Faculty introduced themselves, including describing their experience with online instruction.
Janell will develop IFS 101, Information Skills for the Digital Age. She has taught online courses for the library on how to search the web. She has completed Donna Gaudet's CIS 236 course (Web-based Teaching and Learning) and recommends it for seeing how it is to be an online student. Donna will offer her course, which is completely online, in June. Janelle has taken the WebCT Fundamentals workshop and the SoftChalk workshop offered by the CTL. Janell is interested in making her course interactive and plans to incorporate games and quizzes.
Erica is a grad student at ASU in kinesiology and will develop the online Professional Application of Fitness Principles course for MCC. She has used Blackboard to supplement classes she has taught at ASU. Erica also completed Donna's CIS 236 course and has taken quite a few WebCT workshops in the CTL. She plans to include a lot of communication in her class, including writing assignments, and is looking for a variety of ways for students to exchange ideas and experiences on the discussion board. She plans to use timed quizzes for assessment. She is interested in software that can identify plagiarism. MCC has acquired Turnitin.com software for this purpose.
Greg is developing an online Bio 240, General Genetics, class that biotech students take. He wants to put the lecture part of the course online. Greg plans to use the discussion board for students to work on problem sets as a group.
Eileen will develop an online ACC 109, Accounting Concepts course. She has used the internet extensively but has not previously taught a class online. Eileen has taken CIS 236 and recommends it to others. She liked Donna's way of using a wide variety of approaches for student activities. Her class will involve group work. She uses WebCT with her on-campus classes. Eileen has taken the WebCT Fundamentals class.
Thom is creating an online EPS250, Introduction to Entrepreneurship, course. He uses WebCT for his on-campus classes. He plans to use Powerpoint presentations in his course, links to reference material, lecture notes, the gradebook, and weekly quizzes in WebCT. Students will complete three outside interviews and submit their results in document form. Thom likes the idea of using peer review for student business plans.
Elizabeth is developing an online SPA 265, Advanced Spanish I, course. Elizabeth also completed CIS 236 and felt it was very worthwhile. She has used both Blackboard and WebCT with her on-campus classes. She has taken a workshop on Wimba at ASU. Most foreign language faculty at MCC use PureVoice. We will investigate the Wimba option for her. Elizabeth has her Powerpoint files ready to upload. She plans to use WebCT's quizzes function and present her lesson in modules.
Ray is developing an online AGB 132 Agribusiness Accounting/Analysis class. He has taken lots of CTL workshops. He has his own website for his on-campus classes in place. Ray is planning on using WebCT to deliver his course content.
Kim will develop FON 247, Weight Management Theory, online class. She has done webcasts and live presentations for clients on a national basis. She took a Powerpoint workshop in the CTL several years ago. Kim has taught FON 247 on-campus, which is very beneficial when developing the course online. She would like the course to be more current than textbooks can be. Including internet links should facilitate this.
Karen is developing GPH 219, INtroduction to Geographical Information Systems, online, as well as working on her doctorate this semester. She uses the internet extensively with her on-campus students for obtaining data. She has taken several online classes (as a student). Karen has completed workshops on WebCT Fundamentals and the WebCT gradebook. She plans to have her lessons organized into modules. Students will have a semester-long project of producing a map. She wants to create an interface so they can understand how to use the complicated software necessary for this task. It was suggested she might want to consider using Captivate (http://www.adobe.com/products/captivate/) software for creating screen capture videos.
Keith will develop an online ENH202 World Literature after the Renaissance course. Keith was chairperson of the English department at Rio Salado and taught online there. But the process there was to create Word documents and then hand them off to a web development team. At MCC faculty create their own course entirely, though we can assist them.
Note: In place of using Word to create files to display on the internet, you might consider using Frontpage software or Dreamweaver. Frontpage is available to MCC faculty for free. Take two blank CD's to Technology Support Services and they can burn Microsoft Office with Frontpage to the CD's for you in about 24 hours time. If you want to use Dreamweaver, you or your department will need to purchase it. Directions on how to use Frontpage and Dreamweaver can be found on the CTL website at http://ctl.mc.maricopa.edu/_ctl_SD/resources/helpdocs/how_to/index.html
If you want to create documents in Microsoft Word, then save the files using the File>Save As command (when you have the document open in Word). Use the pull-down menu that appears to select either Web Page or Web Page, Filtered.
The document you save will end in the "html" or "htm" suffix. An HTML or HTM document can be viewed through any browser (such as Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox). A Word document that ends in "doc" could only be viewed by students who have Microsoft Office Word software on their computer.
Keith has taken the Breeze workshop. He has been teaching himself WebCT. He's made multiple-choice quiz questions using Respondus. He was hoping that Respondus would make it easier to grade essay questions (automate the process). Keith would like to incorporate video clips in his online class. He may use the discussion board also.
Allie is developing Introduction to Interpreting, SLG205, as an online class. She is currently teaching a hybrid class using WebCT and learning as she goes. She has taken many online classes as well as workshops on teaching online (Fundamentals of WebCT, Gradebook). She wants to incorporate video and talk to her students using a webcam.
Gretchen will develop an online version of MCO120, Media and Society. It will be the first online course offering for the journalism department and there is some apprehension about how it will work, as many of the sites students will visit are extremely large files. Material changes very frequently as it is based on current events. Gretchen would like to podcast her lectures. She wants to record music. It is suggested she might want to use Audacity software, which is free, for this purpose. Directions for creating and editing files with Audacity can be found on the CTL web site at http://ctl.mc.maricopa.edu/_ctl_SD/resources/helpdocs/how_to/index.html
Gretchen earned her degree as an online student at the University of Phoenix and it was a wonderful experience. She also earned her MBA online. Gretchen has completed Donna's 236 class also. She has lots of Powerpoint lectures but would like to get away from them as she feels they are too passive. She'd like more interaction in her class. She has been using Midas for her gradebook. Since the district will no longer support Midas after this summer, she will need to switch to WebCT's gradebook or some other alternative.
Gretchen is interested in creating animations. Ken Costello likes creating animations in Powerpoint. Powerpoint has an amazing amount of features in this regard and Ken (461-7666, costello@mail.mc.maricopa.edu) is the person to consult about this process.
An alternative is to create animations using Macromedia Flash. This is an extremely complex program and takes eons more time to learn than Powerpoint, but it is more flexible. James Bowles (461-7666, chago@mail.mc.maricopa.edu) is the person to talk to about this process.
HOMEWORK
Faculty were given a list of questions to consider as they begin to develop their online courses. They were also instructed to bring one URL of an online course they found that they liked to show at our next meeting. They should identify the characteristics of the course that they like.
Peggy's DLMG resource page is a good place to start looking for online courses. Start with seeing if the textbook publisher for your course has an E-pack. This can save you a lot of time!