Our collection of some of the most popular guides from experienced online and distance learning educators.
The Online Teaching Survival Guide
Judith V. Boettcher and Rita-Marie Conrad
The Online Teaching Survival Guide is a highly rated guide is a comprehensive introduction to teaching classes online. The book covers core principles for structuring the online class, managing the overall running of the class, and interacting with students throughout the course. The material is grounded in evidence-based research and is intended for both new instructors transiting online as well as existing teachers who are looking to refine their approach.
Essentials of Online Course Design
Marjorie Vai and Kristen Sosulski
Essentials of Online Course Design focuses on core considerations when designing online courses, drawing on best practices to help ensure a well-structured course. The text covers core concepts of course design from the form and nature of the material delivered to the assessment and feedback from the course.
Small Teaching Online
Flower Darby and James M. Lang
Small Teaching Online considers the “small and strategic changes” that are can help transform online teaching and increase student engagement with the course content. The text covers approaches for increasing student engagement within online learning, with consideration of building a community, giving feedback, and the importance of making connections between course content and their experiences.
Teaching Effectively with Zoom
Dan Levy
Teaching Effectively with Zoom offers detailed, practical advice for teaching via Zoom, drawing on the authors experience as well as interviews with students. Published in July of 2020, the book is an up-to-date companion to assist educators transition to teaching on the platform.
The Distance Learning Playbook, Grades K-12
Fisher Douglas, Frey Nancy, and Hattie John
The Distance Learning Playbook offers practical advice specifically targeted at the needs of school teachers, combined with video companions to supplement the material in the book. Focused on the needs of a classroom environment, this highly rated guide covers a lot of considerations involved in delivering classes to K-12 students, with video material given advice from a diverse number of teachers and perspectives.
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Related articles
Resolving Technical Issues with Zoom
From connection and internet issues to microphone and webcam problems, there will inevitably be at least some technology issues during your Zoom classes. This article and its accompanying student-companion, is intended to help you to provide support to students who are having issues connecting to your Zoom call.
Personalizing Zoom
Although Zoom does not allow many opportunities for customization, there are several small adjustments to make Zoom slightly more personalized. This article will explain changing your profile picture, waiting room interface, and other personalization opportunities.
Preventing the Zoom Meeting Control Bar Auto Hiding
Although Zoom includes an easy to use options bar that appears at the bottom of the call, the standard behavior is for this bar to auto-hide. When presenting a Zoom class it is useful to have these options easily available so that they can be clicked as needed. This article illustrates how the change this default behavior.
Hide the Zoom Control Bar When Screen Sharing
The Zoom control bar is normally useful to have at hand (and for teaching it can be useful to always have it displayed). However, if you are sharing your entire screen it can be useful to disable it so that viewers can see your entire screen.
See a Participant View of Zoom
It can be useful to see Zoom as your students do – this makes it easier to know what they are likely seeing at there end and provide guidance and instructions. This article shows how Zooms looks from the student perspective.
Disable Webcam Mirroring in Zoom
While mirroring your webcam is often a useful feature on Zoom – with your preview the mirror-image of how it is recorded – there are occasions when it is more natural to disable this and see your preview the way participants do. This article explains how to disable the mirroring of your webcam in Zoom.
5 Features We Hope Zoom Adds Soon
Zoom has quickly become the go-to video conferencing software for online learning. But it is far from perfect, and some much-needed features would make the online learning experience a much more satisfying experience, for students and educators alike. Here is our wish list for features we would love Zoom to have.
Changing Zoom’s Resolution
The resolution of your video classes can have a big impact on the overall experience – high resolution makes everything feel crisper and closer to in-person discussions. The guide illustrates how to change the resolution of Zoom calls, reducing pixelation from default settings.
Changing the Waiting Room Message in Zoom
This article explains how to customize the waiting room message in Zoom