Transition to Learning Online

We know that in-person office hours are important for student learning and engagement and therefore your instructors will strive to provide all students with greater access and move their office hours online. Try to take advantage of the virtual office hours, especially if you are having trouble understanding something or keeping up in your online class.

Social presence

Every Moodle user has a profile page which links to further pages allowing you to edit your profile information and preferences, and add a profile picture. Posting an introduction of yourself, including your background and interests, along with a photo, allows others to get to know you. This will enhance your social presence and enable a greater sense of community among course participants.

To edit your profile information, follow the following steps:

1. Log in to Moodle

2. From the User menu on the top right-corner select Profile. Your Profile page opens.

3. On your Profile page under User details, click Edit profile

4. To add a profile picture, scroll down to the User Picture area.  Drag your desired image file into the New Picture box. The file should be a .jpg or .png file format and will be cropped and resized to a 100x100 pixel square automatically. 

    

Netiquette guidelines for online lectures

• Practice using Zoom prior to your first meeting. Zoom is very easy to use, but learning how to mute/unmute, and exploring other features will help ensure you are ready when the class is live. 

• You will be automatically muted when you join the session. If you do unmute your mic to speak, be sure to Mute again when you are finished speaking. Background noise is very distracting for everyone in the session. 

• Depending on your instructor’s class communication preferences, you will be able to ask questions by using the Raise Hand feature and unmuting your mic to speak live when you are called on, OR by using Zoom’s chat function to type your message. 

• Turn off your camera. Always remember that everyone can see you if your camera is on. Your instructor might be recording a live session. If you do not wish to have your image or voice recorded, turn off your camera and mute yourself.
  

Taking online courses for the first time requires particular learning strategies. 

• The Student Success Centre (SCC) developed a Handout on online learning to help you succeed in online courses.

• Resources from other universities

  • Medical Collage of Wisconsin: Online Learning Strategies for Success

You can use Office 365 Education, the G Suite, and Zoom to meet with your peers and collaborate with them on documents, group assignments, and presentations. You can also ask your instructor or TA to set up Moodle collaboration tools in your course to help you collaborate with your peers. Here is a suggested list of free collaboration tools:

1. Office 365 Education - students
   Active Concordia students have free access to Office 365 Education - a collection of online applications that allows you to collaborate and share your course work. The free subscription includes an email address, Office online (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote), 1 TB of OneDrive storage, Yammer, and SharePoint sites. The subscription also allows you to install the full suite of Office software on up to 5 devices free of charge. For more information on how to download Office 365 Education, please visit the following website.
2. Zoom offers a full-featured Basic Plan for free with unlimited meetings. Try Zoom for as long as you like - there is no trial period. Your Basic plan has a 40 minutes time limit on meetings with three or more total participants.
3. G Suite is a suite of cloud computing, productivity and collaboration tools, software and products developed by Google Cloud
4. Moodle offers a number of tools for communicating and collaborating, such as Discussion Forums, chats and more. Your instructor will decide which tools will be used in individual coures based on the pedagogical needs.