Project Description

This week’s best practices for your online class meetings

By Thomas Lok, Ying Wang and Chris Fulton

With online learning now being implemented at the University of Macau, committed teachers are holding classes online with UMMoodle and Zoom. This blog post features some of our colleagues’ tips and best practices. Let’s see what has worked well to support teaching and learning of different disciplines in an online environment.

Prof. Thomas Lok (FST)
Teaching civil engineering students with eLearning systems such as Zoom and UMMoodle during class suspension period is quite a new experience. Since I usually have a lecture-style teaching approach in my discipline, it takes some thought to tailor my course for students in this current situation.

  1. I have recorded my lectures using a tablet and a digital voice recording pen so that the narration and highlights can be viewed in PowerPoint. When students open the PowerPoint file for each class, they can see, hear and review my explanations.
  2. I created Zoom meetings in UMMoodle and informed the students about the meetings and the recorded lectures.

For the students in my discipline, I found that they are usually more passive and quieter in a Zoom meeting than in a normal class. Therefore, it is not effective to deliver a long lecture with Zoom. Instead, I tried to summarize the recorded lectures and to interact with the students in short sessions of about 30 minutes. On the other hand, when I conducted a research meeting with my PG students and FYP students in smaller groups, the students are more active in participating in the discussion. Therefore, conducting eLearning for large classes in our discipline remains a challenge.

Prof. Ying Wang (ICMS)
Students are strongly encouraged to stay at home due to the 2019 novel coronavirus disease outbreak. Most of the postgraduate students studying in ICMS reside in mainland China at this time. What’s more, internet connections to UMMoodle and our library resources are relatively slow for students in some areas, for various reasons. Therefore, I selected two alternative methods as my backup, in case Zoom or UMMoodle could not be accessed by all my students.

  • WeChat groups: one WeChat group can hold voice meetings up to nine participants, which is more useful to meetings within a small group.
  • Tencent meetings: one Tencent meeting supports online meetings of up to 300 participants without a time limit during this special occasion.

In addition to using WeChat groups for regular teaching duties, I use it to share ideas with postgraduate students and research assistants I supervise regularly. We could share research articles and PowerPoint files through the “File Transfer” function on WeChat. We also discuss scientific points using the “Group Call” function. WeChat group is convenient and commonly used among our own research group, and we only need to have a smartphone to use WeChat.

Both WeChat and Tencent are based in China and provide students in the mainland with a more stable connection to me and my course resources. Switching between these two apps helps me ensure I am meeting my students regularly and delivering effective and quality online instruction during this special teaching period.

Dr. Chris Fulton (CTLE)
UM currently provides a variety of e-learning tools for distance learning for teachers to use while classes are suspended. A summary of the main tools and their uses are summarized in a diagram below.

Students  experiencing very slow  network  speeds or  having  problems  connecting to  UMMoodle can use the  Moodle Mobile app  to  download  course resources. Students can download the course when they are on a fast  network. Using the Moodle app may help students see their course resources, messages, forums, and some quizzes can even be taken offline.

Here is a list of resources to facilitate teaching online. In these resource pages, you will find different methods described, with supplementary step-by-step guides:

· CTLE: Getting Started With Online Classes
· CTLE: Five ways to make the most of UMMoodle
· CTLE: Can I conduct online classes with a basic Zoom account?
· ICTO: Quick Start to eLearning
· How To Use Zoom? 如何使用 Zoom?
· Guideline on using the digital recording pen on Powerpoint for online lectures

Students who would like more information should pay close attention to their courses on UMMoodle. Video tutorials on how to use UMMoodle can be found at an ICTO page, A Distance Learning Quick Start Guide for Students.

