In order to meet the growing demand for quality online education, Park University has adopted a model that provides a common framework for all of its online courses. Evelyn Knowles and Kathleen Kalata discuss the circumstances leading to the current system and describe the university’s implementation of a course development process that ensures quality and consistency in both content and instructional design. In this model, academic departments select which courses they want to have developed into online courses and the subject matter expert who will act as course developer. The course developer works with an instructional designer to create the online course. The course development process is described in detail, from initiating the contract through consultation with the instructional designer to quality standards review.
The right number is…?
A common question raised by faculty and staff is how to determine the optimal number of students in an online course. Judith Boettcher of the University of Florida has an article that discusses the factors to take into consideration.
Podcasting
Campus Technology’s Smart Classroom has a case study titled “Podcasting at the University of Connecticut: Enhancing the Educational Experience“. The instructor writes about how he first started using podcasts in Fall of last year. Since then he’s found more ways to use this technology for his courses.
The crystal ball says…
Curtis Bonk of Indiana University–of Indiana, not Pennsylvania–always has interesting things to say about instructional technology and distance learning. He and a colleague published an article titled, “The Future of Online Teaching and Learning in Higher Education: The Survey Says…“. As he states, a “…survey that substantiates some ideas about online learning and refutes others.” http://www.educause.edu/apps/eq/eqm06/eqm0644.asp
Ten Web 2.0 Things You Can Do in Ten Minutes to Be a More Successful E-learning Professional
By Stephen Downes, National Research Council Canada
The following list was inspired by eLearn Magazine Editor-in-Chief Lisa Neal’s blog post “Ten Things You Can Do in Ten Minutes To Be a More Successful e-learning Professional.” We’d like to offer the “Web 2.0 Edition” of Lisa’s list:
1. Listen to a conference presentation. When you run across conference presentations while reading your RSS feeds (EDUCAUSE Connect is a prime source, as is OLDaily), save the conference site as a bookmark and revisit it to hear a presentation.
2. Record a 10-minute presentation about something you are working on or learning about, either as audio (use Odeo) or video (use Ustream), and post it on your blog.
3. Do a search on the title of your most recent post or on the title of the most recent thing you’ve read or thought about. Don’t just use Google search, use Google Blog Search and Google Image Search, Amazon, del.icio.us, Technorati, Slideshare, or Youtube. Scan the results and if you find something interesting, save it in del.icio.us to read later.
4. Write a blog post or article describing something you’ve learned recently. It can be something you’ve read or culled from a meeting, conference notes (which you just capture on the fly using a text editor), or a link you’ve posted to del.icio.us. The trick here is to keep your writing activity to less than 10 minutes—make a point quickly and then click “submit.”
5. Tidy your e-portfolio. For example, upload your slides to Slideshare and audio recordings to Odeo and embed the code in your presentation page. Or write a description and link to your latest publication. Or update your project list.
6. Create a slide on Zoho. Just do one slide at a time; find an image using the Creative Commons licensed content on Flickr and a short bit of text from a source or yourself. Add this to your stick of prepared slides you use for your next talk or class.
7. Find a blogger you currently read in your RSS reader and go to their website. Follow all the links to other blogs in their blogroll or feedroll, or which are referenced in their posts. Well, maybe not all the links, or it will take hours, not ten minutes.
8. Write a comment on a blog post, article, or book written by an e-learning researcher or practitioner.
9. Go to a website like Engadget, Metafilter, Digg, Mixx, Mashable, or Hotlinks and skip through the items. These sites produce much too much content to follow diligently, but are great for browsing and serendipitous discovery. If you find something interesting, write a short blog post about it or at least a comment.
10. Catch up on one of your online games with a colleague—Scrabulous on Facebook or Backgammon on Yahoo. Or make a Lolcat. Or watch a Youtube video.
Better Online Discussions
In “The Effectiveness and Development of Online Discussions” the author discusses the “importance of the effective design of online discussions and discusses ways that instructors can help students have effective discussions.”
You cheat!
Faculty Focus has an article titled, Practical Tips for Preventing Cheating on Online Exams“. It can be found at http://www.magnapubs.com/issues/magnapubs_ff/4_4/news/600136-1.html?s=FF&p=MFCFEZ.
Online Discussion Strategies
Promoting online discussion is always a hot topic for instructors. The most recent edition of Faculty Focus has an article titled, “Using Discussion Boards for One-on-One Student-Instructor Interaction“. The author discusses several methods she uses to encourage discussion.
Using Mediasite to Think Outside the Box
Jim Jorstad of the Univ. of Wisconsin-La Crosse gave an interesting presentation titled “Thinking Outside the Box: Using Mediasite to Engage Faculty and Extend University Outreach“. Not coincidentally, the presentation is delivered using Mediasite. Jim also hosts an interesting blog called The Learning Space.
The PASSHE systemwide contract with Sonic Foundry for Mediasite means nearly two-thirds of our universities will be using Mediasite. In addtion to extending the classroom to students off-campus, technology like Mediasite offers other departments on a campus a valuable tool for reaching out to alumni, media, donors, legislators, etc.
Finding that edge
CampusTechnology.com has an article called “Serving the Online Learner”. The author says, “Support and advising systems provide a competitive edge for institutions by helping to develop a lasting relationship between eLearner and school.” You can find the article at http://campustechnology.com/articles/46400/.