This week I uploaded to youtube a screen captured video presentation I created; I’m currently not involved in teaching and working direct with students, my role is to develop instructional technology and multimedia projects to enhance the teacher and student classroom, as well as overall campus experience.
I thought I would share one of my current projects, developing a faculty-staff professorial development training lab. I used Camtasia Studio creating a presentation highlighting how I used Google SketchUp, a free 3D modeling software.
Conceptual layout for developing a faculty-staff professorial development training lab, Alcorn State University
I used SketchUp to create a conceptual layout for the lab, showing it conceptually in provided space where lab would be placed. Google SketchUp is really a great 3D modeling tool that has many educational usages, if you ever wanted or thought about creating 3D images this app is a good place to start. I have used much more advance 3D modeling app that had a big learning curve, but SketchUp is really easy to learn powerful and free. Click to learn more about Google SketchUp.
Faculty-staff professorial development training lab concept: The provide space for lab is not very big so to maximize space usage custom furniture is being recommend.
Lab will contain twelve desktop computers workstation.
Three display Workstation for presenter, trainer or instructor.
Three large format displays; 65in LCD Touch Display, Video Projector Display, Smart Touch Display (e-board)
Each large format display will be synced to one of the three presenter workstation monitors; this will give the presenter more flexibility with covering and displaying material to class, so each display can be displaying different content at same time.
Presenter workstation computer is connected to a room sound system and presenter has the option of wearing a microphone. Room is also video conferencing ready , has lecture content capturing capability, and iPad, laptop connectivity.
Ko & Rossen, Chapter 9: Creating Courseware and Using Web 2.0 Tools:
The open source tools that are available today via the internet for educational use are a game changer, the key is learning to take advantage of them, Pedagogy First! is that key.
I really love to take what I like to call photo images, because when I take a camera shot I try to make it a collaboration between me, and the natural world. I have never consider setting up a flicker account to share my images; but using flicker as a tool for education and teaching gives it real purpose I think.
The ability to annotate an image is so neat and opens up all sorts of possible uses:
Week 1: Introduction and Start Blogging Week one assignment was to introduce your-self and jump into blogging; this was my first time I ever posting a blog, I talked about my background, current position and projects, and my goal for participating in this POT.
Week 2: Teaching and Learning Online Week two I reflected on my questionnaire score of 13; things started to come together, how this POT course could really enhance understanding of online teaching. I was also encouraged and surprised by the number comments I received on my week two post.
Week 3: Pedagogy and Course Design I In week three things began for me to get very academic; I’m feeling like I’m back in school, I like the fact that I’m being challenged and engaged, and learning needed information about pedagogy and course design.
Week 4: Pedagogy and Course Design II Week four was excitingly and a lot of work; I blog about a concept I had been working on for a technology enhanced classroom. Week four assignment help me develop my concept and structure it around pedagogy and course design. This really opens my eyes as to how much work is involved in course development.
Week 5: The Online Syllabus Week five focused was on online syllabus but also a lesson on proper syllabus development I thought. I began to see this course even more valuable for instructors teaching face-to-face classes.
Week 6: Internet Skills and Tools Week six I’m appreciating more and more how Pedagogy First! designed the progression of this course intergrading the introduction of skills and tools needed for online instruction. Allowing us to explore and involving us in the online learning community.
Week 7: The Online Classroom Week seven was a good exercise on building and fostering community in an online classroom and immersing us deeper to explore the usefulness of online learning communities.
Week 8: Creating Community Week eight I’m struggling to get my bolgs posted early in the week, but I’m still engaged, reading and viewing all assigned material.
Week 9: Student Activities I found week nine a really good lesion and enjoyed reading the article “Three Generations of Distance Education”. I summarized teaching activities and strategies discussed in K&R chapter7, and using Les Pang’s approach for a reflective blogging activity talked about on P197 K&R; I did a “Reflective Learning Journal Post” for Pedagogy First! Week 9.
