Moving Your Classes Online
As an administrator or program director, your instructors (or maybe even you!) are likely thinking about moving their in-person classes to online classes. It’s a great way to keep your students engaged, provide safe options for social engagement, and oh yeah, bring in some much-needed revenue!
When considering moving a class from a traditional classroom setting to an online setting, your instructors might have some questions about how to make it all work. In an effort to make the transition as easy as possible, we’ve broken the process into bite-sized pieces.
This chapter gets things started by focusing on determining what kind of technology you’ll need to run your class.
Step 1: The first step is to understand how you want to provide information and interact with your class; interactive and in real-time or go at your own pace?
Using the table below, determine which of these statements apply to your class. The results can help you decide what technology may be necessary. And each class may have different needs so you may want to repeat this process for each of your classes.
Column 1 | Column 2 |
|---|---|
Your class requires you demonstrating something in real-time. | Your class has handouts. |
Your class is discussion-based or interactive. | Your class has homework assignments, quizzes and/or tests. |
You use slide presentations to share information in your class and want to reference them in real-time. | You use slide presentations to share information in your class but they don’t need any verbal explanation. |
| You want to be able to share presentations used in lessons with the class. |
| Your students communicate with others via a written forum over a period of time. |
Step 2: Review your results to determine what technology will be the most helpful.
If you only selected statements in Column 1 then you will likely only need a Video Conferencing tool like Google Chat or Zoom.
If you only selected statements in Column 2 then you can likely make do using a LMS system. Examples are Google Classroom.
If you selected statements in both columns then you’ll likely want to use a combination of both technologies.
Step 3: Understand what the technology actually is.
Video Conferencing - A conference tool for virtual meetings and hangouts. It can be used to connect with coworkers or live stream things like classes; allowing you to see the users in a chat face-to-face, on a phone, tablet, or computer. They often have an in-app text messaging app for additional interaction.
Learning Management System (LMS) - A software system that provides space for the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting, and delivery of educational courses, training programs, or learning and development programs.
Step 4: Decide what software system you’d like to use and set up an account!
Because there are sooo many options out there, we’re going to narrow down the list to one of each based on recommendations from customers who have used them. Click on the links to go to their respective websites and learn more about each option so you can decide what’s the best fit for you. From there, you can create an account and you’ll be on your way!
Video Conferencing - Zoom - Here’s a helpful article that talks about how you can use it for online teaching. There’s also a great tutorial on how to get started with Zoom below.
Learning Management System (LMS) - Google Classroom - Here’s a helpful article that explains all the ways you can use Google Classroom to interact with your students. There’s also a great tutorial on how to get started with Google Classroom below.