Week 6 - Chapter 4 Creating an Online Syllabus

If students are going to be successful in an online situation, it seems that the syllabus becomes the most important part of a course. Because of no face-to-face contact and because of asynchronous time, it is important that the learner can find all information he or she needs at the time when he or she wants to find it. The syllabus should be easy to find and then well-organized. The syllabus should include all information about the facilitator, a thorough description of the course, pre-requisites, and learning outcomes. From my personal experience, a week-by-week list of assignments and due dates is always preferred in a syllabus for me. A good syllabus should include all required textbooks, software and technology tools needed, as well as where to get them. If collaboration with peers is going to be needed, this should be listed in the syllabus. Students want to know if a student has a lot of interaction (between students and teachers or students and students) versus interactivity (between students and tools). (Interactive Course Design Rubric http://www.westga.edu/~distance/roblyer32.html) For pre-planning purposes, in particular I would want to know which week I had to allow my schedule to be influenced by the schedule of others. Grades seem to be universally important. I would want to know how the grades were figured as well as the total possible points for an "A", etc. I would want to know ahead of time if extra credit is given or if points were deducted for late assignments.

Week 6 Chapter 3 Course Development

Instructional Design for an online course must planned out in a similar way to a traditional-style class in that you need to outline the needs of your learners, your goals and objectives, assignments, readings or "lecture", assessment and grading rubric. This quotation is from Standards for Quality Online Courses ( http://standards.mivu.org/) : "Understanding our Instructional Design Standards we approach the process of designing and evaluating the Instructional Design of a course from a Performance Objective standpoint. In other words, online courses can be broken down into Units and Objectives." This shows the similarity in instructional design of both traditional and online classes. The difference will be in how you deliver the material and especially in the use of online learning tools. You simply cannot take the syllabus from a traditional class and type it into the web. Classroom tools will not necessarily translate to the online classroom. For example, when using a discussion tool or chat tool, the rules for discussion and chat must be layed out ahead of time for the students. As a facilitator, you cannot redirect conversation as easily in asynchronous conversation. Also, specific guidlines must be published so the students will have a greater understanding of what is expected. You must also narrow the topic or give guidlines on the topic so that precious time and space is not wasted on non-specifics to the assignment.

Week Four: Review of Instant Messaging

Article: Sotillo, S. M., Using Instant Messaging for Collaborative Learning: A Case Study, Innovate: Journal of Online Education, Feb/March 2006, Vol 2, Issue 3.

This article explores the use of the online tool of "instant messaging" for giving corrective feedback in teaching foreign languages. Advantages: 1.Corrective feedback through instant messaging can certainly enhance learning in a non-traditional way. 2. It can also encourage a sense of connectivity for students through informal collaboration. Disadvantages: 1. Students must be trained prior to the collaboration; must receive thorough training in the use of instant messaging. 2. Students must be trained how to save audio files, if that is required. 3. The process may breakdown, technologically speaking, and frustration with technology can negatively impact learning. 4. There may not be enough bandwidth for connecting to the Internet, causing more technological problems. 5. The scheduling of students to all use instant message at the same time could be a potential burden.

Week Four: Using Online Tools

Chapter 5 Building an Online Classroom

Learning the "online language" is like learning a foreign language. I must admit that terms like: synchronous communication, chat, whiteboard, web resource area, thread discussion, new thread, conferences, faq, upload, bookmark, post, and create have taken on new meanings for me since I began taking online courses. Chapter five presents tools and language for using tools as an online instructor. I would like to concentrate this week on "chat and whiteboard" because I have found that I dread that aspect of online learning, probably because I never used either before taking classes. Chat allows students from anywhere in the world to have a conference and discuss topics at the same time, considering they all decided on the same time in the same time zone to begin the discussion. A whiteboard is a feature where students can discuss a topic in real time by typing their comments into a small window. The advantages of a chat with a whiteboard are: students can type in answers or draw symbols with a drawing tools (handy depending on the subject discussed, i.e. math or science); students can collaborate easily if in the same time zone; chat can be recorded sometimes and available for everyone to view later, for review; leadership can be fostered for learners by assigning a group leader or taking turns presenting information. The main disadvantages of a chat with whiteboard is: different time zones for students around the world can become a problem when finding time to get together. (p. 89) I think having the chat with whiteboard available first during a class would be a good way to get students to know each other and then lead up to chatting with a webcam, which would require more work and time for the student new to that technology.

Chapter 12 Integrating Online Elements in a Traditional Classroom

The most important comment I found in Chapter twelve was regarding incorporating the web into a traditional classroom, in other words creating a hybrid class. "Making the use of the Internet optional rather than incorporating it into the curriculum dooms it to failure." (p. 258) By this I assume the authors mean that a hybrid teacher should make certain Internet research or readings mandatory for the traditional classroom learners, or they are missing out on valuable learning opportunities. Teachers not really using the resources of the web in teaching and learning are doing an injustice to the learners.

I read very carefully the paragraphs about establishing virtual office hours (p. 254) because once again, I myself have not participated in any virtual office hours that have been offered me through Boise State. Something about real time I have been denying. The teacher of a hybrid class (or fully online class) can set times to be available for real time chat. The teacher just opens the chat tool and leaves it on their desktop. If they see a message starting in the whiteboard, he or she can respond and the chat begins. It sounds very easy for the teacher and I presume a lot of multi-tasking can be done while waiting for a student to possibly enter the chatroom whiteboard. The whiteboard can also be made mandatory for the student to attach files or show presentations. The authors also indicate that improvements are coming for this type of technology and that much more sophisticated video-conferencing will be done in the future. I think this would be a good tool to use for adult learners who have not necessarily grown up using chat rooms or instant messaging.

Week Three: Evaluating Online Courses

In Chapter One of Teaching Online - A Practical Guide, I was impressed by the different styles of online teaching. I had never before thought about the differences between a hybrid course and a course taught entirely online. An entirely online class is great where you have a multitude of students from different parts of the world participating. A hybrid class could be useful in a traditional campus-style university where a teacher "gives students the opportunity to review the material before coming to class" (p. 10). If a student can be relieved of taking a lot of notes during class, it could be beneficial to his or her total understanding of the curriculum. I could use blogs this way in my Business Technology Class, by having students read information at their leisure.

In Chapter Two I was impressed to learn that a person could design an online class for free by going to www.blackboard.com and setting up your class. This could be especially useful in a low-tech high school or university, or say if you were consulting in a third-world country where many resources are not available. Some of the benefits at Blackboard include: "You can control who accesses your course and who doesn't, You can create course syllabi and course notes simply by typing in your information online, You can create online quizzes, You can divide your students into private study groups who members can chat" (p. 30)