Week 10: Open Platforms for Teaching and Learning Week ten I outline from Ruth Reynard, “Avoiding the 5 Most Common Mistakes in Using Blogs with Students” and gave an example of what I thought was anexcellent use of a blogging assignment, using Les Pang’s approach for a reflective blogging activity it comprised all of the elements for a successful learning outcome by fulfilling the following “Avoiding the 5 Most Common Mistakes in Using Blogs with Students”
Week 11: Class Resources and Intellectual Property I found Ko and Rossen Chapter 8 an important and very good resource for copyright concerns not just for online but if you’re teaching in any arena or publishing and using your own material online. I outlined three related issues of significance to online instructors.
This course has been a wonderfully experience increasing my knowledge tremendously, enhancing my understanding of the online classroom and my role as a instructional technology integrator/ developer and support person. I have been able to use my newly acquired knowledge in real-time, and I’m currently in position to move into a new role working with online curriculum developers; this came about partially because of my participation in this class.
I minored in fine arts in college; in a advance art class we had to pick a master artist to study his works and techniques; Da’ Vinci would walk though the city and sketch faces of people to used in his works, this was a common practices for artistes of Da’ Vinci’s time, today he would possibly be sued.
I like Larry Lessig’s presentation, because plagiarism is and should be a concern in education, but creativity and authenticity in education, discussions, debates and the arts should not be obstructed when it’s not about commerce.
The laws are there to protect commerce, outside of the law there is no pure originality, we all still ideals bits and part from somewhere are someone, and I believe ideals are collective, from my point of view anyway. Just like technology, creativity is a collective of new perceptivities of something that was already there (“Repurposing”).
Did humanity invent the wheel or did someone see a flat round rock rolling down a hill; I believe education must be free to use all available information and content to inspire our student to be innovatively authentically repurposing.
Ko and Rossen Chapter 8: Copyright, Intellectual Property, and Open Educational Resources.
I found chapter 8 an important and very good resource for copyright concerns not just for online but if you’re teaching in any arena or publishing and using your own material online.
Three related issues of significance to online instructors:
Copyright and fair use: Do instructors have the right to use other peoples’ materials in teaching a course. No matter what country you’re in, using material found on the internet; understanding what material can be used, under what circumstances you can use it, and when you’re breaking the law. Educators adhering to Fair Use Guidelines will likely avoiding the risk of liability to a suit.
Intel lecture property: What happens to intellectual materials that you create once posted online. Institutions may consider what the instructor created as work-made-for hire; meaning, work that was done in the context of fulfilling job responsibilities maybe own by the institution. Copyright your material before making it available to your institution.
Open education resources (OER): Generally free materials that are available under terms of use that encourage sharing, reproduction, and in some cases, even repurposing.
New to blogging and creating my blog for this POT; I have surprised myself. I have really enjoyed blogging even though it’s really….. time consuming, which is my excuse for being behind three weeks of assignments.
So, this has been another really good exercise emphasizing the planning and forethought needed developing an online resource and integrating it into a course, and when I think about how I’m struggling with this POT, it puts it all in perspective from a student point of view. But even more important the teacher’s point of view, with all the planning and underlying essential elements that need to be address when deciding to use online resources.
What I have enjoyed about blogging, like any writing assignment is the thought and reflection you go through thinking about your subject to discuss, and when it’s a writing assignment for a class it becomes a critical process and even more important to your blogging because of the outcome.
Advantages and disadvantages of using a class blog or student blogs for your class?
I’m not sure if there’s any disadvantage to using class blogs other than (Lisa Lane states) if you’re going to use blogging; “you need to understand why you’re using blogging and the intended learning outcome.”
I think integrating blogs assignment into your course from my perceptive can allow you to get to know your students better as they write more, but some though and planning is evolved for it to really be effective delivering a useful and well defined learning outcome.
In the reading, Read: Ko and Rossen, Chapter 7; it described a situation where a professor used blogging for the purpose of “reflective learning journals” students are to create their own reflective journals using free blogging software. Students are assigned a weekly blog response, addressing the following three questions.
What did you learn in the preceding week-not a list of facts, but what can you take away from the lesion, what has value to you?
How do you connect what you learned this week with your personal experience or with what you already knew?
How could/would you apply your knowledge?
