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Why do these webcam videos appear in this particular order? [Source: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362323-Adjusting-your-video-layout-during-a-virtual-meeting] The good folks at the MIT Teaching and Learning Lab have taken serious consideration of the algorithm Zoom uses to determine the order of webcams in Zoom’s gallery view (Rankin & MacDowell, n.d.). The initial video placement is determined by order of arrival, with the most recent arrivals first. Those with their webcams on will be first; those with webcams off will be last.   Every time a person speaks, their video pops to the top left of the screen. The MIT Teaching and Learning Lab staff ask us to consider these threeRead More →

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I have a colleague who emailed recently needing a transcript from a podcast episode. How could she get one? It’s surprisingly easy. If you do not already have the file (mp3/m4a/wav—or mp4 if it’s a video), you’ll need to get it. Step 1: Download the recording’s file I use a Firefox browser add-on called Video DownloadHelper. For Chrome, try CocoCut. Visit the website that hosts the recording. The browser add-on icon will change when it detects a file it can download. The Video DownloadHelper and CocoCut icons will go from black and white to color. If the add-on doesn’t turn color, try playing the recordingRead More →

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In Zoom 5.10.0 (released March 21, 2022), we have some new features that instructors and their students might appreciate. This release is a manual download. Get it here. First, animal avatars. You can find the menu next to virtual backgrounds and video filters. Mouse over each avatar to see what the Zoom developers think it is. I’m pretty sure that what they call a grizzly bear (last one in the second row and first in the third row) is a groundhog. If you’ve used Zoom’s video filters to, for example, wear a virtual hat or glasses, you’ve experienced Zoom’s facial detection software. They’re using theRead More →

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For Windows users, there is free collection of utilities called PowerToys that add some functionality to Windows. While there are a dozen tools in PowerToys, there are two I’m particularly enamored with: mouse utilities and video conference mute. Working with two or three screens, it can be a challenge to find my mouse pointer. Frankly, I’m tired of moving my mouse around and glancing from screen to screen hoping to catch the movement. With mouse utilities, pressing the left CTRL button on my keyboard twice darkens all screens and gives my pointer a spotlight. In the screenshot below, my mouse pointer was in the centerRead More →

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Zoom has new question options available on in the latest version 5.8.3. This version is not an automatic update, so you’ll need to download it manually. Account owners and admins can enable advanced polling to allow meeting hosts to build advanced polls or quizzes that contain multiple question/answer types, allow for images, and automatically record answers. New question/answer types include match combinations, rank answers, and fill in the blank. This feature requires version 5.8.3 or higher and currently must be enabled by Zoom. (https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201361953) But big caveat: “Users using older versions of Zoom will not be able to participate in polls with new question typesRead More →

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One of the advantages of using the Canvas learning management system is that it is built on a platform that makes it easy to make it do things that its inherent programming doesn’t allow it to do. By “easy,” I mean easy for those who know how to write the scripts and easier for us who only need to install the scripts others have written. Using a web browser add-in called Tampermonkey (yes, it is called Tampermonkey; download for Chrome; download for Firefox), we can run scripts in your browser that will change how Canvas behaves. For example, there is a Tampermonkey script that allowsRead More →

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Some people, for a large number of reasons, have an easier time understanding written content when it is read aloud. The course management systems are getting better at this—such as Canvas’s Immersive Reader—but they still have a ways to go. Immersive Reader, for example, at the time of this writing does not work with discussions or quizzes. The web browser add-in Read Aloud for Firefox (download here) and Chrome (download here) does a pretty good job at reading text on a webpage. After Read Aloud is installed, navigate to any webpage and click the newly-added loud speaker icon on your browser’s add-in bar. The popRead More →

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Let’s start with the easiest solution. Browser bookmarks bar Your web browser bookmarks bar sits directly under the search/web address bar. If it’s not there, turn it on. In Firefox, click the 3-line icon in the top right corner of the window. Click on bookmarks. Select “Show bookmarks bar.” To turn it on in Chrome, it’s the exact same process, except it’s a 3-dot icon, not a 3-line icon. Or, in Firefox, right-click in any empty space to the right of the search/web address bar. Mouse over Bookmarks Toolbar and select Always Show. To add bookmarks, visit the page you want to bookmark, highlight theRead More →

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Chrome for Windows now has live captioning. (The same functionality is coming for Chrome for Macs.) For any video you play in Chrome, you can display captions for that video even if the video itself is not captioned. Chrome “listens” to the audio and captions as the audio plays. This video was recorded in my pre-pandemic classroom using Panopto. Here, using Chrome, I’m playing the video from inside Canvas—our learning management system. At the bottom of the image you can see “Live Caption.” During this lecture, I was talking about interleaving and consecutive tasks. I know, because the caption reads, “Either the interleaved or consecutiveRead More →

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Friends and colleagues, I’m exploring offering Zoom-based Technology for Academics online workshops as a professional development opportunity. Each workshop would be limited to 10 to 15 participants, be no longer than 60 to 90 minutes including hands-on practice time, and would feature a tool especially useful to instructors. For example, one workshop—Grading Hacks #1—would be an introduction to the text expander, Phrase Express. Using this tool to create keyboard shortcuts for long words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs that you use frequently will greatly reduce the time it takes you to reply to email and to mark student assignments. By the end of the workshop, youRead More →

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