Welcome to the CTL

Zoom to Be Available In DC Connect – Fall 2021

This message is shared on behalf of Dr. Jean Choi, dean, Teaching, Learning & Program Quality

Faculty Member,

During the pandemic, your innovation and adoption of educational technology have been critical to maintaining and enhancing Durham College's ability to deliver quality teaching and learning experiences to our students.

Faculty members have been using Bongo to support synchronous learning for about a year. During that time, we have heard about what works and opportunities for improvement. Based on that feedback and extensive research, we are excited to share that Zoom will be available as an integrated synchronous tool in DC Connect for the fall 2021 semester. Given that Zoom will be integrated into our LMS, you and your students will continue to have the convenience of accessing a synchronous platform directly in DC Connect. Transitioning to Zoom has several benefits, as the platform is feature-rich and will enhance the experiences of faculty members and our students through:

• Polling (able to create polls ahead of time)
• Streaming videos with sound
• Auto-captioning

As we plan our change to Zoom, we need to replace the Video Assignments tool, which is currently available through Bongo. We are working with several faculty members who are helping to test an alternative solution. Once a replacement has been identified, information will be shared through the Centre for Teaching and Learning's (CTL) website.

To help you transition to the new platform, Bongo will continue to be available during the fall 2021 semester. If you would like a copy of your Bongo videos, you will need to download them onto your computer. To help you with this process, please see these instructions on how to download your Bongo videos.

CTL will be working throughout the summer months to develop resources that will support the adoption of Zoom for teaching and learning purposes. These resources will be available before fall 2021 on the CTL website.

We are delighted that Zoom will be available for teaching and collaborative learning through its integration in DC Connect this fall. Microsoft Teams remains our virtual meeting tool for non-teaching purposes.