Zoom Support Desk
1. Online submission via submit a request.
2. Chat live with our support team by visiting your account and selecting help in the lower right hand corner here.
Zoom技術支援
1. 通過提交請求線上提交。
2. 登錄您的帳戶，並選擇此頁面右下角的“幫助”，與我們的支持團隊進行即時聊天。

Contact Points:
For teachers and students –
ICTO Help Desk
https://icto.um.edu.mo/help-desk-services/
Telephone: 8822-8600
Email: elearning@um.edu.mo

撰文：陸萬海教授、王穎教授和Chris Fulton博士

澳大目前正積極推行在線遙距學習，不同學院的教師們通過UMMoodle和Zoom的方式進行在線課程。這篇教學網誌將介紹他們的有用貼士和例子。齊來了解不同學科的遙距教與學實用方法！

陸萬海教授（科技學院）

在停課期間，使用Zoom和UMMoodle等電子學習工具為土木工程專業的學生提供教學，絕對是一種全新的體驗。由於本人通常在本學科中採用傳統講課的教學方法，因此這時下需要針對需要定制課程。

  1. 我使用了平板電腦和數碼錄音筆記錄了我的講課，以便可以在PowerPoint中記錄聲音旁白和精彩片段。當學生打開課程的簡報時，他們可以看到、聽到和查看我的解釋。（相關教學連結）
  2. 我在UMMoodle中新增了Zoom會議作線上課程，並向學生介紹了Zoom這個軟件。

對於本學科的學生，我發現與平時課室上課相比，在Zoom他們通常更加被動和安靜。因此使用Zoom進行長時間的講課很沒效果。

所以我嘗試以下方式改變自己的在線課程：在30分鐘內錄製該課的總結部分，並與學生互動；另一方面，當我與研究生和個別進行畢業作品的同學進行更小型的研究會議時，這些學生會更積極地參與討論，所以為科技學院中的大班進行電子學習仍然是一個挑戰。

王穎教授（中華醫藥研究院）

由于新型冠狀病毒疾病暴發，學生被限制不得返校。大多數來自中華醫藥研究院的研究生春節假期返回中國大陸；在某些時段或者某些地域，學生與UMMoodle的網絡連接相對較不方便或者較慢。 因此，在不能保證所有學生同時連接到ZOOM或UMMoodle的情况下，我選擇了兩種備用方法保證正常通過網絡授課。

  1. 微信群： 微信群最多可以召開9人的語音會議，這對于小組會議比較有幫助。
  2. 騰訊會議：騰訊會議最多可免費支持300位與會者在綫參加會議，會議時長沒有限制。

在完成教學任務外，這期間我常常與我們課題組的研究生和研究助理一起通過微信群討論科學問題。我們利用微信的文件分享功能發送研究論文和其他相關資料，也利用微信的群聊功能一起討論科學問題。微信群的功能對我們課題組來說更加方便和隨意，手機即可完成任務。

微信和騰訊軟件均由中國公司開發，在國內的連接更加穩定，在特殊教授課時期可以幫忙保證授課的質量。

Chris Fulton（教與學優化中心）

澳大目前為遙距教學提供了各種工具，供教師在課程暫停期間使用，有關各工具詳情請看下圖：

當學生上網速度非常慢、或連接到UMMoodle時遇到問題，可以使用Moodle的手機／平板電腦應用程式來下載課程資源。使用Moodle應用程式可以幫助學生查看他們的課程資源、消息、論壇，甚至可以在離線之下進行小測。

學生應密切注意他們在UMMoodle上有關課程的各種資訊，也可以參閱ICTO〝學生遙距學習快速入門指南〞（相關連結）

老師可在以下資源清單裡找到在線教學的不同方法和指引：

  • 開始使用在線或混合式教學（CTLE）（相關連結）
  • 5招用好UMMoodle（CTLE）（相關連結）
  • 常見問題：我可以使用基本的Zoom帳戶進行在線課程嗎？（CTLE）（相關連結）
  • 電子學習快速入門（ICTO）（相關連結）
  • 如何使用Zoom？（ICTO）（相關連結）
  • 在PPT上如何使用錄音筆錄製教學課件（CTLE)（相關連結）

Zoom技術支援
1. 在線申請（相關連結）；
2. 登錄您Zoom帳號，並點選在右下角的Help幫助按鍵，與我們進行即時技術支援。（相關連結）

技術支援：

資訊及通訊科技部服務中心（相關連結）

電話：8822-8600

電郵：elearning@um.edu.mo