February 24, 2008

Good Morning Developers!

We have a small group of developers this round so you will be getting lots of personalized attention from me :-) Please don't hesistate to ask me any questions as you go through the process, that is what I am here for! Just a few reminders:

• The 25% completion date is March 3rd. Please let me know if you have any concerns about being able to meet this deadline.
• Thank you to Sherry Sonnenberg for the following tip: If you are trying to copy from a word document into Blackboard you might be having some difficulty. Try pasting the information from the word document into "notepad" and then copy from notepad and paste it into the online editor. It adds an extra step but may alleviated some of your frustrations!
• REMINDER: Please note that your documents should be saved in Word 2003 rather then Word 2007. Blackboard manages 2003 documents better then 2007 documents because of the new extension. We are looking to update Bb but in the meantime please save the files as 2003 for now. you are not sure how to do this please see this help document: http://students.msbcollege.edu/helpdesk/pdfs/save_in_2007.pdf
• REMINDER: Please make sure you are not using additional resources that have not been bundled with the textbook in order to develop your course. If the publisher has sent you additional items that go along with the book, before using them in your development please make sure that the students will be receiving these additional resources in addition to the textbook. Often times these additional resources come at an additional cost for the students.

Have a great week!

Amy

February 11, 2008

Good Morning Everyone!

Right now there are two sets of developers that I am currently working with.

Those developers who just completed your Spring 2008 developments, the peer advising feedback is rolling in and I am hoping to send all of the feedback to you by tomorrow. When you get this feedback please read through it carefully and let me know if there is anything that you disagree with. I am happy to go through the feedback with you and determine which points should/could be worked into your course(s) and which points could be considered for a later implementation or no implementation. This will be the last weekly blog e-mail notification you receive, but feel free to check back to the blog for continued online development information!

For those developers who are just getting started with the Summer, 2008 developments you are likely waiting for your textbooks to arrive. While you wait for your textbook please feel free to start looking around the internet for online resources that go along with the content for the course you are developing. Once you receive your textbook you can go ahead and jump right into the development of your new course. I you have any questions or run into any issues please contact me ASAP at aode@msbcollege.edu

As a reminder Online Classroom has released their February Issue Update. Topics in this issue are:

• 11 Practice Priorities to Promote Empathy in Online Courses
• Tips from the Pros: 7 Indicators of Community
• Difference = Flavor: Embracing Cultural Diversity in Online Learning
• Online Teaching Fundamentals: What to Evaluate, Part 1
• Professors Online: The Best-Case Scenario for Discussion Group Success
• Online Teaching With Errol: Giving Positive Feedback Online Even When It's Negative

The Minnesota School of Business/Globe College has an institution subscription to this newsletter. If you would like to receive these articles every month follow these instructions:

Go to: www.magnapubs.com/licenses/subscribe.html

Enter your individual email address and password as well as the other required information. You will need to enter a Voucher Code and PIN number where prompted - I have e-mailed this information to you.

Have a great week!

Amy

February 4th, 2008

We have reached our 100% completion date for the Spring, 2008 development cycle, congratulations! Today I will be opening up your courses to the team of peer advisors and will be providing you with their feedback by this time next week.

• You still have access to your course so if there are items that you would like to adjust please feel free to do so.
  
• If there is something that you would like me to tell the team of peer advisors please let me know and I will make sure to get the information to them.

I will be submitting payroll for the new developments for the February 15th paycheck. If you do not see your development payment on that paycheck please let me know ASAP.

Last week I visited another Higher Education Institution in Texas and acted as the ACICS evaluator for their Distance Education program. It was an enjoyable experience and a wonderful learning opportunity. I learned that what we are currently doing in our courses matches what other institutions are also doing, so we are competitive in our industry. I also got ideas from looking through their courses that I would like to suggest for our course developments here at GU/MSB.

• It was a requirement in their courses to have a discussion board for every week. This ensured that there was a high level of student interaction


• Many of their tests were essay rather then multiple choice. Although it may be a bit more time consuming for the instructors to grade, it requires the students to really know the material in order to answer the questions. Essentially every online test is an "open book" test, so therefore essay questions allow for a true synthesis of the material.

Please post an opinion to the above suggestions if you have one. I am looking for feedback to the above ideas.

January 29, 2008

Good Morning!

Please note that your course must be 100% complete by Monday of next week. If you do not feel that your course will be complete by that time please let me know ASAP. The Peer Advisors will have access to your course on Monday morning. As soon as you finish your course development please send me an e-mail to let me know and I will check it over.

Here is a link to an article titled “Is Online Learning For You”. It is important to understand the types of students that will be taking the courses you are designing. Read through this article to learn about the types of students that are most well suited for online learning: http://www.online-learning.com/articles_foryou.html

Have a great week!

Hello Developers,

The peer advisor volunteers are rolling in and I wanted to make sure you knew what they were going to be looking for when they go into your courses beginning February 4th. As you finish your developments please make sure you keep these questions in mind. They will be answering the following questions:

• Do you feel that the content in the course is written at the appropriate level?
• Is the course split into manageable segments?
• Are visual and auditory stimuli used to motivate students?
• Are appropriate supplementary resources made available as part of the course content?
• Does the use of technology enable critical reflection and analysis of content?
• Do the assignments/activities that require the use of technology clearly explain how technology is to be used by the students?
• Do you believe the instructional strategies employed in the course cause students to be effectively engaged with course content?
• Do you believe that the expectations defining or explaining required levels of student participation are clear?
• Do you believe there is a deliberate attempt to create a learning community through the following methods: Discussions, E-mail, Chat Rooms, Videoconferencing, Group Projects, or other collaborative activities?
• Do you believe the assessments/assignments in the course are aligned with the stated objectives/learning outcomes?

If you finish the development of your course early please drop me an e-mail to let me know

Enjoy your week!

January 14, 2008

Welcome to the GU/MSB Online Curriculum Development Blog Spot! All of my weekly announcements will now take place on this blog and will be archived so that developers can look back at past announcements, up and coming topics in online development, tips and tricks, etc. You can also post feedback and additional thoughts for other developers. This will be a community created for all of us to share online development information

• The 75% completion date is today. I will be going into all of your courses and providing you with feedback on your development. If you do not feel your course is 75% complete please let me know ASAP.




• On Friday you all should have received an e-mail about peer advising. You are welcome to sign up to peer advise upon other courses that are being developed. This process begins on February 4th




• As you all know, we need to add any word documents to Blackboard as HTML files so that it is faster and easier for the students to view the documents. You may have encountered problems in the past when trying to save a word document as an HTML document when the word document contains pictures. Well, I have good news for you! All you need to do is create a .zip file containing the HTML document and all the pictures. Then upload the .zip file into Blackboard, and identify the HTML file as the source. I have e-mailed the How To documents that walk you through step by step how to do this.

Here is a link to an article from e-learn magazine on Development Principles for Online Learning: http://www.elearnmag.org/subpage.cfm?section=best_practices&article=33-1

This article discusses the ideas of learning objects, procrastination, level of content, etc. Read through this article and feel free to post your opinions for other to see on this blog!