If you have gotten coffee from the Faculty summit in October, 
you may have seen me stationed nearby with a sign hosting walk-up consultation for anything edtech.
I’ve enjoyed our conversations and learning I’m thought of as the “Zoom Whisperer”, haha. A big thanks to the following folks: Erez Levy, Yuval Salant, Nicola Persico, Sugata Roychowdhury, Craig Garthwaite, Angela Lee, Ravi Jagannathan, Art Raviv, James Conley, William Towns, Megan Kashner, Andrew Leone, Chethana Achar, Eric Anderson, Bob Korajczyk, Benjamin Jones, Mitchell Petersen, Paul Campbell, Bob McDonald, Hatim Rahman, Sarit Markovich, Achal Bassamboo.
What you had to say…and my responses
Please add your comments below!
“Looking for a place (other than my office) to record videos OR teach/present virtually”
We have a room in the Global Hub L137 setup with a laptop, multiple screens, USB mic, webcam, lights, Kellogg wallpaper background and a height-adjustable desk (thanks Mohan Sawhney for letting us reconfigure this room!). Reserve via RES yourself or ask your department manager to reserve it for you.
Who’s using it: Nicholas Pearce, Erez Levy, James Conley, Craig Garthwaite, Hatim Rehman.
“I’ve been telling everyone about these 3 digital tools I’m using in my class to enhance student engagement”
Persuall (PDF collaborative annotation), Mural (whiteboard/post-it collaboration) and Teammates (peer-to-peer evaluation) are the 3 tools Megan Kashner has been using successfully last year while teaching remotely and incorporated it in her in-person classes this year. I interviewed Megan for a detailed walkthrough of how she is using these tools. Read Megan’s post + videos here >
“I want to create videos for my class”
Great! Two known recording tools you have at your disposal is Zoom and Panopto. If you are looking to embed yourself inside the PPT, you can use software such as OBS or mmhmm to do so, and even Zoom offers this capability. 
Panopto recently started offering automatic transcriptions.
Schedule time with me and we can partner through your journey of creating your digital asset: getting comfortable using a recording tool, creating your recording, assistance with post editing, storing it in the Kellogg Faculty Created Media Repository, and adding it to your Canvas course site.
Schedule meeting with Ishrat >Use the Faculty Created Media Repository >
“NU created apps for discussions…are not useful for MBA classes”, what do you think?
NU offers 2 discussion apps that integrate with Canvas- Discussion Hero and Nebula 2. These apps are gameified (format may work for a NU undergraduate student but not useful for MBA students) and don’t appear to support markdown. Bob McDonald has used the paid version of Piazza which does not scrape student data, and says “I like it a lot and got positive feedback from the MBAs, the serious downside is that their business model entails scraping student data. But it supports markdown and has an interface that’s not embarrassing.”
Anyone using Discussion Hero or Nebula? Piazza or another discussion tool? Please share with Ishrat or in the comments below.
View NU’s Learning Apps integrated with Canvas >
Teaching in non-traditional teaching spaces, with remote/in-person students
Angela Lee is piloting the use of the Microsoft Surface Hub 2S in a non-traditional teaching space, and will share her feedback on what works well and what doesn’t. The Surface Hub is an all-in-one large touchscreen computer with built-in camera, speakers and microphone array and use this opportunity to test whether it works well in this environment – room size (do the microphones pickup audio from far away), light (quality of video feed), remote speaker sound and collaborative use of the touchscreen. A positive about the Surface Hub is that it allows you to wheel it from one location to another without shutting down (when battery is attached). One drawback is the built-in camera – while 4K, it is static and not speaker tracking or speaker framing.
Are you interested in testing out the Surface Hub, in your office or other non-teaching space, or use it for a collaborative meeting? Schedule a EdTech consultation with me to take a test drive. 
“Teaching on Microsoft Teams is just awful” – and the hidden golden nugget when teaching virtually
Yes, I agree that teaching on Teams is not as intuitive as Zoom, which we all know as well as the back of our hand. However, if you must teach on Teams (i.e. Executive Education client requirement), we have collected how-tos, best practices, and specific tips from Eric Anderson, such as never ever use Breakout Rooms in Teams – thanks Eric! Teaching on Teams >
Something potentially useful for all: most recently NU has integrated Teams with Canvas. What does this give you? A platform you can use alongside your synchronous class (in-person or remote), run polls, discussions, create groups, built-in web conference for team project, etc. I’ve documented my thoughts on how it can help in your class as well as an opportunity to test drive the experience yourself. Teams with Canvas >
Now for the golden nugget: Eric says ALWAYS use earbuds/headphones vs. your speakers when teaching virtually. In general, it is always good advice for faculty or moderators to wear earbuds as this eliminates the need for Teams/Zoom to do noise cancellation. This means your audio will always go through when people talk over each other (no more silence spots).
“I want to teach walking around the classroom with my iPad, display it on one screen and the other Excel”
Yes, you can do so. All Kellogg classrooms have the capability to mirror content from your devices to the podium computer using software called Mirroring360. Bob Korajczyk also wanted to know if the remote attendees could also see the contents from the iPad. We will be testing this scenario, stay tuned! Use Mirroring360 >
“I really liked Jim Lecinski’s idea of using the document camera as a whiteboard”
Mitchell Petersen posted his feedback on Jim’s post on the edtech site, thank you Mitchell! The edtech site offers the capability for faculty to share their findings directly with each other, and readers have the option to add comments, thus eventually creating a useful sharing community rich with authentic information. Read Jim’s post and Mitchell’s comment >Check out all faculty posts > Create a post >
“End of the quarter group feedback, I’m using Google Forms, but I’m ending up with 20 separate Excel files – how can I get all results in one file?”
Google forms make it easy on the student end to fill out, but there is much work that needs to happen ahead of time to set it up and post results. A tool to look into is Qualtrics that gives one output file, with the added benefit being integrated with Canvas. I will be mocking up Achal Bassamboo’s feedback questions in Qualtrics and exploring branching based on group selected, and looking into Teammates as recommended by Megan Kashner. We also have a new tool called Teamwork Assessment integrated with Canvas that allows students to rate each other and share private feedback with the instructor. However, this is meant for use with checkpoints during the quarter (vs one at the end, and doesn’t offer an export of submissions).
Learn more about Qualtrics integration with Canvas >
See Megan Kashner’s use of Teammates for peer-to-peer evaluation >
Teamwork Assessment (integrated with Canvas) >
