June 4, 2010

Hello Developers & Happy Friday!

I hope you have all had a great week and are making some progress on your developments. Please note that Monday, June 7, marks the 25% completion date for this round of online development. At that time I will be going into your courses to see how things are coming along. I realize that all developers work a little differently, so I will mainly be checking the course shells to see that you have made some progress on your development….if you are concerned about your progress at this time, please let me know. Or, if you have done work, but have yet to put anything in the course shell, please share that with me, as well. After I take a peek at your course, I will be following up with you individually to offer my feedback and assistance.

Now, moving on to my token of “development inspiration” for this week :-) ….Back in March of 2009, Amy blogged about a research study that found students who listened to a podcast while going through PowerPoint lecture notes scored significantly higher on a test than students who sat through the same the lecture in the traditional lecture format.

All of you should be posting some form of supplemental resources for the course readings – whether it is publisher created content that matches the textbook (i.e. PowerPoints) or original content created by you (i.e. notes, outlines) designed as an added element for delivering the course readings/material for a particular unit. That said, we know that students respond well to audio and visual resources, so I encourage you to go a step further with the lecture notes or PowerPoints you use by considering ways to also incorporate a podcast or an audio-visual supplement whenever possible.

You can create your own podcast and post it in the unit content (if you need assistance with this, just let me know!) or you can create a script for a PowerPoint and send it to me and I’ll be glad to do the recording for you.

Otherwise, the web has some great resources for recorded lectures that you can link to your course – a couple to try are:
iTunes University: http://www.apple.com/education/itunes-u/whats-on.html
Learn Out Loud: http://www.learnoutloud.com/Free-Audio-Video

Enjoy! I look forward to connecting with each of you next week with feedback on you developments.

Have a great weekend,
Kelly