Academic Technology

Students may be out of class at many times for many reasons, but this should not mean that in-class material is inaccessible to them.  This page describes some of the options available to you as a professor to get your material out to students who may be unable to come to class.

The table below gives a quick outline of what methods of sharing in-class materials are suggested, depending on the format of your class.  For example, in-class discussions can easily include absent students with tools such as Moodle Chat; e-mail might be a better method for delivering student presentations to the class.

E-mail and Moodle forums are useful for assignments that are not very time-sensitive, but require interaction among a group of students. If you would like to watch the progress of the group, Moodle forums are the better option--if tracking the group's work is not important, e-mail is an excellent tool.

Podcasting is a quick, easy way for sharing presentations with your class, whether they are your own lectures or students' own presentations. See this page for some tips and instructions on podcasting.

Moodle chat is a real-time, text-only chat service, ideal for quick sharing of ideas and class discussions where visuals are not the focus.  This page is an excellent resource for how to create and use a Moodle Chat.

Skype & iChat are good chat programs with audio and video capability--very useful for small group discussions involving visual presentations or emphasis. The number of cameras that these services support is limited, however, so if this interests you, contact your AT for suggestions on how to set up and manage these chats.  Or, see this page for tips on using skype and this page for more on ichat.