August 25th, 2008

Good Morning!

As a reminder the 25% completion deadline is fast approaching. It is Monday, September 1st which is only one week away! Offices are closed on Monday, September 1st so I will begin to go into your courses on Tuesday, September 2nd. If you have any concerns about meeting that deadline please let me know.

I want to remind all of you that here at Globe Education Network all of our employees can subscribe to Online Classroom for free. Online Classroom provides practical advice and examples of proven, research-based pedagogical techniques to help instructors and course developers create and teach outstanding courses. To access Online Classroom simply go to www.magnapubs.com/licenses/suscribe.html. Enter your individual email address and password as well as the other required information. Enter the following Voucher Code and PIN number where prompted:

• Voucher Code: MSB
• PIN: 1010

There is a new issue that just came out today and it contains an article about synchronous learning. Here at Globe Education Network we typically design our courses as being asynchronous, but try to work in synchronous learning through instructor office hours. However, a great way to work in a simulated version of synchronous learning is to provide students with audio lectures. Please let me know if you have an interest in adding audio lectures to your course and I would be happy to help you with that process! We have gotten great feedback from students about the benefits that audio lectures provide them. They enjoy listening to the content to get the material in a different fashion.

Have a great week!

Amy

August 18, 2008

Good Morning!

I would like to take a little time this morning to talk about rubrics. I believe I have mentioned them in the past, but this topic is important enough to talk about again. Rubrics are a simple way to set up a grading criteria for assignments. This tool is useful for both students and instructors so that everyone knows what is expected of a student to receive a certain grade on an assignment.

When you are creating your assignments please remember to clearly write out what the expectations are. Rather than simply asking students to "answer a question" identify what you are looking for from their answers. Because these students are taking online courses, they may not feel as comfortable asking questions because the personal relationship with the instructor is a little bit more difficult to form. Therefore it is very important to give them all of the needed information up front.

There is a lot of information on the web about rubrics. Here are a few web sites that can give you a little bit more information on this topic:

www.uen.org/rubric/html/know.html
http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php
http://www.teachervision.fen.com/teaching-methods-and-management/rubrics/4521.html

Have a great week!

Amy

August 11, 2008

We have now started the new round of development! Welcome to you if you are a new developer and you are new to the process - we are happy to have you aboard :-) Please take some time to look back on past posts in this blog to get ideas for your development. Even if you aren't new to online development it is always good to look back to use ideas from the past!

Company News:

Starting this fall quarter we will be offering online programs to students out in Utah! In the past Utah students have taken GU/MSB courses online through a consortium agreement, but now the courses are being developed for Utah Career College students as well! What does this mean for development? Mainly, please stay away from referring to Globe University or Minnesota School of Business in your verbiage. Additionally, as always, as you are creating your courses, please remember that students all over the country will be taking them. This means that if you mention something local or Minnesota specific, students may not understand what you are referring to.

General Updates:

The 25% completion date will be upon us before we know it - September 1st is the date. If you are having trouble getting your textbook or getting started please let me know ASAP. As you are starting your development please take a look at what items might be good as an audio lecture. You can send them to me right away so I can get started working on them to have them up and running for you. All I need is a power point presentation and a script! Also, if you would like to have a "review quiz" in the middle of the presentation or as a stand alone this is also possible. The review quizzes could test a student's knowledge without counting in the grade book. This is a wonderful way to test reading/listening comprehension.

Have fun with starting your new developments!

Amy