 Hello, welcome back to the technology room and we are about to listen to Nicole Walsh about the model design and functionality and other exciting presentation in our room. We will have some time in the end to answer questions that you ask in the forum so please post them in advance, so they're ready by the time the question answer section starts. Thank you all yours Nicole. Thank you Marina. Okay, good day to everyone and a warm welcome to the presentation on model design and functionality. My name is Nicole Welsh and I'm an instructional development coordinator from the University of the West Indies open campus. I mentioned learned session in May 2018. I mentioned diversity as a collective mixture of differences and similarities and refer to inclusion as fully and respectfully involving all learners. Then I shared the quote, everybody is a genius. As much a fish bites ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing it was stupid. Now this suggests that even if we're aware of the diverse needs of all our students and expose them to the same opportunities and resources. It's possible. We may exclude some learners if our approach is not inclusive in that we may be asking some fishes to climb trees. So, how can we help a fish to participate and move to a specific location in our online courses. Perhaps, we should ensure that adequate water suitable for the fishes available, and that the fish can swim towards the learning objectives within said guidelines and without compromising the quality of the teaching or the learning experience. In this presentation, I will share five tips. You can consider using in your model courses to enable a diverse, inclusive, and engaging online learning environment. We'll start by looking at using multimedia creatively and wrap up with open to learn and share with others. Let's go to the first tip. Tastefully use multimedia on the Moodle learning platform. Be creative. So how do you go about doing this? Work smart. Start with one basic design. For example, use PowerPoint to create content, then display the content on your course main page on Moodle. Using a website-like design approach, include a course banner, active tabs, hyperlinks, and hover over effects, then convert the PowerPoint to multiple formats, such as EPUB, interactive PDF, Moodle Resources Book, and Scorm Package. And make the options easily accessible from your course main page. You should also use complimentary design teams to show progression and let your images represent your unique brand. Use open source content and create your own designs using Inkscape. Ensure your videos are informative and brief. Five minutes or less include closed caption or a transcript. Here is a video, an example of one of my earlier Moodle videos, and the video was done using a mobile phone and a stepladder. You should also try to use animation and mixed images with pictures of real people if you can. Ensure the images you are sharing are visually appealing, includes different shapes, colors, and sizes, are respectful and representative of different abilities. Try to include alternative and image descriptors. You may also use badges on the Moodle platform to recognize student performance, involve students in the design process by finding out what sort of online feedback and encouragement they prefer. Ask about their color preference and what the award should look like, involve them. Let's go to the next tip. Tip two. This tip focuses on mobile first design. Now, if the majority of your students use mobile devices to access your course, then use a mobile first design approach, that is collate, develop and prepare material for use on small screens designed for both dark and light mode. For instance, place a white border around the edges of the icon. It does not make a difference in light mode, however, look at the difference in dark mode. Please note, mobile first designs are accessible from desktop computers and can look visually appealing. Moodle's topic format is ideally suited to mobile first design, and that's the approach I use to design the course you're seeing on the mobile phone. Some questions you may ask are, why not use Moodle mobile? And of the two, mobile app versus mobile first, which one is better? The answer is on the next slide. There is no struggle between mobile first and mobile app. You can use Moodle mobile app to access a course designed using a mobile first approach. However, depending on your target group, a mobile first approach might be more appropriate. Now, a key point to note with mobile first is to give students options to access the content and to interact with you and each other. Let them decide if they prefer to read, listen, chat, watch or explore. Next, we're on to tip three. This tip focuses on interactive synchronous sessions and steps that can be taken before, during and after. So the weeks before the session, what should you do? Prepare. Practice your timing in particular. If you say you're going to take 30 minutes, try and stick to your word. An additional five minutes may be understandable. Try to sort out and prepare for technological glitches. Test the equipment. Have another facilitator on standby. Share the PowerPoint with them prior to the session. So they are also prepared to lead the meeting in case you get bumped out of the virtual room. Now, if you do not have someone to assist, then log on from a second point. Example your mobile phone. Have an action plan for if your connection goes down. Involve the students. Let them know early in the semester. If you're unable to enter the virtual room within 10 minutes, what action should be taken, whether you'll arrange to meet another time or a supplementary recording will be provided. Now, specific to the video and registration to the left of your screens. Did you notice that the thumbnail is on save the date? Similarly, let your design serve a purpose and communicate a message in addition to being visually appealing. Generate interest. Send out an invitation. Include the agenda. Give learners a heads up and build anticipation. Now, a day or two before the web conference, upload a mini advertisement in addition to your announcement on your model course page. Remind students of the specifics of the meeting. Include the link, date and start time. Next, we'll take a look at what you can do at the start and during the web conference. 