Vincent Boudreau
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Dear Colleagues,
We will all, over the next several days, be working very hard to move to a distance learning posture in our classes, and that will entail training, planning and no small amount of coordination. We'll have plans for that in the days to come.
In keeping with a request I made in my memo earlier today, Carlos Aguasaco, who has considerable experience in distance learning, will be hosting two webinars about how to move your teaching to Blackboard Collaborate. His email, which I'm forwarding under this note, also has links to instruction manuals and other resources. His two sessions will run from 2-4 PM and 5-7 PM today.
This is exactly the kind of thing we need to undertake as a campus community. I'm deeply grateful to Carlos for taking this initiative and urge all of you who would like to get up to speed on Blackboard to do so.
A final quick note—the reviews on blackboard collaborate are almost entirely bimodal: people love it or hate it, and that makes me think that the number of haters may well diminish with some clear instruction. If you wrote off blackboard years ago because you had a frustrating initial experience with it, maybe give it another shot.
This will not be the only online platform we make available to you, but it's the one most readily at hand and one that we know our students all have access to. So it might be a good idea to tune in and see what Carlos has to say.
Thank you,
Vince Boudreau
President
Dear All,
PLEASE READ THIS EMAIL IN ITS ENTIRETY AS NEW AND IMPORTANT INFORMATION HAS BEEN ADDED.
As you already know, we have been instructed to suspend classes between March 12 and 18 (I am copying the Chancellor's email after my signature to make sure we are all informed, the highlights are mine). These days are for us to get ready and transition our courses to online-based instruction. I am proud to say that our proactive approach at CWE has worked. Yet, we can always do more to help and assist our faculty and students. Feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns regarding this process.
Today we held our 4th CWE training sessions on how to teach your classes and provide services to your students using our CUNY Blackboard videoconference software.
Special kudos to John, Warren, Barbara, Vincent, Danielle, Fernando, Nayanda, Virginia, Judy, Marlene, Mary, Nina, Debbie, Trisha, Pat, Susana S, Dorina, Robert, Michelle, Joan, Gay, Monica, Dean Mercado, David, and all other colleagues who have kindly attended our training sessions.
Personally, I'd to thank Robert Hernandez for his technical support.
Tomorrow, I will hold two videoconferences to show any interested City College Faculty and staff how to use Blackboard Collaborate Ultra to set up Video Conferences with their students.
Thursday, March 12
Session 1. 2 PM to 4:00 PM
Session 2. 5 PM to 7:00 PM
Late arrivals are welcome! Just join us at your earliest convenience.
What to invite a colleague? No problem, just share the link below and they are all welcome.
Can't make it tomorrow? Don't worry, we'll have more training sessions in the following days.
This is a practical hands-on training video conference aimed at facilitating your success using this tool.
To join, just click on this link:
https://us.bbcollab.com/guest/79d4ca52d56e4057b21f4982ac4dd685
Can't join using the link? Call this number +1-571-392-7650 and enter this PIN: 730 340 0849
Participation in these training sessions is voluntary.
Notes: You can join these training sessions from any device connected to the internet including cellphones, tablets, laptops, desktops, smart-podiums, etc.
You can join as many sessions as you want.
Please contact all your students via email (blackboard, CUNYfirst or your CCNY email) and inform them that we will suspend classes between March 12 and 18. All our face to face (AKA On Campus) classes shall continue on March using Distance-Learning technology.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:
Please watch this video to refresh your memory: > https://youtu.be/1W4sGpVmJaY
Need more help? Please visit this website: https://help.blackboard.com/Collaborate/Ultra
Should you need any additional help with Blackboard in general, please visit this website https://www.ccny.cuny.edu/cetl/blackboard-help
Additional resources: https://help.blackboard.com/Learn/Instructor
Our Colleagues at John Jay created a webinar on Translating On-Campus to Distance-Learning. Use this link to watch it.
https://johnjayonline.wistia.com/medias/jdr4qvxje0
Finally, if you read this email, please reply to it letting me know if you have any questions regarding the transition from On-Campus to Distance-Learning or the training sessions. Those who have no questions or concerns could just reply to acknowledge this communication. Feel free to share these resources with colleagues
Sincerely,
Carlos Aguasaco