November 16, 2009

Hello Developers,


Today I have quite a few links to share with you! I hope these links will provide you with a great deal of information:

• Ebooks 101: This is a link to a recorded training from the in-service. It is a 45 minute session that tells you all about the Ebooks that are available through the GEN library. There are a ton of hidden gems in the library - check it out! Thanks Elaine for sharing this with us!


• Learning Through Play: This is a link to a recorded training from the in-service. It is a 45 minute session that talks about how to use play to increase student learning. Great tips for having fun with your course design! Thanks Heather for sharing this with us!


• Blackboard Grade Center: This is a link to a recorded training from the in-service. It is a 45 minute session that gives you a ton of tips and tricks about the grade center. If you are uncomfortable working in the grade center this training is well worth your time. Thanks Kelly for sharing this with us!


• Two New Skillsoft Resources: This is a 4 minute Jing training. We have signed a new contract with SkillSoft and it now includes TWO new pieces: The Leadership Channel (Leadership Videos by high profile speakers) and The Business Exploration Series (Management/leadership Interactive Simulations). See how to access each area in the 4 minute training. Please USE these videos and simulations for your developments.


• Cramberry Flash Cards: This is a short training done by Heather Thomton-Stockman on how to create flash cards using cramberry. It is a great way to familiarize yourself with this tool as well as using flashcards on the internet in general. Here is a link to other flash card sites

Have a great week!

Amy

November 9, 2009

Hello Everyone,



For those of you that are completing your developments, the peer review process starts today. Here is a link to the questions that the peer advisors answer when they go through your courses. If there is something that you would like to have them look at specifically in your course please let me know and I will pass the information onto them! Thank you to all of you for your hard work this quarter!

There are also those of you that are just beginning your developments for the Spring 2010 roll out (crazy that we are thinking of spring when it is only November!). Please go through the blog and familiarize yourself with all of the great resources that are available here for you.


Additionally, for both groups of developers I wanted to give you a few resources today that would be helpful to you no matter where you are at in the development process:


Here is a training on how a GEN course looks when it is completed This is a 5 minute "walk through" example of an introduction level course and how the announcements, readings, assignments, discussion boards, external links and exams are identified.

Here is a training on how to determine if the course calendar matches up with the grade center I often give the feedback that the course calendar doesn't exactly match the total in the grade center. If you are unsure of what I mean by this feedback please see this 2 minute "walk through" example.

Here is a link to the Top 100 Tools for Learning in 2009. This list is compiled by the Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies and is well worth the look!


Have a great week!


Amy

November 2, 2009

Hello Everyone,

As many of you know we have subscriptions to a couple of Magna Publications including Online Learning. I have referenced Online Learning in several blog posts and have heard from many of you that you have gotten great ideas from this publication.

Magna Publications also publishes a free e-newsletter called Faculty Focus. This publication has a lot of great information about online learning and provides great insight into many topics that concern faculty in Higher Education.

Recently, Faculty Focus published an article about using self check exercises in online courses. This is a great article about the importance of these self check exercises and how they can improve learning in online learners. Here are a few highlights of the article:

What are self check exercises?

They are problems (with answers) given to learners that allow them to assess how they are doing on an ongoing basis

Why are they helpful?

Studies show that these types of activities help learners keep tabs on their progress and adjust their efforts, know when to seek help, and stay on track

Where does a course designer begin?

Are there concepts that learners consistently have problems understanding? Are there terms that learners need to memorize or concepts that they need to understand? These might be the best places to start.

If you are able to work self checks into the courses you are designing your students will only benefit from them!

I also wanted to make you aware of a few changes that are happening to the course standardization requirements.

• Test Set-Up: Tests should be set up as one question at a time with backtracking enabled. This set up allows for the least amount of student issues.
• Extra Credit: Extra Credit should not be in any course. Extra credit can diminish the rigor of our courses, as well as contribute to grade inflation.

Please let me know if you have any questions on these.

Have a great week!

Amy

October 26, 2009

Hello Everyone,

As we near the end of development I would like to draw your attention back to the Online Course Development checklist.

Please be sure to go through this checklist thoroughly with each of your developments to ensure that they are complete. If you finish your development early please be sure to let me know!

I would also like to remind you of several Jing trainings that are available to you. These are very helpful and well worth the time to watch them!

Smarthinking.com Tour

Skillsoft Tour

Student Guide on How To Use Elluminate Live

Instructor Guide on How to Make Elluminate Live Sessions

Have a great Halloween Week!

Amy

October 19, 2009

Good Morning Developers,

Today I will be going into your courses to check for 75% completion. Please let me know if you have any concerns about this.

During your development you might be looking for some fun activities for your students to do in your course that are different ways of demonstrating their knowledge. Today I am going to highlight a few different online tools that you could work into your courses to provide your students with some fun and interesting ways to learn the course material:

Witty Comics.com: On this website students can make a comic to demonstrate their knowledge. This can be a great way to make an assignment fun!

Classtools.net: Classtools.net allows you to create free educational games, activities and diagrams in a Flash. There are a bunch of different templates you can chose from. Here is a link to a video on how to use this tool

You could have your students create a game as an assignment and then share their games with the rest of the class.

Glogster.com: This is a multimedia collage building website that allows you to set up an educational site for your students. It is a wonderfully interactive tool to use as a student project.

Weebly: Weebly is perfect for creating classroom websites, student e-portfolios, and websites for assigned projects. Your students could work individually, in groups, or as an entire class to create a web site on a particular topic. This video will answer all of your questions about Weebly

Amy

October 12, 2009

Good Morning Developers,

Please note that next week I will be going into your courses and checking for 75% completion.

In the recent past I have done blog posts on making sure to utilize all of the wonderful resources in the online library in your courses. However, I have noticed that many times we simply give students the link of where to go in the library. I would like to suggest that we list out how to find the assignment rather than just give the link.

The resource should be listed in APA format with instructions on how to find it in the library so that students get used to using the library. By having to search out the information for themselves they will become more comfortable with the tools and will hopefully feel confident doing their own research in the future. Here is an example of how you could list a resource in the online library:

Read the following article from the online library on Software Development Outsourcing. Outsourcing of software development is a widely used approach to contain costs by contracting with a 3rd party, generally outside the country, to develop custom software. Money can be saved but there are pitfalls, as you will learn.


Conchuir, E., Ågerfalk, P., Olsson, H., & Fitzgerald, B. (2009, August). Global Software Development: Where are the Benefits?. Communications of the ACM, 52(8), 127-131. DOI: 10.1145/1536616.1536648.


Here's how you find the article:


1. Click on the library link in red to the left.
2. Click on Online library.
3. Hover your mouse over "resources"
4. Click on Databases A-G.
5. Click on Business Source Premier.
6. Search for the title of the article in quotation marks.

October 5th, 2009

Good Morning Developers,

I have done quite a few blog posts on the benefits of having your students do blogs. Although, grading the work that students do online can be difficult, as this is new territory for a lot of instructors. Here is a link to a rubric for grading student blogs. If you require your students to do a blog post or create a blog please take a look at this example rubric for grading purposes. You could include a sample rubric in your course for future instructors to use when grading the blogs or you could simply include the link in your course for future instructors to have access to.



Have a great week!



Amy