30 minutes before the session. Place a welcome message on the display area for those who joined the session early. Here are two examples of slides that I've used. Meet and greet participants in the chat window. Tell them. Thank you for coming out early. Encourage them to test the features of the meeting room. Now, give grace for unexpected emergencies and don't take it personally. If a few students show up, continue with the presentation. Have a flexible approach. The majority of students will access the recording after the session. The final point regarding this slide is to start on time. Now, for each presentation, I try to bring something new and you should do the same. Change up the design. Add some cutting edge information. If you've attended my presentation during Moodle Mood India, you may recall I use mainly white slides with black text. And in this presentation, I'm using the reverse black slides with white text. So take a look at the slide with the quotation. Can you spot the difference? I'll check the chat quickly. With the suggested approach, your presentations cater for those who are attending your session for the first time, as well as those who opt to come and hear new updates. Now, in terms of the icebreaker, you should try and make it a light fun activity and an opportunity to learn about students and the students to learn about you and each other. For instance, I usually ask students about their computer skills as that affects their placement in group. Now, start your icebreaker in the conference room and continue in a Moodle forum. Cater for those who cannot attend the synchronous meeting. The icebreaker on display focuses on learning style. The general guidance is to have a multimodal approach to teaching and learning. I also include audio, videos, case studies and scenarios. I should also mention they were designed using Inkscape. Now, during your sessions, do not leave the whiteboard blank. Display at least one slide, even if it's just to show the agenda or key points, adjust your voice, pay attention to your intonation, the rate at which you're speaking and smile. Feedback regarding your pace. Find out from the students. Am I going too quickly? Is everything clear? Do you want me to repeat? Now, try to avoid reading the slide. Use polling at intervals, raise hand, chat, play games and have fun. Please limit the use of videos. Be mindful of some participants' bandwidth limitations and some may be using mobile access. Now, at the end of the synchronous session, you can also try to build anticipation for the next engagement. Let students know what's coming up. You may even ask them to email you suggested topics of interest, so it's a matter of getting them to want to come to your session and not to miss out. After the session, send a thank you message along with links to the recording and additional resources. We're moving on to the penultimate tip. For tip four, add characters to resources and activities and focus on authentic assessments, that is, activities that are connected to the real world and has relevance beyond the formal learning environment. Create scenarios using Moodle eBook PowerPoint or storyline. Insert characters in your scenarios. This gives it a bit of pop. You can also include cutout images to spice up the appearance of your activities. The slide to the left is a short answer question created using the quiz feature, and the slide to the right is a nice introduction to the forum activity. We are now on tip five. Now for this final tip, I usually prepare a virtual takeaway bag with bonus goodies packaged onto one slide. However, at one of my recent presentations, I received a special request to include an image representing the first takeaway point. I'm keeping my promise and I've now made the items visible. Here are the additional takeaways and the visible items. Picture yourself in the student's position. Some may have to work two jobs. An immediate family member may be sick. They've just experienced two hurricanes in the same year and have limited internet access. At that point in time, studies will not be the focus. It's all responsibility as educators and facilitators to reach out to students to find out if all is well. Understand that emergencies do occur and give students the benefits of the doubt. Set up group forums on the Moodle platform for collaborative activities and give general feedback in the forum. Number three, demonstrate the behavior you would like your students to follow. And the fourth tip, reach out to your colleagues and friends. Find out about efficient strategies you can use to improve teaching and learning and use the available Moodle resources. And number five is very important. Research, review, share and have fun. The final word in the fifth point is a nice segue into the closing quotation. You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. Using the tips shared today, you can make your Moodle courses inclusive, engaging and fun. Now, I invite you to ask questions regarding the presentation to share any feedback and suggestions. Thank you so much for watching and listening. Thank you very much, Nicole, and you proved your point. You took exactly 15 minutes for the presentation. No delays. No, not being late. Amazing. So we have one question on the forum. It also says, it's from David Keela, he says, what a great presentation. It has great energy, but I want to ask you discuss being inclusive and encourage diversity. But much of my content is instructing medical students with a very precise and very regulated way of doing things. I wouldn't mind giving learners a chance to replay or for feedback, but I want to make sure that I can control the conversation. Any suggestions? Okay, well, it depends on the policies and the guidelines within his institution. That's something he needs to be mindful of. Find out from the students what appeals to them. What's important is to focus on the learning objective. It's not so much how you get there, but the fact that you actually arrive. So as long as the students are achieving the learning outcomes, then that should be okay. Speak to colleagues in similar situations like yourself. They might be able to give you advice, but I realize it's actually the participants are the most helpful. You will get buy-in from them if you find out, okay, how do you want to participate? Do you prefer videos? Do you prefer to text? Or do you want to have an option? So in some instances, you can give them, let's say, choose one of four or one of three and submit based on your preference. I hope that answered your question. And thank you. Thank you again. There was also a question on the forum asking if you can share the presentation slides, maybe on the forum or somewhere else. Yes, I can. And I think they'll be available after as well. So the recording will be available, but I'll share the slides with Anastasia. Anastasia, you have my permission to share the slides with others. Okay, thank you. And maybe there will be more questions on the forum later. So if you can come there and answer that, great. Thank you. Thank you as well. Thank you, everyone, and enjoy your Mimine Delphiode.