Distance Learning Mentoring Group
Minutes for April 17, 2008 CTL Workroom, 3:15 P.M.- 5:15 P.M. AS192
In attendance at the DLMG meeting: Alex Cheroske, Scott Gustafson, Laura Kobar, Georgianna Anderson, Sharon McLaughlin, Linda Evans, Shabana Kausar, Misa Vening, Biray Alsac, and Peggy Johnson. Absent: Marianne Arini.
Misa, Scott, Sharon, and Alex showed the online courses they have developed.
MISA
Misa has developed BPC 110 to teach Open Office software, a 16-week course. The homepage has three icons on it, keeping it simple and easy to navigate (Start Here, Modules, Support Material).
Misa plans to hide the tools on the left from students (such as Discussion, Assessments) so students access the course through the icons on the Course Content page (homepage). Misa modeled the look after Richard Felnagle by creating her one icon and using it in different hues.
The Support Material icon leads students to the course calendar, hyperlink to Open Office website, and TSS (MCC's helpdesk). Misa used Dreamweaver and the WebDav option to upload all her course into WebCT at once. She cautions that if you use Dreamweaver CS3, there is a patch you need to download from the Adobe site to get WebDav to work in WebCT.
Misa plans to send an email before class starts to students enrolled in her online class. She has information on the class that will be available inside the course and externally from her homepage. This information will include a welcome letter with an overview of the course, info on how to get started, and useful links on the MCC Distance Learning site (online self-evaluation, starting your class, setting up your portal account, a checklist of what the student should know about the course, and orientation). In addition, students will be alerted that the course is not an open entry-open exit class (it has specific due dates).
There will be a link to the syllabus and a list of the supplies students need (hardware, software, textbook etc.) The list of modules is long - 19 in all. Thus, Misa elected to list them as text without icons on a single screen. This gives a nice clean look to a screen with a lot of information on it.
Misa is using a larger font in the learning modules, which is easy on the eyes. The module begins with a section on "What's This Module About". Objectives and goals are listed therein. Each module begins with an overview.
Grades are earned from the assignment (often a reading), discussion posting, and review quiz. Misa's powerpoint lessons are available to students in both a Powerpoint 2007 and 2003 format.
The section entitled "What Do I Do Next" contains helpful screen captures. "What's Due in Module 1?" alerts students to required tasks. A checklist is provided that includes how many points are possible for each assignment.
Students take a self-assessment online, or they can opt to take it on campus. Students will complete an end-of-course survey.
Misa hopes to add videos to her class. The syllabus is posted as a pdf document. This makes the format look the same no matter what hardware or software the student is using to view the course. Cute pdfWriter is free and will convert your documents into pdf format (you can get Cute pdfWriter here) or you can bring your documents into the CTL and use the Adobe PDF creator on the computers there.
There is a discussion board for questions and answers from students. Misa has students fill out a questionnaire on their background the first week of class, as well as take a quiz on the syllabus.
SCOTT
Scott's homepage for ECN 280 Health Care Economics has a header identifying the course along with 12 icons. The icons include the welcome, syllabus, and class schedule - all of which are linked to Scott's faculty webpage so students have access to them outside of WebCT.
There are seven module icons and an icon that leads to Instructor Info for this eight-week course. Scott plans to email students a couple of weeks ahead and again about one week before the semester starts. He will phone those students who have not responded to his emails.
Scott had to develop some of the course competencies as the course has not been taught in the district before and the district competencies were quite outdated. Note : Linda Evans shared this link t o see the description, competencies, and outline for any course in the Maricopa coursebank:
http://www.maricopa.edu /academic/ccta/curric/search _engine.php Enter the prefix and number of the course you want to see, and you will be able to see and print all the course information. You can also enter just a prefix to see all courses in a given discipline, or enter a keyword from the title if you're not sure which prefix the course falls under. T hese competencies should be embedded in your course.
Each module has a checklist of activities for the student, an introduction, list of objectives (which align with the course objectives as suggested by the Quality Matters rubric), and a quiz worth 10 points that assures the student completed the assigned reading.
Students usually read two chapters in the textbook. Students also write from 300 to 500 words on the Discussion board, choosing from one of several questions Scott provides. Scott plans to use the grading form to grade the Discussion postings. He has also provided a sample "good" posting and a sample of a poor posting.
