October 27, 2008

Good Morning Developers!

This is the last weekly blog for this round of development. All developments must be 100% complete by Monday, November 3rd as this is when the peer advisers go into the courses to provide feedback. Please send me an e-mail as soon as you are finished with your development so that I can go in and check it and then cross it off the list. If you finish before November 3rd that is great as it allows me to check it before the peer advisers do so that you can make any last minute changes that need to be made.

Just to send along a few announcements from Globe University/Minnesota School of Business as a whole:

• The Elk River and west Madison campuses are scheduled to open summer quarter 2009! This means there will be even more students taking online courses :-) After these campuses open we will officially have 20 campuses that offer online courses to their students (that includes campuses in Utah, the Institute of Production and Recording, and the Cosmetology school)
• We have three online divisions for which our online courses serve as the academic basis for: MSB Online, UCC Online, and GU Online
• We will be growing from our fully online population of 750 students to well over 2000 in only a few short years (this does not include the thousands of residential students that take our online courses - see bullet number one).

Thank you for all of your hard work this quarter in your developments, your dedication to our students makes a huge difference!! I have enjoyed working with all of you this quarter and hope to work with you in more developments in the future.

I hope you all have a wonderful Halloween this Friday!

Amy

October 20, 2008

Hello Developers,

With the 100% completion date 2 weeks away I would like to spend this blog reviewing a few reminders to make sure you double check before the peer advisers go in to take a look at your course:

• You will want to make sure your course includes student to student interaction, engages the students, motivates the students, uses student centered techniques, and is free of errors (typos/spelling, etc.).
• It is important that students use their critical thinking skills in every course. They should have an opportunity to tell others their opinions and then discuss them, rather than always just stating facts and figures.
• Assignments should be creative - they shouldn't always be question and answer from the book. Encourage students to do activities and report back on what they learned. These types of assignments will help them learn more than simply learning everything from a book.
• Double check to make sure the total points in your course calendar matches the total points in the grade book.
• Add in some additional learning tools such as Books 24 X 7 or online journals. If you are not sure what online journals are available for your course topic please don't hesitate to contact Elaine, the online librarian. If you need her contact information just let me know!
• Remember that students should work in the course approximately 1 hour/credit/week as well as work outside of the course approximately 1 - 3 hours/credit/week. Also, as the course increases in number (100 level vs. 400 level) you should expect that students taking the higher level course have become more proficient in the material offered due to an increase in the amount of pre-requisite courses that are required. Therefore, upper division courses should contain readings, assignments, discussions, and exams that require a deeper evaluation of the course material.
• Make sure every unit has a reading assignment, discussion board, external link, and assignment at a minimum.

Thank you for all of your hard work this quarter! Only 2 more weeks left and one more blog for this development cycle. Please make sure to let me know if you have any questions or concerns at all!!

Amy

October 13, 2008

Hello Developers!

This week I will be going into your courses to check for 75% completion. The 100% completion date is November 3rd and at that time there will be peer advisers that will be going into your courses to give you feedback on your development. Please let me know if you have questions about the peer advising process. If you finish your course before the 100% completion deadline please let me know!

Globe Education Network made it into the Star Tribune today! Here is a link to the most recent article posted today about our new campus opening up in the IDS center in Downtown Minneapolis: http://www.startribune.com/business/30706574.html?elr=KArksUUUU

The students that enroll at the new IDS center campus will be technically residential students, but we know that many of our residential students very much enjoy to take some (or a lot!) of their courses online. The type of student that will be attracted to this location will likely be the working professional so we can definitely expect to see these busy students in our online courses. I hope you enjoy reading the article!

Amy

October 6, 2008

Hello Developers,

Just a reminder that the 75% completion date is on Monday. If you have concerns about meeting this deadline please contact me ASAP. Additionally, please be sure to look over your online course development users guide to make sure that you didn't miss anything in the course of your developments.

In this months edition of Online Classroom there is an article that discusses how to develop interaction activities for distance education. Students often have a tendency to feel isolated and alone in online classrooms. As a course developer it is important that you develop the course in such a way to foster a sense of community in the classroom. There are a number of interactions that need to take place in order for a sense of community to be present:

• instructor to learner
• learner to instructor
• learner to learner
• learner to content
• learner to medium
• learner to context

This article will discuss how to incorporate all of these types of interactions throughout your development. To check out this months edition of Online Classroom follow the instructions below:

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. You will need to enter a Voucher Code and PIN number where prompted - I have e-mailed this information to you.