Tools to Keep Working
Tools to Keep Teaching
MCPHS provides Microsoft Office 365 cloud-based services as well as Office 2016 applications for desktop installation to all students, staff, and faculty.
Benefits and features:
Log in with your MCPHS credentials and get started!
Learn how to download and install the Office suite on your PC or Mac computer.
Training and Resources
Microsoft Teams is an online collaboration workspace that gathers instant messaging, threaded conversations, synchronous virtual meetings, audio/video calls, desktop and file sharing, and more! It integrates with Office 365 applications such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.
Learn more about Microsoft Teams and explore these resources:
VMware is a software and web application that allows you to connect to a virtual desktop environment from a desktop, laptop, smartphone, or tablet. The MCPHS virtual desktop environment is equipped with MCPHS resources, specialized software, and features integration with campus follow-me printing and access to your Z:\ network file share.
Voicemail allows callers to leave you a personal, secure message when you are either unavailable or away from your office and allows you to access and manage your messages from any phone, anywhere, anytime. Additionally, you can easily save, forward, reply to, and erase messages. You're also able to set separate greetings for when you are away from your desk, on the phone, and out of the office for an extended period.
If you are off-campus and need to check your voicemail, please dial 617-735-1100 and login to the system using your touchpad as normal.
Explore the features and functions of your MCPHS voicemail.
To help protect your account, MCPHS University requires multi-factor authentication (MFA) when accessing University resources from off-campus for employees and students. MFA is a security enhancement that requires two forms of verification when using your MCPHS University credentials. MFA is a way of verifying that people logging into our systems are indeed the people we think they are. MFA provides a way to limit the impact of cyber attacks and help ensure that only authorized people are accessing our systems and adds critical protection for your sign-on credentials.
Blackboard is the University's Learning Management System (LMS) and serves as the centralized repository to host course content. Every registered course has a Blackboard shell created automatically in every term in which it is offered. In the event of a large scale or prolonged campus closure, instructional continuity can be maintained in many courses -- explore how you can use the LMS to continue to engage and instruct your students.
Start small when you're thinking about contingency planning. We don't expect you to jump into wholly online teaching in an instant; nor should you feel the pressure to do so!
Get comfortable with Blackboard and begin to add content/materials to the space and refer to their location in your lectures. Build out a logical structure for your course to help your students easily navigate the space.
There are several technologies available to assist you with recording your lectures for the online space. Consider your overall goal as you develop your materials, and then work with the tool that best meets your needs and comfort level:
Narrate Your PresentationYou can record narration for a presentation right within PowerPoint! To record and play back sound, your computer must be equipped with a sound card, microphone, and speakers. Make sure that you aren't running any other sound recording applications, such as Speech Recognition, while you are recording.
(Please note: The narration function is only available via the desktop PowerPoint application on your Windows PC or Mac)
*When narrating presentations, remember good design strategy - keep your presentations short, break down complex topics into smaller chunked files -- this helps keep your students engaged, and reduces bandwidth utilization for students viewing the materials.
Kaltura Capture
You can use Kaltura Capture to create new videos that allow you to select up to two video sources (combos include: video & screen, audio & screen, screen only, audio only, video only):
These recordings are a great way to deliver weekly updates and other quick pieces of information, or to record lectures or other demonstrations of course material to augment in-class experiences.
Don't wait for an emergency to happen! Download and familiarize yourself with Kaltura Capture today!
Blackboard Collaborate UltraMicrosoft Teams can be a great way to host a synchronous session for your class as well.
Remember that synchronous classes in times of uncertainty can be challenging for both you as the facilitator as well as your students. It may not be advisable to attempt to host a live class for 200 students -- perhaps provide your lecture materials online and facilitate group-based project work to keep your students engaged.
Blackboard also has tools to help facilitate collaborative activities between students. Build out groups in your course to allow students to work together on a project, or simply to help them engage in community-building in the online world.
When you create groups in Blackboard, you're able to enable group-specific tools to help foster interactive activities for your students -- including group discussions, file exchanges, and Blackboard Collaborate Ultra so that they may chat/screen share, etc.
Learn more about some best practices for implementing interactive tools available in Blackboard that can help you design alternative activities for your students.
Blackboard can help you deploy meaningful assignments and collect student submissions for grading and feedback.
Combine assignments with anti-plagiarism tools like SafeAssign and TurnItIn to increase academic integrity of submissions.
Build in meaningful assessments throughout your course space using Blackboard's Test, Surveys, and Quizzes tool. In the remote learning space, building in several low-stakes quizzes can help ensure your students are staying on track and help inform content development/delivery as you progress through the unit.
The basic workflow for building assessments in Blackboard:
Consider these suggestions when you're building your tests & quizzes in Blackboard.
