When the 小蝌蚪APP announced March 13 that courses would transition to remote instruction, Dr. Monica Wright wasn小蝌蚪APP檛 sure how to move forward. She says her lifeline came from attending one of the Office of Distance Learning小蝌蚪APP檚 presentations on Moodle Basics.
小蝌蚪APP淚 needed a handful of good tools, and they were able to direct us to the ones that would be most useful,小蝌蚪APP she says. 小蝌蚪APP淚 felt like I could see my way through this.小蝌蚪APP
Dr. Wright, department head for Modern Languages, had to transition two very different courses: a highly interactive French grammar course and a less interactive French civilization course. She says she was able to adapt using VoiceThread and Zoom. She says she plans to continue using these in her HyFlex courses in Fall 2020. 
Transitioning her advanced French grammar course to remote delivery was especially challenging, Dr. Wright says. But she found offering both asynchronous VoiceThread lessons with synchronous Zoom meetings was a good fit.
Dr. Wright developed PowerPoint presentations that she then imported into VoiceThread, recording her lesson over the slides.
VoiceThread is a web-based sharing and collaboration tool that fully integrates with Moodle. Instructors can create and share dynamic presentations that can allow for student comment and discussion.
小蝌蚪APP淚 even included exercises we would have done orally,小蝌蚪APP Dr. Wright says. 小蝌蚪APP淚 was able to read it out and give them a bit of time to think about it, then give them the answer and talk through the answer the same way I would have done it in class. It gave me the opportunity to do something completely asynchronous that they could work on.小蝌蚪APP
Twice a week, students could then participate in synchronous Zoom sessions. Dr. Wright says she didn小蝌蚪APP檛 make them mandatory, but students who participated ultimately fared better in the course.
小蝌蚪APP淎ny given meeting, about half the students were there on average,小蝌蚪APP she says. 小蝌蚪APP淲e then were able to use Zoom more like the classroom would have been with me sharing my screen with exercises and us talking to each other, going through the exercises together.小蝌蚪APP
The combination, she says, worked well for the content and for course continuity, as students were used to her teaching style.
小蝌蚪APP淯nder normal circumstances for this course, I would only speak 50 percent of the time and the other 50 percent would be students speaking and doing exercises and asking questions,小蝌蚪APP she says.
In contrast, Dr. Wright小蝌蚪APP檚 French civilization course is less activity-centered, so she approached it a little differently.
Dr. Wright modified her PowerPoint presentations to include additional context she小蝌蚪APP檇 normally provide in the classroom. Although the course had been meeting twice weekly, Dr. Wright condensed and consolidated the material for each week into a single VoiceThread.
小蝌蚪APP淚 didn小蝌蚪APP檛 want them to just be watching me talk over PowerPoint slides 75 minutes twice a week. I wanted them to do some other things, too, to bring up participation,小蝌蚪APP she says.
Each week 小蝌蚪APP or module in Moodle 小蝌蚪APP included a VoiceThread presentation, historical reading, and a graded group assignment to develop five multiple-choice trivia questions from that module小蝌蚪APP檚 materials. Students also took quizzes in Moodle, Dr. Wright says.
At the end of the semester, instead of a final, the class came together via Zoom for a trivia game built from their weekly assignments.
小蝌蚪APP淭hey really enjoyed it, I think,小蝌蚪APP Dr. Wright says. 小蝌蚪APP淪ome of them asked really hard questions so the questions were harder than what I would have asked them.小蝌蚪APP
Dr. Wright says she initially used VoiceThread in a limited capacity compared to its functionality but is exploring its collaborative features for next semester.
"I would like to have students doing their own VoiceThread instead of class presentations,小蝌蚪APP she says. 小蝌蚪APP淭hey could bring in all sorts of things 小蝌蚪APP PowerPoints or other sorts of media.小蝌蚪APP
VoiceThread also allows instructors to bring in Zoom recordings to allow students to add comments or have asynchronous discussions.
Although she小蝌蚪APP檚 designing her Fall 2020 courses as HyFlex, Dr. Wright says she knows she may have to transition to a fully Remote. She says she小蝌蚪APP檚 been working through resources available through the Office of Distance Learning小蝌蚪APP檚 Basic Course Building Workshop to prepare.
小蝌蚪APP淭hat course has been great because it points you in a lot of different directions and then leads you down paths to follow if you小蝌蚪APP檙e interested,小蝌蚪APP she says.
In addition to the self-paced workshop, the Office of Distance Learning has resources available through the Support Center to connect faculty with best practices, tools, and templates for creating online learning environments.