All those schools and universities who already offer Blended Learning Courses have little problems of moving their classes fully online. For many others, they wished they had assistance. Here are a few links and information that might help:

Good-old Skype can facilitate video chat groups up to 50 participants. Skype allows screen-sharing and provides a suitable tool for desktop-, tablet- and smartphone access alike, both for Win and iOS. If you need a bit more, like a messaging tool plus chatroom plus file-sharing tool plus a video-call tool, all-in-one, you may look at Pronto (currently, use during the Corona Crisis is free – you just have to register) to keep you closer and on a more personal level with your students. Other well-known messaging tools such as Slack (and similar products) help you to keep connected with your students in times, where it easy to feel left alone and lonely, so it makes sense to add social networking to interactions with students. If you are looking for a suitable video tool, the Guardian has published an excellent review.

If you need a Learning Management System (LMS), more or less in an instant, you can choose the Google Classroom or the try-out version of Canvas (Free for Teachers). For Google you need to register your school or university for the GSuite and, needless to say, all services run on Google. Be aware that data is stored on free LMS versions on external servers – if this is of concern to you.

Google is temporarily rolling out free access to their advanced Google Hangouts video-conferencing capabilities to all G Suite and G Suite for Education customers globally – including larger meetings, for up to 250 participants per call and the ability to record meetings and save them to Google Drive. For synchronous meetings in style, there is Adobe Connect. Currently, they have a free-access offer until July 1st.

My personal resources

For Canvas, my LMS of choice, you find well-organized official getting started videos. I am offering my university’s Fundamentals 1 and Fundamentals 2 Training Session webinar-recording (about 1.5 hrs each) providing detailed insights that shorter YouTube Videos might miss. Canvas has published a website dedicated to Coronavirus Planning for K12 and Higher Ed.

Some more useful information: Zoom (Free Basic) is temporarily lifting the 40-minute time limit on Free Basic accounts for schools affected by the Coronavirus. However, check first if your country is on the list that is included in this offer. Otherwise, there is still the free version of ezTalks, that offers up to 100 participants, however with a 40 minute time-limit.

You may also like to check out Microsoft Teams to facilitate remote learning. There is an integration with Canvas LMS as well. Last, but not least, UNESCO has curated a comprehensive list of distance learning solutions.

I hope these links suffice to nudge you into the right direction. Stay healthy and my best wishes to you and your students in difficult times!

Joana Kompa