Pang asserts benefits of reflective blogging is enhanced ability to monitor students progress, to garner continuous student feedback, and to quickly identify challenges related to weekly class activities before serious problems set in.
I think this is an excellent use of blogging it comprised all of the elements for a successful learning outcome by fulfilling the following and “Avoiding the 5 Most Common Mistakes in Using Blogs with Students”
Effective Contextualization; Pang assigns a weekly blog response asking students to address three questions and phrasing the question to encourage blogging (journalistic essay writing).
Clear learning outcome; Pang questions make it very clear as to what the students are to blog about, the questions forces them to think and reflect on what they are learning and how they can apply and adapt these ideal into career and life applications.
Effective use of the environment; Pang is clear about the environment by stating these blogs are reflections of the individual student and not discussions, “a one-way monologue”, students can post comments in response to their classmates’ blogs but are not required, and students are showed how this process is used in context of the course; Pang maintains an instructor blog to reinforce points, reassure, and sum up issues.
Good grading practices; Pang aggregate students blog for convince and uses a rubric for grading the blog contributions, encouraging students to find creative ways to reflect on their class lessons-whether by text, audio, video, or other means establishing detail requirements on how to accomplish this.
Adequate time allocation; Pang provide constant feedback by monitoring each weekly student blog progress, so for example if a student is not blogging this would be a flag and he can provide that student help and support to get them up to speed during the course as apposed trying to address issues at end of semester.
Ineffective Contextualization: As with any instructional tool or learning support, without a clear context within which the tool is to be used, students will not understand the benefit to their learning and will, ultimately, reject the use of the tool. To simply ask students to blog without this level of planning will lead to frustration for the students.
Unclear Learning outcomes: If the instructor is unclear as to what the learning outcomes of the course are and is focused only on course objectives, the potential of the blog tool may not be maximized.
1.) Analysis: A blog can help students process their thoughts and ideas for analysis.
2.) Synthesis: As part of the analysis, it is important that students can synthesis the original ideas and the new ideas they will articulate.
3.) New ideas: Grasping new ideas through analysis and synthesis means that students can move ahead with their thinking and move closer towards transformation in learning and application.
4.) Application: Without application, new ideas are not “owned” by students in their learning. That is, new ideas can only become meaningful and relevant for students when they are directly applied in real life contexts of practice and use.
Misuse of the environment: blogs are not wikis and they are not online discussion forums, blogs are intended to be an individual publication: a one-way monologue or self-post to which others may comment but do not contribute. The original post remains as the person who posted it wanted it to be. When using blogs to encourage students to articulate their thoughts students can become empowered and feel that they are developing their own voice in the learning process. Instructors can also “glimpse” students’ thought processes and become much more aware of their learning journey.
Elusive grading practices: When using blogs to encourage students to articulate their thoughts students can become empowered and feel that they are developing their own voice in the learning process. Instructors can also “glimpse” students’ thought processes and become much more aware of their learning journey. Reflection statements (self positioning within the course concepts);Commentary statements (effective use of the course content in discussion and analysis);New idea statements (synthesis of ideas to a higher level); and Application statements (direct use of the new ideas in a real life setting).
Inadequate time allocation: The notion of adequate time is not discussed often enough in the use of technology in learning. Just as students are different in their processing time within any learning context, so adequate time should be given for every student to complete work using online tools such as the blog.
Instructors should be reasonable and if possible, leaving the blog tool open until the end of the course. Instructors should be reasonable and if possible, leaving the blog tool open until the end of the course. This participation in turn provides more text or other response types from students and ultimately more for instructors to read through or view and grade.
Students should be fully aware of what the expectations are and how the tool is being used in their learning process. Once students understand this, they are more likely to participate and to a greater degree of critical awareness.
Could a Google Site or web page make a good welcome for students?
After viewing Pilar’s tutorial and playing around with Google Site, evaluating the managing tools, templates and layout editing capabilities; for a free website posting Google Site would be a good place to build a student welcome page, or even use to manage your online class if your school doesn’t have a course managing system or augment your CMS.
