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With campus closed through Summer term, the University of Central Florida held a virtual workshop today to help professors transition their classes online. 

Workshops are available to the public for free on the UCF Keep Teaching website. 

The CDC finds that 38% of hospitalized cases in the U.S. are 20 to 50-year-olds, further proof that our campus community needs to prioritize their personal wellness and practice social distancing.

Full update, including summer semester and housing info, from @ThadSeymour 👇

— UCF (@UCF) March 19, 2020

Faculty in the “Getting Started” workshop on Thursday learned how to log into the online learning system, set up a course, and publish content.

Vice Provost for Digital Learning Tom Cavanagh says the workshop taught professors the basics of the online teaching environment.

“And it covers how to get into the learning management system, how to set up your course, how to publish it, some basics really of just how to set up things to get started with students. And then also how to use the web conferencing platform, it’s called Zoom, so that they could do live or recorded lectures for their students online.”

Cavanagh says they’ll continue this training throughout the semester.

“This is the third of four and we anticipate that we will be doing some additional ones, but maybe focused on some specific areas. Things like “how do I set up a test?” or “how do I use the whiteboard?” Those kinds of specialized topics.”

Students who don’t have access to a laptop or internet off-campus can access class material on their phones using free Spectrum internet over the next 60 days.

The Florida Department of Education has closed all private and public K-12 and colleges through March because of concerns over coronavirus.

If you’d like to listen to the story, click on the clip above.