Always have a backup plan

If this past year has taught us anything at all, it's this:
Have. A. Backup. Plan.

​Giving "March Madness" a whole different meaning, we find ourselves in another challenging situation! With many of Maricopa's systems currently down, we once again need to remind ourselves to remain flexible, patient, and willing to undertake some creative workarounds.

This week, I'd like to remind you of the value of maintaining your own version of a course backup - not a full course, by any means, but a skeleton course with the bare bones that you would be able to use in case of drastic emergencies where you and/or your students are unable to access any of your normal course management systems. It's free and easy to keep an emergency backup course website handy, because you just never know!

Would you believe that you can build a website in less than 5 minutes? Watch this 6-minute video!

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An added benefit to maintaining a site with bare bones course information is that you can use it to house public course information, as well, allowing students to make better-informed choices when they are registering for classes. ​

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There are multiple options for web page creation, but I will not list them all here! In the context of this week's challenges, having a backup site somewhere that is not connected to the regular systems makes sense. I am going to recommend Weebly, which has a very nice free version for educators (it even includes student accounts, if you want to have students use it for class projects).

Here's the strategy for creating your public webpage for students:

• Plan your page on paper:
  • What elements/information will you include?
  • How do you want to structure your page?
• Set up an account at https://education.weebly.com (it is important that you go to this educator's version of weebly, and not the basic commercial version, which is much more limited).
• Start building!

Here's what my public pages look like:

• ECN211: https://economicsrocks.weebly.com/ecn211-info.html
• ECN212: https://economicsrocks.weebly.com/ecn212-info.html

WEEBLY RESOURCES FOR YOU:

• Weebly Help Center​

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Here is a screenshot of my public page content.

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DON'T FORGET - If you would like assistance with Weebly, or if you have other questions about Teaching, Learning, and/or Assessment, contact the CTLA!

To submit a request for assistance: https://ctla.cgc.edu/help.html

HAPPY TUESDAY, EVERYONE!

Watch this blog space (and/or your email) for this week's LOL recording... coming soon!