What a great lesion week 9, just wish I had more time to get into it, as I have stated before my goal for participating in this MOOC, Program for Online Teaching; is to develop a better understanding of what is being asked of faculty as a technology integrator and instructional media developer; as faculty move to this next level of instructive strategies (online).
Every week I’m overwhelmed with delight and this week is no different, it’s been over 15 years since I been in a classroom but because I’m a tech and have had some knowledge of tools now available for instruction, I have always felt I could really have some fun back in a classroom, and this POT is fueling that fire.
Second life, Farmville I have had accounts for some time, SimCity I have wasted good time playing. This pass summer, an agriculture professors who conducts a summer program needed help purchasing a good inexpensive tablet PC for 15 high school kids and ideals on how to us the tablets to teach them about farming, I found a app “farm frenzy” that students could play and learn to manage time and all the resources and assets like on a real farm. The game was used to engaged and discuss with students about the science, engineering and business of running a farm.
The article; Three Generations of Distance Education very enlightening, for one I have been around for these three generations and in one form/ or another have participated in them. The article states the first generation of distance education was correspondence; I enrolled in a Devry electronic engineer correspondence course back in the Dark-Age, after not finding work after college to keep my mind focused.
I found the article really profound with its examination of Cognitivist, behaviourist, constructivist, and connectivist pedagogy theories and this stament “ this typology of pedagogies could also be usefully applied to campus-based education”
I really feel the article thoughtfully states the progression of learning pedagogies that distance education help shape and puts them in a perspective that helps me understand my task at hand as a technologist. I have always believed in this new age of technology resources, that academics can and should drive technologies used for educating, I feel even more strongly about that now.
Our new generation of educators need to be academic technologist, computer literacy courses are not enough; out next generation of educators need to understand the array pedagogies so they can drive and shape technology topologies to be more cohesive to the needs and flexibility a learning environment needs. http://opencontent.org/blog/
Ko and Rossen, Chapter 7: Student Activities in the Online Environment:
The Reading asked the question what kinds of instructional activities are most effective for online or blended course and go-on to state “Variety is as important online as on the ground, and using multiple approaches will both reinforce student learning and allow students to address the subject matter from different perspectives.” I agree, do you?
In a earlier blog I describe a course design that could be a merging of all the worlds f2f, online and blended instruction (Week4: pedagogy & Course Design II ); In that blog I’m describing variety and multiple approaches design to stimulate not only students but instructor as well. I think course design should keep instructors in mind for substantiality, deliverability and keeping the instructor engaged and motivated.
Below is a summary of online teaching activities and strategies discussed in K&R chapter7.
Group Activities: Provide guidelines for each group’s collaboration, set goals, objectives, provide a work place for groups, and or method for groups to present work. P173, P175, P178
Icebreaking Activities: Any activity that allows student to begin to from some sense of community; discussion forums, introduction exercise. P174
Supervision and Assessment of Groups: Supervision will encourage participation by all group members and ensure that an individual’s contributions to the group are recognized. P178
Problem-Base Learning: Learning is an instructional strategy; problems form the organizing focus and stimulus for learning and are the vehicle for development of problem solving skills. P182
Computer-Base Simulations and Animations: Attempt to recreate an actual process or activity or, on a broader scale , model complex real-life circumstances. P191
Summaries, Consensus Groups: Activity to ask students individually or as a group, to summaries some aspect of a course’s activities, discussions, or readings. This process reinforces the material and provide perspectives from students about the course’s themes and foci. P193
The Experience-Based Practicum or Lab Assignment: The online environment allow opportunities for peer review and exchanges with classmates; this helps the individual reflect on his or her experiences. P195
Reflective Activities: Activities such as journaling encourage thoughtful, focused consideration and critiques of a topic, and are generally carried out on an individual basis. This activity allow a student to measure their progress in learning over time. P196
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Using Les Pang’s approach for a reflective blogging activity talked about on P197 K&R; this is my “Reflective Learning Journal Post” for Pedagogy First! Week 9.
What did you learn in the preceding week-not a list of facts, but what can you take away from the lesion, what has value to you?