Scott has overlapped several of his modules so that students can have some flexibility for due dates. For example, there are several weeks when students are working on module 2 but also can work on module 3 if they want to work ahead.
Scott plans to add recorded interview with experts in the field. Linda had seen a show on Frontline this week that compared health care in six different countries. This resource may be useful to Scott's students.
SHARON
Sharon has created a course homepage that is rich in colorful clip art, giving a friendly feel to her HES 154 First Aid/CPR hybrid class. Students will come to campus for three lab sessions, in which they will be CPR certified.
There is a nice Welcome to Class! greeting on the course homepage. HES 154 will be an eight-week course. Students take a quiz on the syllabus the first week. The rest of the course materials are not visible until the student passes this quiz.
Three icons appear: Help, Course Info, and Learning Modules. This simplifies navigation for students. Behind the Course Info icon, students can locate the full syllabus (printable version), or the syllabus broken into several parts for easy screen viewing: course calendar, information on the lab sessions (on campus), grading policy, course objectives, information on CPR certification, student responsibilities, supplies needed, technical support, and course policies.
There are 8 Learning Modules. Each module contains an overview, list of objectivies, activities checklist, discussion assignment, and quiz. Sharon alerts her students in the first week of class that they will need Acrobat reader, Flash Player and Quick Time. She has provided links so that students can conveniently download these free pieces of software.
Sharon plans to send emails and a letter to her students in advance of the semester beginning. This welcome letter will have instructions on how to navigate within the course, format of the course, and a section for students who are new to online learning.
A typical week for students will include a reading assignment, modules created in SoftChalk that include self-assessments, a discussion posting, an online quiz, and an assignment activity. Sharon will utilize the excellent online resources the American Heart Association has created for the CPR part of her course. This replaces the textbook she originally planned to use, and includes excellent focused online videos.
Sharon hopes to add specific case information for students that applies the general principles to specific scenarios. She may use experts in the field to help create these realistic scenarios. She will start with audio interviews (such as with paramedics), and then may add videos some time in the future.
ALEX
Alex has a clean look to his homepage, using a limited number of icons (syllabus, click here first, and lab materials). His choice of an animated gif with a skeleton motioning with a bony finger to come brought favorable reviews from the faculty present.
Students will take an orientation quiz, with questions about the syllabus and course navigation features. They must earn 100% on the quiz to see the rest of the course materials.
Alex incorporates both synchronous and synchronous features to his online Bio 160 Introduction to Anatomy and Physiology class. He can use either Breeze Live or Eluminate to do the online portion (lecture with Powerpoint slides, lecture notes etc.) for his class. As long as students have a free Flash player and an audio card, they can hear Alex's voice and type in text to ask questions.
There is also a live chat option where the student can talk if they have a microphone on their computer and Alex gives them permission to do so. These online lessons are given twice a week and are an hour to an hour and a half in length. They are archived and stored in the class (in WebCT) so students can see them any time they wish.
Alex will send a weekly email that gives an overview of the class and reminds students about deadlines. The introductory email Alex will send includes a welcome, list of supplies needed (including hardware), information on how assessments will be conducted and how to get started in the course, syllabus, and a copy of an article on how to be a successful online student. Linda Evans provided this link to the article: http://www.insidetrack.com /pdfs/Starting_Strong.pdf You might want to include it for your class.
Alex recorded an audio welcome for his students. The orientation video was created using Camtasia software (but you could also use Jing, which is free software). It shows the students how to access the various WebCT tools. Alex also plans to use Wimba voice board to leave audio messages for his students, as well as the Wimba chat room (for synchronous, live interchanges).
For the laboratory portion of the course, Alex will email students each week what they are to do. Many weeks involve labeling photos of anatomical models (organs, tissues etc.) Students are provided with a list of what they should be able to do to be successful on the week's online quiz, which is likely to involved some labelling of photos.
Students will come to campus to take a midterm and final exam. The other exams in the course will be taken online.
Alex plans to survey his students about a month into the semester on how things are going. This type of formative asssessment can be very helpful to an instructor.
COMING ATTRACTIONS
Linda, Laura and Marianne will show their online courses at our April 24th meeting.
It's exciting to see these excellent classes being developed by our colleagues!