Educational Technology & Design in the School of Nursing
Serving the instructional design & educational technology needs of faculty in UT's School of Nursing
Is your Mac Laptop not connecting to the classroom audio?
Have you tried using your Mac laptop in one of our Nursing classrooms and discovered that when you play a video from your desktop, the audio doesn’t play on the classroom speakers?
Well, it turns out this doesn’t happen automatically on Mac laptops. Instead, we have to select the correct device for sound output manually.
But luckily, the steps are super simple (if not entirely intuitive):
There’s never any shortage of information here at UT.
So, this is just a friendly reminder about some of the services and resources available to you and other faculty in the School of Nursing.
Three resources that you may find most useful (I hope) are:
In addition to all the changes we’ve made within the Nursing building to keep each other safe, you’ve likely noticed there have been a lot of small changes in our classrooms. So, as you prepare for the beginning of classes next week, and you plan for your “trial run” later this week, I want to let you know about several things that you can expect will already be in your classrooms[1] or which are coming soon.
Because you will be using Zoom for some or all of your teaching and other interactions with students, I’ve put together some best practices and other resources based on the questions I get asked most often:
Alternative Hosts in Zoom
Anyone with a UT Austin Zoom account can serve as your alternative host. But you have to know the email associated with their Zoom account to enter it. AND, if they have a UT Zoom account, you will need to enter their EID email address. This is like the email you enter into UT Box and other UT systems that use our EIDs to identify us.
When you start a Zoom meeting in one of the Nursing classrooms using the attached USB webcam, you will need to make sure the computer is reading it correctly as the video and microphone source.
Whether you’re using a smart phone, a laptop, or anything else, it’s easier than ever to record video. But that means it’s also easier than ever to make mistakes. So, this page is here to help you avoid the most common errors and learn 5 easy-to-follow best practices that will make your next video better.
A small number of UT faculty have reported unknown, and uninvited “guests” showing up at random in their Zoom meetings. And a small number of universities have also reported what’s now being called “Zoombombing”.
The chances of this happening to you are very low. But, it’s a good idea to know what steps you can take to prevent it in the first place AND what to do in case it DOES happen.
By now, we are all aware of the public health issues affecting our campus, our city, and beyond. As this crisis continues to evolve, we will continue working to support Nursing faculty and students alike. So, as you plan your own strategies for continuing instruction, please consider the following options and recommendations:
The Faculty Innovation Center, working with partners from all over campus, has developed this online resource to provide you with all the information necessary to develop a plan specific to your courses and your needs to allow you to continue teaching in the event of campus closure or other disruptions: https://facultyinnovate.utexas.edu/continue-teaching-during-campus-disruptions. Or, contact me any time if you’d like some assistance developing your “virtual teaching strategy”.
Would you like to use Zoom for your next meeting but don’t know how? Do you want your guest speaker to be able to see and hear your students during Q&A?
These questions and more are addressed in the video below.You’ll also learn two key pieces of information if you want to use Zoom in any of the classrooms here in the School of Nursing.