That knowledge is collective and database to develop new understanding about our world; and that the act of teaching and learning is also collective and we should continue to explore the dance of teaching, learning rewriting the (music) technologies to help us learn the learner. THE DANCE OF TECHNOLOGY AND PEDAGOGY IN SELF-PACED DISTANCE EDUCATION
How do you connect what you learned this week with your personal experience or with what you already knew?
Because I had help early in life to understand that I saw things different, learnt things different (dyslexia); I understood at a early age it is not about disability, its about ability; I connected I have been engaged in all of the generation of learning the article “ Three Generations of Distance Education Pedagogy” discussed, starting with the Devry electronic engineer correspondence course I enrolled in after college, using CBTs(computer base training) and Bulletin Boards in the early days of the internet in the cooperate arena, to this POT Pedagogy First!. My personal experience is; by staying engaged as a learner I have taken responsibility for my own education, but I have not done this in isolation of a larger community; Pedagogy First! – has taken on responsibility, I believe Pedagogy First! – example must be the consensus to support the educators, the teacher. “Invest in our teachers so they can inspire our students”
How could/would you apply your knowledge? I’m activity working on applying the knowledge I’m learning in this POT as a instructional technologist, by engaging my faculty and administrators attempting to help promote community with our move to develop online programs; if a community of engagement exist with discussions, planning and designing between faculty, administrator, students and technology leaders who know what the possibilities are.
I have a conclusion, if you’re seeking to become an online instructor, have been teaching online for some time looking for professional development, or just doing research ; I recommend Pedagogy First! . One reason, most of the content in this POT is focus on developing skills and knowledge for online instruction, and the technology presented here is presented as tools, like pencil and paper. I would also recommend Pedagogy First! if you are teaching looking for professional development even if you never plan to teach online.
I like how use of technology is being presented here, as extensions of what you’re already doing as a teacher, using maybe unique mechanisms of communication and content delivery for online; teaching is as much skill an art as it is a discipline, online teaching is a new approach but fundamentals of teaching are the same.
Who responsibility is it; with the push to teach online, is it completely the instructor’s responsibility to acquire needed skills, professional development? Should the university have resources in place to provide ongoing support (instructional technology) and professional development for faculty if moving to cyber course delivery platforms; references have been made to lack of training availability at some schools, is this a problem with developing good online course experiences and pedagogy when using a CMS.
Reading the article Envisioning the Post-LMS Era: The Open Learning Network; talks about the value (is there value) of investing in tools like blackboard and other LMS, if they only become “tool set for administrative efficiency rather than a platform for substantive teaching and learning activities” I equate this to giving a turkey hunter a really expensive fishing pole but don’t teach turkey hunter how to fish.
I have never taught an online course and 15 years since I taught an f2f class, not trained as a classical educator I feel even without completing this POT I could teach an online course using all open source technology and tools.
Pedagogy First! has enhance my understanding and knowledge:
The purpose, proper use and how to develop a syllabus for online or f2f.
Course design and development, how this connects to the learning experience.
Elements of converting or creating an online course.
Analyzing the learning experience, course goals, learning objectives connecting this to design.
Teach by becoming a student “what do you want your students to be able to do as a result of taken your class” K&R.
I know all of this is for providing students the best learning experience, but if we what our teachers to sustain a heighten sense of enthusiasm for acquiring the skill to develop good online pedagogy; faculty develop must become apart of infrastructure, along with technology acquisition; administrator that understand this will separate their school from the “higher learning status quo” ; but this is my point of view as a instructional technologist.
My point is, I know blackboard is limited and/or inflexible, put with proper guidance (Pedagogy First! POT) faculty can acquire needed information & digital literacy skills that promote sound pedagogy, without new investment in technology.
Back to subject:
Pondering a question Claire Major posed; in online courses, how do we know when we have moved from communication to community?
Maybe communi-cation is communi-ty, either verbal or written; I communicate with a lot of consultants and vendors, for services, for information all the time; I may have a conversation with a vendor or consultant for an hour to 30im and may never talk to that individual again, but within that 30mi to hour time span we my develop a sense of community by asking about the weather, or a shared understanding of events, ideals and share needed information, to help each other, help each other.
