Course Evaluation Survey

Here is the link to the course evaluation survey. Please, please, please take a few moments to fill it out. Your feedback is much obliged. And it is anonymous! :-)

CC image posted by rob.purdie @ Flickr

week/deadline 8--the end!

CC image posted by Martin Cathrea @ Flickr

• listen to weekly podcast
• course build: Construct a solid draft of your course syllabus (especially the policies section). Share the document with the entire class in Google Docs. When you comment on one another’s drafts, try to focus on making the policies more effective for web-based teaching and learning issues.
  

• new technologies: timelines: Check out Dandelife, OurStory, and xtimeline. Right now I especially like xtimelines because it allows the user to make multiple timelines about different topics. These online timeline tools allow you to include text, pictures, audio, video, and any other embeddable object (I put a quick survey in one) in the specific date/time entry. The other two sites only allow you to make an individual personal timeline (which still could be useful in a class. What if you were teaching the health and wellness class and had students track when they exercised, what they ate, etc. in the timeline?). xtimeline, as you can see from the front page, allows individuals to make multiple timelines on different topics. This is just a last "fun" tool for you to consider developing alternative assessment/evaluation projects for your students. Please do share if you think of some fun course projects!
  
• blog entry: Build a timeline working back from when course goes live to now. What do you need to finish? When do you plan to finish it? You can either just type that in your blog entry, or play with one of the timeline tools to get a feel for them. If you play with the timeline tool, be sure to provide a URL for the rest of us to follow.
• iGoogle: add, organize & revise to your polished version online teaching and learning resource page. Be sure to re-share it with me one last time.
• end-of-course survey: Please take the end-of-course survey located at...I'll get that up in the next day or two.
  
• wiki entry: Post an annotated bibliography entry on the course wiki page about online course syllabi and/or policies

finally--podcasts!

This slacker instructor finally got podcasts for weeks 6, 7, and 8 up at Gabcast. I'll be sending files to Andrew to get up in Mesa's iTunesU later today.

Those are the last three official podcasts for the course. I'll be doing two more in the next week or so to reflect upon the course as a whole and another reflecting upon the process of podcasting for the course.

Week 7 Stuff

Image posted by Uninen @ Flickr

• listen to weekly podcast
• course build: You know what to do here, just keep on building. In theory, I’m asking for a second module. In practice, do some building and ask the rest of us for feedback.
• blog entry: Reflection on learning from the week, discuss how your course building is going, and briefly discuss course content you found.

• wiki entry: I know you all took the district’s FERPA Online Tutorial so you would have access to the new SIS system; however, what really is FERPA and how/why is it relevant to online teaching and learning? Many institutions are starting to question whether or not students should be allowed to post class work in "public" forums like blogs and wikis, etc.
  
• find course content: Identify a guest speaker/lecturer you could ask to participate in course somehow. Who would it be? Why that person? How might you incorporate them into the course (online discussion, respond to a certain week’s worth of blogs, make a brief audio file you could upload, record and interview in Skype, etc.)?
• iGoogle: nothing required
• new technologies: Don’t forget that “low-tech” matters! The phone is a very useful technology in web-based teaching and learning. I definitely retain more students by calling people during the first couple weeks of classes if they are slipping; or heck, just taking the time to call. So many times they are just not getting one thing and are therefore falling behind fast. I find that the majority of my students can figure out the various technologies with very little support (beyond what the websites provide). In other words, I don’t spend very much time developing technology support materials. Instead, I spend my time trying to meet with the one or two students per class that really struggle with the technology. And I try to meet with them f2f (sometimes on the weekends at a Starbucks with my laptop). This may sound crazy, however, it is the price I pay for using technologies that are not officially supported by the college (like most of the stuff we are using in this course). Now, if you are using technologies officially sanctioned by the college, there are usually other support resources (ie, help desks) that you can have your students call for technology help. I have found, however, I still have to do technology support with my students; email and now instant messaging are helping a lot with tech support (as well as quick Jing videos).

week/deadline 6: Assessment

Image posted by Edublogger @ Flickr
To-Do:

• listen to weekly podcast: I'll get the podcast with my ramblings about online assessment up to gabcast by the end of tonight and hopefully to iTunes by tomorrow! :-)
• course build: Build one of your major assessments (test, major assignment prompt, etc.), Somehow share the assessment with the rest of us (share a document in Google Docs, post screen captures in Picasa, etc.). Please post a blog (including some pics or links) discussing the assessment and try to comment on a couple of your classmate's materials as well. Ultimately, just continue building. If it makes more sense for you to work on something else, work on it! Remember, if you really want the rest of us to give you specific feedback, be sure to ask us specific questions.
• find course content: RLO (reusable learning object). Hopefully you've realized I want you to stop, stop, stop building new materials from scratch. There are a lot of online learning repositories that provide pre-made lesson plans, assignment prompts, and other learning objects. Check out some of the following and search for something related to your discipline/course:
• MLX
• Merlot
• MIT
• and lots, lots more

• blog entry: reflection on learning from week and briefly discuss course content you found
• wiki entry: Post something to the course wiki about assessment and/or evaluation in online learning environments.
• iGoogle: add one of the gadgets from Google that could help w/online learning, in other words, just browse through the gadgets some so you can be amazed how many different things exist.

new technologies

online storage

• Rule #1: Always save your work!
• Rule #2: Always save your work in more than one location!

Consider savings current versions of all your major projects after you work on them in a number of locations. Of course you will want to keep them on some type of portable storage that you keep with you (thumb drive--check out these thumb drives ). However, those tools are fragile; consider backing up your hard work in the following methods:

• Online storage accounts--many of these allow you to "share" or "publish" individual files
• http://box.net
• http://www.stixy.com/ (visual layout and icon for material saved)
• many, many, more
• Email yourself—Google mail (http://mail.google.com/) is a free email account with a lot of storage space
• Online Document Sharing—Although document sharing programs are primarily for you to give other individuals access to your work, they also must save that work on a server. You can use either Google Docs, Think Free (http://www.thinkfree.com/) or Zoho Writer (http://www.zohowriter.com/).

large file transfers Sometimes you have students working on a project that is too big to upload in an email, discussion board, course management system (yes, your system administrators put caps on what can be uploaded). You can use online storage sites, or brief email-storage sites like TransferBigFiles and File123.

CIS237: Web-Based Teaching & Learning II #5

Gabcast! CIS237: Web-Based Teaching & Learning II #5

CIS237: Web-Based Teaching & Learning II #4

Gabcast! CIS237: Web-Based Teaching & Learning II #4