December 22, 2008

Good Morning!

I hope everyone is staying warm - the temp in Minnesota hit -12 this morning, yikes! Today and tomorrow I will be going into your courses to check for 50% completion, if you have any questions or concerns please let me know. Last week I mentioned that I would be gone on the 24th and 25th but back on the 26th. Turns out the offices are also closed on the 26th, so I will be back in the office on Monday, December 29th and will be sure to answer any questions at that time.

I hope you all enjoy your holidays!

Here are a few links to some articles regarding the Web and online education in the news. It is important for us to stay up to date about what is happening in these areas - enjoy!

Here is an article about using YouTube videos in the classroom and as a virtual tutor: http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-12-11-youtube-tutoring_N.htm

Here is an article about how students use iPods for a med school study: http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/index.cfm?i=56389

Here is an article about the new web accessibility Guidelines: http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/3512/consortium-releases-new-guidelines-for-web-accessibility-for-disabled

Here is a link to a Visual Dictionary - check it out!: http://visual.merriam-webster.com/index.php

December 15, 2008

Hello Developers,


Please note that next week I will be going into your courses to check for 50% completion next. I will be out of the office Wednesday, December 24th and Thursday, December 25th, but will be back in the office on Friday, December 26th.

Blackboard 8.0:

On December 24th we will be converting to Blackboard 8.0. This version includes a "Grade Center" instead of the Grade book. The new Grade Center is more robust and contains more features. I have e-mailed out the "how to" document on the new Grade Center so be sure to read through it so that you are familiar with it for the remainder of your development.


**Please refrain from doing any of your development work on December 24th and December 25th. Because the conversion will be during this time we would like to keep Blackboard usage to a minimum to help ensure that the rollover is a success.


Ten Week Summers:

Starting with Summer Quarter 2009 Globe Education Network will offer summer quarters on a 10 week schedule instead of a 12 week schedule. We have done this to improve summer retention and offer our students a more desirable summer break. This means that for every master course we create, we need to have a 12 week shell and a 10 week shell.

When you complete your development I will copy your course into a new master labeled .10wkmaster.09SUM. You will then need to go into the 10 week master and combine the information to be delivered into 10 units instead of 12 units. Two folders will be deleted from the Unit Content Page.

When combining the curriculum you will want to think of the course as a whole to keep the "flow" of the curriculum while fitting into 10 weeks. You may want to consider:

• Is there a midterm/final?



• Is there a group project?



• Are there assignments that build on each other?



• Keep the course objectives in mind, what assignments might be eliminated, added, enhanced, or combined to make the 10 unit course as cohesive as the 12 unit course

Whether you keep all 12 discussion boards depends on the content of the discussion boards and if the content can be combined. Some courses will work better to double up on discussion boards in a unit (Discussion Board A & Discussion Board B) and some courses will be able to combine the content of two discussion boards into one discussion board while still reaching the same outcome.

Be sure to look at all areas of the course: Announcements, tests, assignments, discussion boards, unit introductions, and external links all mention unit names. Be sure to rename items so that they fit into your 10 week structure. The course calendar will also need to be converted to a 10 unit format.

HTML codes for the dates are currently in the unit folders so that they can be updated every quarter. When you have completed your 10 week/unit conversion you will need to go through each unit folder and make sure the HTML code is correct. The "how to" document on this will be coming in the next couple of weeks.

Although it creates an extra step we are very excited to be offering 10 week quarters in the summer with the expectation that more of our students will enjoy the three week break, and then persist through the summer quarter, rather than taking the quarter off. On the annual survey there was an overwhelming support from our students to offer the 10 week summer quarter.

Thanks everyone! As always please let me know if you have any questions.

Have a great week!

December 8, 2008

Good Morning Developers!

I would like to spend some time talking about interactivity and why it is necessary in online courses. Interactivity serves to minimize students' feelings of isolation and to promote critical thinking skills, learning, and retention. There are four types of interactivity:

Student to Instructor (SI): e-mail, discussion boards, graded papers and assignments, live lectures, and office hours

Student to Student (SS): e-mail, discussion boards, peer review activities, collaborative writing, group projects, chat areas, blogs, wikis, peer mentoring, debate

Student to Resource (SR): Textbook, publisher's online extras, webquests, URL exchange, guest lectures

Student to Content (SC): Reading, drill-and-practice, multimedia, Flash activities, summaries, outlines, practice quizzes

It is important to have sufficient activites that cover all four of these areas of interactions in your online course development. Many activities cross over into two or more areas of interactivity. Please use the list below to give you ideas for interaction in the courses you are developing.

• Lecture Notes: SC


• FAQ Lists: SR


• Flashcards: SC


• Drill and Practice: SC


• Webquests: SC, SR


• Virtual Field Trips: SC, SR


• Presentations/Slide Shows: SC, SS


• Workbooks: SC


• Blog Activities: SC, SI, SS


• Graded or peer-reviewed literature: SI, SS


• Graded or peer-reviewed reading summaries: SC, SI, SS


• Panel discussions: SI, SS, SR


• Simulations: SC


• Interactive games: SC


• Collaborative writing: SS


• Graded Research Projects: SC, SI, SR


• Graded Case Studies: SC, SI, SR


• Group role play activities: SS


• Debate: SS, SR


• Graded learning logs: SC


• Online portfolio work: SC, SR


• Peer mentoring activities: SC, SS


• Graded critiques activities: SC, SI, SR


• Self assessment activities: SC


• Online office hours: SI


• Email: SI, SS


• Live chats: SI, SS


• Newspaper/journal activities: SR

Additionally, here is a link to the Journal of Interactive Online Learning that contains all of their current and past editions. Check this journal out for some great ideas

Have a great week!

Amy

December 1, 2008

Hello Developers,

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving Holiday! I know many of you used the days off to do some of your developing to be ready for the 25% deadline today - I will be going into your courses this week and providing you with feedback :-)

This past week the latest issue of Online Classroom became available so be sure to check out the latest information in this great newsletter! The article that I found the most interesting was titled "Document Sharing Can Help Students Collaborate". This particular article discusses using google docs to document share however we have a document sharing feature within Blackboard and students can share documents by using the "team function". I have been talking about interaction between students for quite some time now, so I was happy to see an article in this newsletter that backed up the idea of collaboration in the online environment.

If you have questions about how to access this newsletter just let me know! Have a great week - stay warm!

Amy