When I think about community, you can’t have it of any kind without communication and pondering farther, you don’t have community if sharing and helping dose not develop.
So can communication be the conduit to developing a group exchange of ideals and participation (community)?
Even if its artificially created in an online class to acquire some variant of community to achieve a learning outcome?
I have been connected to the world at large via the internet most of my working career, and this POT is just a continuation of that. Pedagogy First! is a community; but different, like Claire Major stated “community in an online class is something of a different animal that other kinds of community that we think about as teachers” I agree.
Lisa Lane’s post; she talks about how sometimes a community forms or it doesn’t regardless of whether she as instructor participate welcoming students or not, and Lisa go on to state the level of student success in the forums doesn’t seem affected by which way it goes.
Even in my own experience in college, sometimes a f2f class with the right group would get very social and we would just start working together helping each other with homework , I met my lifelong friends in class in college, but most of my classes even if we had group projects never became a community, but also that never interfered with my level of success in a course.
I always felt I succeeded in class, a low course grade for me only reflected my ability to respond to an exam, not my ability to learn and acquire knowledge. This thinking help me do very well in college.
In this POT I have a sense of community, but again like Claire Major stated , “community of a different animal”; but that does not reflect the level of information and knowledge I have acquired by participating in this POT. I’m participating in this POT for a reason, to expand my knowledge-base; so I do have a level of expectation for community as it relates to supporting community around this POT; a shared goal of participants and teacher to respect this community learning environment.
One of the things I have most appreciated in this POT is the discussions about stating the rules of engagement for your online class, how your class will operate and expectation. Pedagogy First! has given me a good example for that.
I think college online or on-ground the atmosphere should have an expectation of, you are here not because you have to be, but since you’re here you must want to expand your knowledge-base, so participate!
Pilar Hernández said… get in there with the students and engage them, I agree; but who has the biggest burden teacher or student to say if a knowledge transfer happen between a course and a student?
I attended the SLOAN-C conference this week where Sebastian Thrun, delivered a keynote address about MOOCs, and Udacity a company he co-founded ; some of you may be familiar with the company and website, if not I invite you to please go check it out, really really good stuff.
Listing to his keynote address which was mostly about online learning, it’s revolution and his journey into the realm of online teaching; his address reconfirmed my thinking that all f2f courses should provide a blended approach to learning, like a lot of the information provided to us in this POT. Combining the two approaches to f2f learning; meaning adding the meticulous details that is involved in developing an online course or redesigning f2f courses that this POT is laying out for us and blend it for on the ground teaching.
Pedagogy First!, is teaching me what a daunting task it is developing a curriculum and now we want to move it to online … OMG – oh-my-goodness! shoot the provost. Joking right … maybe not?
What are small public universities going to do already cash deficient with faculty overloads? One solution to enter the online kingdom would be to outsource the whole online program, turn-key it, let a company use your name and you get a cash cow. . . Problem Solved Right. Should we prostitute education just to stay in the game, but is it a game? There where vendors like car salesman at this conference selling their magic to solve your school’s problems for developing online programs, some would invest all the money if you would give them control.
Maybe with the right approach outsourcing could work, if outsourcing your online programs includ developing a blended approach to your f2f courses and ongoing faculty development, not a buy-in and sell-out approach. There is something to be said about the on campus college experience and I truly feel online instruction blended with f2f would holistically revolutionize education by creating an environment for continued faculty development that would promote molding our students into lifelong learners.
Sebastian Thrun is co-founder of Udacity, Vice President/Fellow at Google, and a Stanford University research professor. Thrun was elected into the National Academy of Engineering at the age of 39, after publishing 11 books, over 350 research papers, and after winning numerous scientific awards. In 2011, Thrun resigned from a full professorship at Stanford, after a 15 year career in higher education. At Google, he is in charge of Google X, which is home to the Google self-driving car and the Google Glass project. At Udacity, he has taught the largest online graduate class ever taught, enrolling 160,000 students. Fast Company named him the fifth smartest person in technology; Germany bestowed him with the prestigious Max Planck research award at $1M. Thrun also won the DARPA Grand Challenge, a robotic race organized by the US Department of Defense.
