Why consider your ‘presence’ when teaching online?
Teaching online can feel strangely distant from your students, and students can also feel isolated or cut off from their teachers and other students. Maintaining a presence online is important in setting the tone, keeping students engaged, and allowing your teaching style to develop online.
Keep your interactions short, regular, timely, personal to you, and linked to what the students are doing at the time.
Ideas to get you started
Podcasts
Create regular, short audio podcasts and publish to your Blackboard course. These could be used to introduce a new topic or week, to draw attention to anything particularly important or challenging, or even to connect the week’s topics to what’s happening in the news. Schedule them to appear at a certain day and time, so students know when to expect them.
Discussions
Consider adding more social ‘cafe’ discussions to your course, to get students talking. Ideas such as ‘what three things…?’ or asking students to post something that they have seen or done in their own context can be good discussion starters.
Having a Q&A space can also help reduce email questions, and help students help each other with common queries. Set expectations for how often you can expect replies, and make sure you drop in regularly to post and reply to posts.
Online drop-ins
Microsoft Teams provides an easy way to meet students informally, for example with drop-in sessions or for office hours. Note that time zones might make this difficult, so think about the best time to schedule sessions.
Vlogs
Video blogs are another way to regularly update students with a more personal touch. Create video updates from where you are working, to discuss interesting topics, share ideas, or introduce new perspectives, and publish them in your course. You could record yourself with your phone or webcam, take photos, or link to current affairs. These work best if they are more reflective than instructive, and informal in tone. You could even encourage students to do the same!
Weekly thoughts, updates, wrap-ups
Spend a few minutes at the start or end of the week to set the scene, or wrap things up for your students. Referencing specific comments in discussions or mentioning students by name is a great way to keep these relevant and motivate students to participate online. These can be announcements, text at the top of a course section, short videos or audio, or posts in a discussion.