Webex Education Connector
Communication Tools in Pilot
Communication Tools in Pilot provide digital spaces for faculty and students to interact with each other. These tools include discussion boards, email, groups, and online video conferencing platforms.
- Using Webex for Online Instruction
- How do I add Webex to my Pilot course?
- The Webex Education Connector in Pilot is telling me I need to reauthorize my account. How do I do that?
- Preassign Participants to Breakout Sessions
- 'Classroom Collaboration' Teams
- Use Live Polls to gather feedback, take votes, or test knowledge
- Use Apps to share and collaborate with participants
- Share content or your entire screen
- Cisco Hardware Available in WSU Classrooms
- Your Personal Webex Room Outside of Pilot
- Best Practices for Using Webex in Your Classroom
- WSU's Webex Support Site
- Download the Latest Webex App
- Important Links
Using Webex for Online Instruction
How do I add Webex to my Pilot course?
Webex Education Connector Tutorials
The Cisco Webex Education Connector is an external learning tool in Pilot that is used for conducting classes in a live virtual classroom. This tool can be used to schedule virtual class meetings, promote online group work, and to schedule virtual office hours using Cisco Webex Meetings.
How to Add the Webex Education Connector to Pilot
To utilize the Webex Education Connector in your course, you must add the Webex External Learning Tool in Pilot by going to your Content tab and creating a module. We suggest creating a module labeled, “Webex” or “Class Meeting.” This makes the link easy to find for the students.
Once you have created a module for your Webex Education Connector, you will go into that module and click on the gray button labeled Add Existing Activities and select External Learning Tools.
This action will open a small window with all the External Learning Tools that are offered in Pilot. You will scroll all the way to the bottom of the list and click on Webex.
After selecting Webex, it will populate in your chosen module as a link for both you and your students to access.
Setting up your Webex Education Connector
To customize your preferences in the Webex Education Connector, click on the Webex link in your Content module. If this is the first time you have accessed the tool, it will automatically take you to the Setup tab.
In the Setup tab, you can customize the following Webex Education Connector preferences:
- Choose your features: Classroom Collaboration, Virtual Meetings, and Office Hours are all disabled by default. Check the features that you want to be available for your course and select Apply. Then, each feature you selected appears as its own tab.
- Time Zone: Regardless of your location while teaching the course, the Time Zone for the course should be set at GMT-4:00, Eastern (New York). Once you’ve ensured this time zone has been set correctly, click on the blue Save button.
- Authorize with LMS: Authorize the Webex Education Connector before you start to use its features. Enter the same credentials you use to sign in. If this button is blue, you will need to authorize. If this button is gray, it has already been done.
- Webex Meetings Attendance Grading: You can award participation points to students automatically when they attend a meeting or class using the Webex Education Connector. This sets up a grade item in your Gradebook in Pilot. If you would like to turn on attendance grading, select the blue button labeled Turn on.
- Reminder Bot: The Reminder Bot posts a message into the Webex Teams space (Classroom Collaboration) before a Webex meeting is about to start for that class or meeting. Select Turn On and select the amount of time before your class you would like the reminder to be sent.
Support Links for Students
The Webex Education Connector in Pilot is telling me I need to reauthorize my account. How do I do that?
From your Pilot course page, go to the Webex external learning tool and select the Virtual Meetings tab. Click on the door icon in the upper right corner to log out of the integration. Log back in, and your account will be reauthorized.
For step-by-step instructions on how to reauthorize your accounts, click here.
Preassign Participants to Breakout Sessions
Breakout sessions are smaller groups of attendees that are split off from the main meeting or webinar. Breakout sessions can be used for workshops, classrooms, or one-on-one discussions outside of the meeting.
Read more about breakout sessions here.
Preassign People from a CSV File
You can preassign participants to a breakout session via a CSV file.
Read more about preassigning participants to a breakout session here.
'Classroom Collaboration' Teams
In the Webex App, teams help you keep everything organized by categorizing multiple spaces under a theme. When you open Classroom Collaboration for the first time and sign in, you automatically create a team for your course. Everyone that is enrolled in your class gets added to the team and to the team's General space.
