Advice for Working Online

I want to assure you that we are using the best strategies we know of to create an engaging online course, but first here are some things I want you to know:

• There is not going to be a perfect solution for everyone in the class. This situation is unprecedented and we all need to work together to be as accommodating as possible to create a successful learning environment for everyone. It is even more important than usual to not assume that your situation is similar to others in the class or on your team.
• Please be flexible. I am still trying to figure out how to make the new best of this online teaching, so we will adjust accordingly. Even when something small happens, like a video does not stream correctly or I do not see your virtual hand raised or whatever it is, please do not panic or get upset. Let me know what is going on, by whatever means you are able, and what you need and I will work on fixing the issue. We are all learning together.
• There is a chance that I or someone close to me may get sick. If this occurs, I will let you know when and how I am available and I will try to proceed with the course as best I can.
• There is a chance that you or someone close to you may get sick. If this occurs, please let me know when and how you are available and I will work with you and your Dean to accommodate you.
• Communication is key since we will not be spending time face-to-face. If something is not working for you, please speak up sooner rather than later — to me, a UTA, your team mates, or someone else in the class you feel comfortable with. Feel free to let me know if another professor has a way of doing online classes that you really like and I will see if it can incorporated.
• You will be more successful if you take the initiative. Maybe your personality or beliefs make it difficult to assert yourself or to ask for help; however, now would be a good time to practice being more forward because that is the only way I will know to try something different. Also look for opportunities to step up since leadership in this circumstance may come from those that have more social skills than technical or design skills.
• Be proactive in your mental well-being. We are all at risk of feeling isolated, anxious, afraid, and stressed. You can help yourself cope by practicing mindfulness, connecting virtually with friends, team mates, or UTAs on a regular basis, and getting a good amount of sleep.  Take multiple breaks to have some fun or get outside each day — living in a pandemic may not be much fun, but the game Pandemic is a lot of fun :-)  If you are struggling past the point of “the blues” please seek professional help.

We may adjust how the class works in response to feedback from students, UTAs, and those who are helping to deliver course content at Duke.

Working Remotely

There are many guides for working remotely that have been published, here is my attempt to distill them into a few guidelines specific for this course:

• Have more meetings, daily if possible, even if just to check in with each other. That may seem counter intuitive, but more frequent team meetings will strengthen your team cohesion and collaboration and help eliminate frustrations that could otherwise come with team members not having close access. It is equally important to plan to spend some "meeting" time just goofing off or doing something non-technical so they can be something you look forward to.
• Practice communication excellence. More frequent communication as well as creative ways to stay in touch are as important as getting that communication right. Try to be as clear as you can be in written communication (even GIT commit messages) by re-reading everything before sending it and trying to imagine how the reader will see it. Also try to be as brief as possible or send multiple shorter messages because people lose interest and start skimming — and that itself causes miscommunication because others have not fully absorbed your ideas.
• Establish collaborative norms and try to facilitate as much collaboration as you can. Try Pair Programming or other ways of working together. Try to establish a set of "core hours" during which team members are always available to be online, chat, or even code together. Choose tools that do not require video, like Slack, that can help keep everyone informed about the project's progress and priorities (for example by integrating with Gitlab).
• Have a way to track what you need to do. You will likely have to work smarter instead of harder so find a way to help prioritize your time and effort. Use tools like Gitlab's Issues, Slack, or Trello, to help you always know what needs to be done so you are not wasting your time.
• Have compassion and patience with each other. In this circumstance, everyone will likely miss a deadline or goal, but try to assume that everyone has good intentions and is doing their best to balance their individual challenges. Specifically, at the start of all technical meetings, check in that everyone agrees with purpose of meeting and that it is a good use of time right now. Even so, recognize that someone may need to step out of a meeting because they cannot focus at this time.
• Remote meetings need to be structured differently than face-to-face. Without the social clues and tendency for online distraction, online meetings can easily become useless for some participants. This article is a nice summary of the key differences, especially points 6 and 7 in graphical form about how to manage conversation and stay engaged during virtual meetings.

Using Zoom

We will be using Zoom to facilitate all official class interactions, but you can use whatever tools work best for you and your team internally. You will need to install either a plugin to your browser or the desktop/mobile app to join and login using your Duke NetID to access the meeting securely. Also, please make sure to keep the app up to date during the semester since it may change usefully in response to issues that come up.

Here are some links to useful tutorials:

• Getting started or watch this video from Duke
• Screen sharing: click the green ‘share’ button at the bottom of your screen to share your screen
• Annotations: enable annotations so that you may annotate on a shared screen
• Whiteboard feature: allows you to share a whiteboard on which you can annotate with each other
• Troubleshooting Zoom issues: from Indiana University, but provides comprehensive collection of advice

Here are some etiquette guidelines I recommend we all use during official Zoom meetings to make things easier to manage larger groups:

• Set up your profile with a picture and your local time zone by signing into Duke's Zoom configuration settings.
• Mute your microphone by default.
  Note, with the Zoom window active, you can press the spacebar to activate your mic and when you let go the mic is off again.
• Your video does not have to be on, but it is recommended when you are talking.
  Note, under Preferences, if your computer and Internet speed can handle it, you can make a virtual background.
• I recommend having the following views open in addition to the general video (you can find them at the bottom of the screen):
• Participants: so you can raise your hand to say signal you want to say something but you cannot easily become part of the main conversation
• Chat: see what others are saying, post links, send quick private messages/questions to each other or the host.
  You can also use chat to voice agreement to what is currently being said (so you do not have to interrupt the cadence of the conversation through audio) — make sure to reference what you are commenting on.
• We will use Breakout Rooms to have smaller meetings that are individual, issue, or team specific.

For technical help with Zoom, contact the Duke OIT Service Desk (or by email or by phone at (919) 684-2200).