have missed the session can recap later. Timetabling data will be collected centrally and verified by departments. eLearning Services will then schedule in sessions to be automatically captured using the remote recorder software. N/A N/A
2. Teaching synchronous sessions to on campus and remote students (when the staff member is ON CAMPUS). Yes Sessions will be live streamed via Panopto with recordings made available after the session on the corresponding module site in Moodle. Timetabling data will be collected centrally and verified by departments. eLearning Services will then schedule in sessions to be automatically captured using the remote recorder software. If using Panopto, staff and students will need to move to Blackboard Collaborate for this part of the session where breakout rooms can be used. Staff members will need to set up breakout groups on Blackboard Collaborate themselves.
3. Teaching synchronous sessions to on campus and remote students (when the staff member is ON CAMPUS). No Sessions will be live streamed via Panopto with recordings made available after the session on the corresponding module site in Moodle. Timetabling data will be collected centrally and verified by departments. eLearning Services will then schedule in sessions to be automatically captured using the remote recorder software. N/A N/A
4. Teaching synchronous sessions from home when students are ONLINE. Yes Sessions should be carried out using Blackboard Collaborate. Staff will need to set these up themselves on Moodle.** Group work will be carried out via breakout rooms in Blackboard Collaborate. Staff members will need to set up breakout groups on Blackboard Collaborate themselves.
5. Teaching synchronous sessions from home when students are ONLINE. No Staff can either opt to have sessions live streamed via Panopto with recordings made available after the session via Moodle or they can use Blackboard Collaborate. Only on campus sessions can be scheduled remotely so staff will need to stream these via the Panopto desktop recorder, or set up a Blackboard Collaborate session themselves on Moodle.** N/A N/A
6. Teaching synchronous sessions from home when students are ON CAMPUS. Yes In the first instance, it is always advised that this is taught asynchronously, however, if staff would like it to run as a synchronous session then sessions should be carried out using Blackboard Collaborate. Staff members will need to set up Blackboard Collaborate sessions themselves on Moodle.
For these sessions, an IT lab will need to be booked. Students will need to login to an individual PC and plugin their own headphones. They can then view the session and will only be able to participate via the chat facility.*		 Group work will be carried out via breakout rooms in Blackboard Collaborate. Staff members will need to set up breakout groups on Blackboard Collaborate themselves.
7. Teaching synchronous sessions from home when students are ON CAMPUS. No We advise that this type of session is taught asynchronously, however, if staff would like it to run as a synchronous session then they can either opt to have sessions live streamed via Panopto with recordings made available after the session via Moodle or they can use Blackboard Collaborate. Staff will need to stream these via the Panopto desktop recorder or set up a Blackboard Collaborate session.
For these sessions, an IT lab will need to be booked. Students will need to log in to an individual PC and plug in their own headphones. They can then view the session and will only be able to participate via the chat facility.*		 N/A N/A

* Speaking via a microphone will be difficult due to a feedback loop it creates when multiple participants in the same room.
** If the sessions are due to be held at the same time each week, we suggest setting this up just once at the start of term as a reoccurring event.

How will students access live streams / recordings?

  • Blackboard Collaborate – You will need to have set up a Blackboard Collaborate room in advance of the session. Students will eed to click on the Blackboard Collaborate icon on their Moodle course. From there they can either join a session live or access a recording. Please ask students to read the Blackboard Collaborate student guidance before their first session to reduce the possibility of technical issues during the session.
  • Panopto – When a session is scheduled to be live-streamed, a link automatically appears on the Lecture Capture (ReCap) block on the student’s Moodle site under the heading ‘Live Sessions’.
    • All recorded sessions will appear in the same place under the heading Completed recordings’. Please ask students to read the Panopto Live Stream student guidance before their first session to reduce the possibility of technical issues during the session.

Using and managing the chat facility

Using the chat facility during on campus and online sessions
If you are teaching both on-campus and remote students simultaneously, you can choose to either have the chat (discussion) facility enabled or disabled whilst live streaming using Panopto. The decision is yours and we advise you do what you feel most confident with. If you don’t have the chat enabled, then the session will be very passive for those students online.

If you do choose to enable the chat facility, we suggest considering the following:

Managing the chat facility

With large numbers of students online, you may find it useful to nominate a couple of Student facilitators for each session (different ones each week) to take charge of the chat and avoid overload for you.  The facilitators will need to have access to view the questions arriving in the discussion section which will ideally require a laptop or tablet. The facilitators can make a note of questions in the chat that only you can answer and put them to you at the end of the class. Student facilitators can be in the actual classroom or in the virtual one and allow them to play an active role in engaging with teaching. The questions can be compiled on a PowerPoint slide and shared or added to the end of the chat stream as a ‘summary of questions’ and a takeaway if the session is recorded.

 Using Polling alongside or as an alternative to the chat facility

An approach to checking understanding of both online and on-campus students could be to run a poll using a tool such as Mentimeter. This could be used by students in the class and accessing remotely.

Working remotely

If you are delivering any sessions from home and opt to use the Panopto desktop recorder, the software will need to be installed on your machine beforehand. If using your own machine, you can install this yourself. The software can be downloaded from https://roehampton.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto. If you have a University owned machine, contact IT Services via the ServiceDesk and they can do this remotely for you.