Foundations for Online Teaching

Talkabout is a virtual discussion section tool developed by researchers at UC San Diego and Stanford University.  The tool is built around Google Hangouts and is specifically designed for MOOCs.  In Talkabout integrated courses, students schedule a time for a discussion section with students in their course.  Talkabout then integrates an agenda created by the faculty member to guide discussion--however, faculty need not be present to moderate the discussion.    

Adobe Connect regularly offers demos on how to use their service for online teaching.  Emory University Technology Services also maintains its own guide for getting started in Adobe Connect. 

For more info about how to integrate Adobe Connect into your course, check out Professor Tim Dowd's talk on the CFDE Knowledge Hub:

George Washington University's Teaching and Learning Center has created brief YouTube videos to help instructors determine when and how they should use asynchronous versus synchronous instruction to improve communication with students.  

Infographics, like this one from Touro College's Online Education Blog (below), are a great way to communication in online spaces.  They are also accessible for students to present information for their own projects, presentations, and webpages.   

Check out Creative Bloq's post "10 Free Tools for Creating Infographics" or dive-in with the tools below: 

• Easel.ly
• Piktochart
• Venngage
• Infogr.am

​For more information about how to use infographics effectively in the classroom, see the Center for Faculty Development and Excellence (CFDE) podcast.  Donna Troka, associate director at the CFDE presents "Connect with Teaching: Using Piktochart as a Teaching Tool".  You can also contact the Emory Center for Digital Scholarship to schedule a consultation on using infographics in your course.  

Body Language in the Bandwidth is a blog by Jennifer Hoffman about effective online communication for instructors.