Instructor Toolkit

This toolkit is categorized into different activities that you may want to undertake with your students ranging from communication to sharing material to online lectures. Each category contains our recommendations for the tools to use, with a description of the tool, a text-based user guide, as well as instructional videos. Your feedback is essential to us and any suggestions or comments can be made to the CLT email at clt@aucegypt.edu.

Communication with Students

There are several platforms that allow you to communicate with your students in and out of class. Some of the tools mentioned below can perform several functions and so you may find them under a different category as well.

• Email: AUC members are provided with a Gmail account, which hosts multiple features.. The Gmail service facilitates communication with students, through individual emails as well as group emails to the entire class.
• Canvas Announcement and Email: AUC Canvas has the announcement feature that allows the professor to post an announcement on the course's main page as well as send a copy of the announcement to all the students enrolled in the course. Official website

Online Discussion  

Class discussions can be moved outside of class through online discussion boards which facilitate students engagement both synchronously and asynchronously. While asynchronous tools are suitable for reflection on complex issues that require students to take time to think and respond, synchronous tools are suggested to discuss less complex issues and get acquainted as students become more committed and motivated because a quick response is expected.   

• Canvas Discussion Forum allows the professor to create a discussion board on a topic and the students can post their replies asynchronously in the form of message threads. Official website

Direct Instruction

There are multiple ways of delivering direct instruction to students online both synchronously and asynchronously. While asynchronous tools are suitable for reflection on complex issues that require students to take time to think and respond, synchronous tools are suggested to discuss less complex issues and get acquainted as students become more committed and motivated because a quick response is expected.

• Zoom is a web-based video conference platform that allows one-to-one multi-audio video-based meetings to facilitate communications between faculty members, students, and staff meetings. Sign in, then log in with Google which will direct you to the AUC email where you can enter your AUC email credentials. For further instructions, click here.
• Panopto lecture capture system automatically records audio with/without video as well as any content from presentations and makes it available for playback in a digital format using any web browser as well as audio and video podcasts, with the recorded audio/video in-sync with visual content. Official website – Tutorial
• Powerpoint is a presentation program with multiple slides that allow the integration of animation and multimedia pieces. Official website – Tutorial

Collaborative Work

Online group work is made possible through some online tools that allow the group members to work collaboratively, share files and discuss ideas synchronously and asynchronously.

• Google Drive  When you share files or folders on Google drive, you will be able to invite others to view, edit and download the shared documents. You can also access the document shared on the drive anywhere.  Official website – Tutorial
• Hypotheses is a website that helps. Official website – Tutorial  

Feedback and Assessment

The platforms below provide a range of methods to provide a formative and summative assessment. Software such as Turnitin allow users to give detailed formative feedback though the use of voice as well as written comments to both the general document and specific parts of it. Canvas and Turnitin also provide grade books for keeping track of students’ progress.

• Turnitin is an Internet-based plagiarism prevention service that helps instructors as well as students to check a paper’s similarity with the sources cited and thus preventing possible cases of plagiarism. It also offers other features, such as an online grading tool (called GradeMark) with written and voice comments, and a peer review system(called PeerMark), with the option to randomly assign papers to peers.  Official website – Tutorial
• Canvas Speedgrader allows you to view and grade student assignment submissions in one place using a simple point scale or complex rubric. Canvas accepts a variety of document formats and even URLs as assignment submissions. Some document assignments can be marked up for feedback directly within the submission. You can also provide feedback to your students with text or media comments. Official website - Tutorial
• Canvas Quizzes is an interactive tool that helps the professor to create an online quiz with different types of questions. Official website
• Nearpod is an interactive classroom tool for teachers to engage students with interactive lessons. Official Website – Tutorial
• GoogleDrive is a file storage and synchronization service provided by Google, which enables users cloud storage, file sharing and collaborative editing. Google Drive is the home of Google Docs, which offers collaborative editing on documents, spreadsheets, presentations and more

Reflective Practices

Some of the tools available below help facilitate reflective practices. Google Sites ise tailored for collaborative work as well as student reflections. Items like blogs and journals can also aid in individual reflection and expression.

• A blog is a website where a user can post entries (called “posts”) that are displayed in reverse chronological order, with the most recent appearing at the top of the page. A blog can be created through different websites, such as Blogger, which is accessible within the AUC email account, Wordpress and Tumblr. A blog can be used for individual reflection, group work as well as a course management system. Wordpress: Official website – Tutorial
• Google Sites is a tool offered by Google and accessible from the AUC email account to create a web page structured like a wiki where multiple users can collaborate and share files.