March 23 Message from VCAA Joni Onishi

Aloha Esteemed Faculty and Lecturers,

I hope all of you are doing well and are ready to deploy your courses via distance learning. Spend this week reacquainting with your students and acquainting your students and yourself to the different modality of delivery. Please let your DC, Dean, or me know if there's anything you and/or your students need. We have resource people available to assist.

Please complete the Proctor Testing spreadsheet (please contact VCAA office for link to spreadsheet) to let me know whether you need your tests to be proctored or not. (if your name/course is not listed, please add at the bottom)

This is the link to responses from students in regards to technological needs (please contact VCAA office for link to spreadsheet). Please reach out to them to be sure their needs are met and refer them to me if necessary.

Internet Access for Students:

For students who may need access to the Internet at home, both Spectrum and Hawaiian Telcom are offering free internet for 2 months to homes with students.

Spectrum Hawaii - Free Access

Spectrum Hawaii offers free wi-fi access to homes with students! Charter will offer free Spectrum broadband and Wi-Fi access for 60 days to households with K-12 and/or college students who do not already have a Spectrum broadband subscription at any service level up to 100 Mbps. To enroll call 1-844-488-8395. Installation fees will be waived for new student households.

• You need to provide contact information and show your student ID upon pick-up or delivery of the modem and router (they will deliver!). The fine print: Be aware that if you don't cancel before the 60 "free" days, you'll be billed for continuation of services. It's not an automatic cancellation! Put it on your calendar to cancel services before the 60th day!

Hawaiian Telcom - Free Access

Hawaiian Telcom will be offering two (2) months of free Internet service to households with K-12 and/or college students who currently do not subscribe to Hawaiian Telcom Internet service. To sign up, families can call 643-8888. Installations fees will also be waived for new student households.

Communication Tools:

Here are links to two APPs you may want to consider using to communicate with students. Contact Lisa Fukumitsu (fukumits@hawaii.edu) for assistance.

Remind: https://www.remind.com/

• free basic messaging for up to 10 classes/150 students per class, per account

GroupMe https://groupme.com/en-US/

• free group messaging

Finally, please let me know if you are using your office to deliver your course via web conference and/or online. As a reminder no one else should be in office with you unless you can assure social distancing per CDC guidelines.

Mahalo for your patience, flexibility, and commitment to the success of our students.

Elbow bumps, stay healthy, and keep safe.

Joni