July 6, 2009

Good Morning,

I hope everyone had a wonderful fourth of July weekend! I am now back from maternity leave and have had an opportunity to go in and take a look at your developments and they look like they are coming along nicely! There are a few of you that I have not yet had the opportunity to meet and I look forward to meeting you over the upcoming weeks. Heather and I will continue to work together on helping you with your developments.

This week I would like to go over a few resources that are valuable to all online developers. As developers it is important that you are aware of all of the tools that are available to both students and faculty in order to assist in the course facilitation process.

• Smartthinking.com – Smart Thinking is the online tutoring center that is available for our students. To learn more about how this works please click on this training created by Heather Thomton-Stockman. Please feel free to work Smartthinking.com into your course developments by having students use this resource to submit drafts of essays before submitting them for grading or to simply encourage them to submit questions to the online tutors.
• Skillsoft – This resource contains many online books and simulations that may pertain to your course development topic. You can use this resource by requiring students to read portions of books or complete a skill brief. To learn more about this resource please view the training created by Heather Thomton-Stockman
• Elluminate Live – Elluminate Live is a web conferencing tool that is available for all students and staff. Heather has created training on how a student would use Elluminate and on how an instructor would use Elluminate
  
  Please also work this resource into your courses where appropriate. It is a great tool to use when you are interested in forming a learning community in the course.

Please let me know if you have any questions on any of the above tools

Have a great week!

Amy