In addition to the General space, you can create more spaces in your course for different groups of students.
Read more about Classroom Collaboration Teams here.
Use Live Polls to gather feedback, take votes, or test knowledge
Polling in Webex can be done using Slido, a built in Webex app that allows you to conduct interactive polls, quizzes, surveys, Q&A sessions, and more.
Read more about Slido and how it integrate into Webex here.
Create Slido Polls to Engage Participants
For instructions on how to create Slido polls to use in your Webex session, click here.
Interaction Tips for Slido
For tips on how to use Slido in your class, click here.
Use Apps to share and collaborate with participants
Read more about using apps to collaborate with participants here.
Share content or your entire screen
Read more about sharing your screen here.
Cisco Hardware Available in WSU Classrooms
To view the Cisco hardware currently available in Wright State's classrooms, visit https://www.wright.edu/information-technology/in-person-remote-video-learning-classrooms#equipment.
Your Personal Webex Room Outside of Pilot
You can access your own personal Webex room and user hub settings at https://wright.webex.com/.
Best Practices for Using Webex in Your Classroom
Clarify the access procedures for the Course Type. Communicate technology and browser requirements to your students at the beginning of the term. Before a class is scheduled to meet, make sure the students know procedures and basic troubleshooting tips for joining the session. There will be some latency with transcontinental meetings. It is not unreasonable to see a 5 to 6 seconds delay for an attendee overseas.
- Best Practices for Secure Meetings
- Best practices for great online meetings
- Reauthorize Webex from within Pilot every 30 days or when you switch devices
Web Browser tips: Completely close your browser before beginning a session. Always use the most up-to-date version of your browser and limit open browser tabs to ones you are using for that session. Chrome is the recommended web browser to use on both Mac & Windows. For the optimal experience, allow your web browser to open or handoff the meeting to the Webex App you have installed.
- My Webcam does not Work in a Webex Session
- “Make sure the webcam is plugged in prior to joining the Webex session. Close any programs that are accessing the webcam before joining the Webex session. (Examples: Teams, Instant Messaging software, webcam software, etc)”. Cisco recommends using the Webex App to gain the full capabilities of Webex meetings.
Have a backup plan in case a live class session gets interrupted, and participants cannot immediately get back into it. Communicate this plan, including how you will notify your students and where they are to go BEFORE class sessions begin. Options:
- Use your Webex Personal Room instead of a scheduled meeting room.
- Microsoft (MS) Teams is the backup video conferencing tool for Webex. Request MS Team for your class
- Email classlist through Pilot
- News / Announcement on your Pilot course homepage.
- Classroom Collaboration (Webex Education Connector) AKA Webex Spaces (You can also start synchronous Webex Meetings from these Spaces.)
Provide students with information on where to get tech support if they have an issue. If you need Webex support, contact the CaTS Help Desk.
Set clear expectations within your sessions. Do you want students to use profile pictures, have their webcams on, mute their mics, raise their hand before opening their mics, how you expect them to use the chat function, etc.? Note: If the breakout sessions aren't ended when students return to the main meeting, they need to unmute their audio to be heard.
- Classroom Collaboration Student Meetings: Students should always use the Webex Desktop App when joining to ensure sharing, video and all features work well.
Webex Education Connector in Pilot tips:
- Recurring Class Meeting Scheduling:
- Name the meetings with the course name and term/year so the meeting names are unique to avoid errors. eg. “SPN-1010-02 Fall 2023”
- “Advanced options” (at the bottom), select “automatically record”.
- Individual meetings from a recurring schedule must be deleted from the series in your personal room and cannot be deleted within Pilot.
- Recording:
- Avoid the “Recording Library”. Use “Recordings” under the “Virtual Meetings” tab.
- Webex Meetings Attendance Grading Option:
- Only recommended for fully online synchronous courses, if so desired. This will create a grade item in your Pilot gradebook. If a student joins from another link & not from Pilot, it will show them as not attending.
WSU's Webex Support Site
Visit the Cisco Webex Meeting Center page for more general information about Webex.
Download the Latest Webex App
The latest Webex app is available at https://www.webex.com/downloads.html.
