Week Three of online teaching is in the (virtual) books, and the final “teaching” week of Spring 2020 is now in sight. It’s been quite the semester so far, made doubly remarkable by your perseverance and grace under the extraordinary pressures of recent weeks.  We know your students appreciate it; we certainly do. In Wednesday’s message, Wade expressed the hope that we’ve found our “sea legs” – now let’s round the Horn and bring this great, wobbly, beautiful ship to port in style…

A few happy “information blasts” as we head into the weekend:

BIBLIO-BLAST: AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE FROM THE LIBRARY

The Library has compiled a “Going Online” guide to help you find and put resources into your online courses & Moodle sites, to ensure that, even with the disruption of face-to-face instruction and in-person bookstore and library operations, you still have lots of options for course materials. This guide, accessible here (https://libguides.kpu.ca/going_online/), was developed to help you in providing course materials to your students in the upcoming semesters. There are tabs within the guide for information on digital course packs, textbooks and eBooks, open textbooks and OERs, licensed full-text articles, streaming videos, etc. If you have any questions about this, please contact your liaison librarian (https://www.kpu.ca/library/services/feedback#liaison) or contact the library through https://www.kpu.ca/library/services/askalibrarian​ 

BIG BLUE BUTTON-BLAST: UPGRADING BBB

KPU has now moved Big Blue Button to a cloud-based server, which should help to minimize the technical glitches many faculty have experienced with it. Good news indeed! Aside from the BBB Basics recorded webinar, Teaching and Learning is also running live Advanced BBB webinars (see https://www.kpu.ca/teaching-and-learning/keep-teaching/learning-opportunities). But please note that asynchronous teaching strategies continue to afford our students optimal flexibility in learning.

BODY-AND-SOUL BLAST: PRACTICAL TIPS FOR MANAGING THE MENTAL HEALTH IMPACT OF COVID-19

Needless to say, this is an especially challenging time for mental health. Dr. Jocelyn Lymburner (PSYC) kindly forwarded us the attached PDF to share with all of you – and it’s chock-full of great tips for staying well and helping our families to do likewise. Thank you, Jocelyn.

B-MOVIE BLAST: RECORDING SHORT LECTURES AS VIDEO OR AUDIO FILES

Just a gentle nudge: there can be great value in pre-recording short lectures (as video or audio files) for students. Not only does this add a dynamic element to your asynchronous remote delivery, but these materials can become part of a time-saving, re-usable repertoire from which you can draw in future teaching. For tips on getting started with video/audio recordings, please see https://www.kpu.ca/teaching-and-learning/keep-teaching/using-moodle#deliver-content

BOOK PRIZE-BLAST: CONGRATULATIONS TO VALÉRIE VÉZINA

Our own Dr. Valérie Vézina’s book Une île, une nation ? Le nationalisme insulaire à la lumière des cas de Terre-Neuve et Puerto Rico has just been shortlisted for le Prix francophone 2020 de l’Association canadienne de science politique – the most prestigious prize for a French-language work in Canadian Political Science. Félicitations, Valerie!

Our heartfelt thanks to each and every one of you, again, for your tremendous work – for our students, and for each other – in these times of challenge. Please have a healthy, joyful, and rejuvenating weekend!

Best,

Diane, Shelley, Wade, and Greg