This week reading on creating an effective online syllabus and the ideal of making our syllabus interactive; to come alive by use of hyper-links, images, multimedia vignettes and cues, I thought was very innovative and a natural progression with using technology to enhance the online class experience, but this can also have great advantages for face-to-face course as well.
The workshops showed how you could virtually teach right from your syllabus; someone in Lisa’s workshop commented that an interactive syllabus would get students to engage your syllabus throughout the duration of the class, I agree.
Lisa’s instruction on layout and formatting of an online syllabus was vary helpfully and important; the experience of reading online content of any kind is enhanced by good presentation, layout and design, the ease of finding what you need when you need it is critical when using web resources. Lisa is providing us with so much good information.
For the overachiever for lest that a $100.00 a year you can setup our own website to deliver an interactive syllabus to your students if your institution does not provide proper tools. Lisa’s stated “your syllabus becomes a living document”; student will give us constant fee-back for continued improvement of an interactive syllabus.
Ko and Rossen, Chapter 5: Creating an Effective Online Syllabus
I thought this chapter discussed and outlined efficiently information about developing an effective syllabus for any course format; starting from syllabus as a contract.
Syllabus Contract Statement:Statement that express the relationship Between students and instructor, laying out the terms of the class interaction – the expected responsibilities and duties, the grading criteria, the musts and don’ts of behavior.
I see the interactive syllabus as a matrix or a schema; a framework representing a system of organizing for receiving new information, providingthebasisbywhich someone relatestotheeventsheorsheexperiences.
Creating an Effective Online Syllabus: Acute develop details of course requirements are even more important for an online class syllabus:
Expected outcomes
Schedule
Grading
Procedures
Managing Students Expectations: As Ko and Rossen states you should be clear about the expectations of your student, correct any false impressions students may have, we should express to students upfront what will be the framework (schema) that you as the instructor will be working by, your rules of engagement as instructor, prepare them to prepare for your course journey.
The Map: Allow you syllabus to be the road map as to how your course will unfold guiding students by tasks, activities, course work; indexed along a chronological timeline. Incorporating instructional and informational landmarks; pointing out various sections of the syllabus to alert important exams, test or projects, providing checks to prompt for help, for guidance if needed.
ULRs of your homepage, websites and other online resources.
Identifying where to locate tools that will be used in class
How assignments will be delivered to instructor
Any special instruction on file formats, software
Technical support contact information.
Schedules: I like the idea of laying out the the course by weeks, this gives students a sense of anticipation of what is to follow and stretches out the week proving some flexibility of online activities, which helps students participating in different times zones. Also provides consideration for students using public facilities for internet and computer access.
A Checklist for Online Syllabus: Ko and Rossen
Course Information: Title, Books and Authors, instructor’s names, course number, courser meeting times, term info, syllabus last revised date.
Instructors contact info: office hours online and on the ground, private communication contact info, tech support info.
Detailed course description: prerequisite list or any special requirements for course.
Course objects or expected outcomes: what students can expect to learn by completion of course.
Required texts or materials: any books or material, software needed, defined what is provide by course and what will have to be obtain by student.
Detailed explanation of grading criteria: components of total grade, a list of all exams, major graded assignments, how or if class participation will be graded, define grade percentages or points, criteria for a passing grade, policies on late assignments.
Participation standards: statements that defined participation expectations and grading (rubric could be used).
Procedure processes of the class: organization of the class, instruction on how students should proceed with progression of class activities so they can stay organized, instruction for formatting and processing any material to be turned-in.
Relevant institutional policies: any relevant information about how institution operates, like enrollment process, last day for dropping or adding a class, class attendance policies.
I know this POT is for developing online instructional skills, but the more I think about what we’re doing here, could bring so much to a face-to-face teaching experience as well, a lot of the information I have been exposed to in this POT I would try to incorporate even if I was only teaching a face -to-face course.
Ko and Rossen;“Redundancy is often better than elegant succinctness”
Beginnings 