November 24, 2008

Good Morning Developers!

I came across an interesting article this week titled "Seven skills students desperately need" http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/index.cfm?i=56127

The seven skills mentioned in the article are:

1. Problem-solving and critical thinking
2. Collaboration across networks and leading by influence
3. Agility and adaptability
4. Initiative and entrepreneurship
5. Effective written and oral communication;
6. Accessing and analyzing information
7. Curiosity and imagination.

As you read through the article and read through the list, think about how you are incorporating the learning of these skills in your online class. It is easy to "teach to the test" and tell students to answer end of chapter questions and answer multiple choice quiz questions when the answers are in the book. But it is a bit more challenging to teach students how to analyze information and generate curiosity and imagination. I know that all of you are up to the challenge! It is not only our job to teach our students the textbook information, but we need to be teaching them how to be successful in the workforce. If you are interested in bouncing ideas off of me I would be more than happy to discuss these with you!

As a reminder, for most of you the 25% completion deadline is on Monday. If you have questions about this or any concerns about reaching this deadline please let me know ASAP.

Have a great Thanksgiving week!

Amy

November 17, 2008

Good Morning Developers,

Some very interesting news articles came out over the past week and they contain information that will help you to keep current with where online education is in the spectrum of higher education.

Here are the links to the articles:
College life in wireless age: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/education/story/756174.html
As economy wavers, online enrollments climb: http://insidehighered.com/news/2008/11/13/sloan

The first article about college life in the wireless age doesn't specifically relate to taking courses in the online environment, but it is important because it helps us to understand the lives of our students and what our competition is doing in terms of everyday campus life. Web based social networks are changing the face of our interactions with each other and these types of changes will inevitably carry over into online education. These types of changes tell us that when we design online courses it is important to keep up with the changing face of communication. Students are used to interacting over the web and our assignments, discussion boards, and group projects are just a few ways that we can guide them toward that type of interaction in our courses.

The second article confirms that online education isn't going anywhere and is in fact growing at an unpredicted pace! Every year we have double-digit growth in online education and this growth might continue due to the stagnating economy. When people don't have jobs, they go back to school. Keep this in mind as you are creating your courses. It is likely that your courses will be seen by hundreds or thousands of students. The responsibility to give these students a high level of education rests in your hands and in your course design. Have fun with it! Keep your course design fresh and interesting to keep the students engaged. Remember, when people interact with each other they are likely to view their experience as a more positive one.

Have a great week!

November 10, 2008

Hello Developers,

I would like to use the blog this week to talk more about learning objects. Learning objects are a new way of thinking about learning content. Traditionally, content comes in a several hour chunk. Learning objects are much smaller units of learning, typically ranging from 2 minutes to 15 minutes. They are self contained and reusable. When you are developing your courses please try to incorporate learning objects into the content as much as you can. Online learners need to practice what they are learning and learning objects are a great way to do that.

By visiting this website from the University of Wisconsin you will find links to learning object collections and great information about how learning objects can be used in your courses:

http://www.uwm.edu/Dept/CIE/AOP/learningobjects.html

You can work learning objects into your courses thorough additional learning resources or by working the learning object into an assignment, discussion board, or project. There are a lot of fun ways to incorporate learning objects into your courses and I am excited to see the creative ways you all find to use them in your courses!

Stay warm!

Amy

November 3, 2008

Hello Developers!

To those of you who are new to online development I would like to welcome you and to encourage you to read this blog weekly. I use it to update everyone with announcements and up to date online development news and current information. I try to give new and fresh ideas and encourage you to try things with your development that you have never tried before. Please feel free to post comments to this blog or to e-mail me personally with any questions at aode@msbcollege.edu!

Here are a few announcements:

• By this time you all should have returned your signed contracts to me, if you haven't done so yet, please do so ASAP. Additionally, please take a couple of minutes to read through the User's Guide that I sent to you. There is a lot of information in there and even if you have read it in the past, it is always good to refresh your memory by looking through it again.
• I have ordered textbooks for all of you so if you don't receive them shortly please let me know ASAP.
• The 25% completion date is December 1st. If that deadline starts nearing and you don't believe that you will be able to make it, please drop me an e-mail and we can chat about the best way to move forward.

The following link was sent to me from Brian James and I wanted to pass it along to all of you: http://blog.lsc.edu/onlinepeerreview/

I think this blog is very interesting and is full of great information. If you have a couple minutes I would encourage you to look through it to spark some ideas for your new developments! Try to be creative with your developments - it is fun to try new assignments and projects. Not only will you be more interested in the development, but the future students of the course will be able to tell that you put in the extra effort and time to make it interesting and fun and they are likely to learn a lot more from the course. Have fun with it!

Have a great week and remember to vote!

Amy