Being a e-student!
Well, I will leave here my personal testimony and experience.
As a teacher I felt the thirst of enlarge my knowledge (and if possible to improve in my career). In my school I play coordination tasks, such as ICT Coordinator (now responsible for the Technical Component of the PTE) and administrator of the Moodle platform and other tasks that I have been assigned for, not to mention the many meetings that we have to watch.
I don’t have much time to spend with studies or trips to the university and attend classes.
Conciliating the family and professional life it’s a difficult task, well, and if we add one more task the academic life, more complicated it will be.
To have a husband, a four year old boy and a four month old boy asking for our attention during all day and all night, little time remains to dedicate to studies.
Another aspect that weighed in the decision to attend or not the course was the fact of having to spend extra money from the family budget to pay for the course and once the number of family elements would grow also the family expenses would increase too.
Once, it passed through my mind giving up this master, but, as this was something I always wanted, something related to technology, I decided to go ahead.
Since, this master can be done in part-time and this was a plus because I knew that I could never finish my studies in such a short time.
In this master we (e-students) have the opportunity to try and experience new programs, new technology and many virtual learning environments, and I consider this as something that I was looking for . It’s really a different learning style, which prevents exclusion of students with limited access to or little knowledge of high technology media.
We can work as a group, we can work in pairs, and we can work as a team. We can learn with our colleagues and with our teachers.
I’ve had so far very good experiences of working in group, working in pairs, and working individually at a distance.
Things can really work at a distance….i can access to each course everywhere and anywhere I want, I can work in building documents, search on the internet, talk with my colleagues just by having with me a computer (laptop) and a mobile net. I can choose during a 24 hour which time will be spent with each course and the best day of the week to work. I can access instantly to information and completely regardless of time. That’s what freedom of Time and pace means along with freedom of space.
Every new course that we start, there’s always so many new things to learn, so much new information, and many activities and tasks to develop. This can be done not only as an asynchronous way but also as synchronous. We have flexibility and option choice too. We can manage the time needed to spend with each activity or task. We can decide whether we want to deepen knowledge or to search information about related contents.
(This was posted on UAberta Moodle on Sunday, 15 November 2009 by 4:39 p.m.)
quarta-feira, 10 de fevereiro de 2010
Review of 2 Learning Objects
The first Learning Object that i reviewed was Sandra Brás work published in toonlet.com and the second is Pedro Teixeira´s video published on Youtube.
These Learning Objects were chosen for different reasons, such as, their content, simplicity and attraction.
First I will talk about Sandra´s work and then Pedro.
Sandra has made a simple and comic cartoon using a new tool: Toonlet that I really consider interesting, motivating and captive. This cartoon is understandable to any one.
She has made this cartoon that talks about the importance of The Learning Partner, a very interesting issue. She focused the importance of not feeling lonely while/during a study process, whether it might be a course or other learning situation. Sandra refers that e-students can combine meetings by Chat, e-mail, phone, personally, or other recurring to other technological means.
The results can be much more positive and higher and the learning process simpler and motivating.
Good and expressive cartoons were applied and very expressive too. The background color was carefully used and the dolls well chosen.
Pedro has made a video that explains very well the Theory of Cooperative Freedom. He gives us a brief explanation (like he said)…”in a few steps” about this theory. He focused in the principal aspects of the contents. He took on individual learning and collaborative and led us to Cooperative Learning.
In the video, Pedro uses key words and brief sentences, making the video very understandable and objective.
The video made by Pedro is simple and attractive, and due to the fact that he didn’t use too much colors and animations in the video it didn’t scattered the watcher’s attention, on the contrary, captive. He combined very well backgrounds and text together with images.
It´s a short term video that is not boring due to his short lengths and the combination of text and images.
The sound (music) accompanying the video is not too strong, so I considered it adequate.
Globally, I liked both works and my colleagues are to be congratulated for their Learning Objects.
(This was posted on UAberta Moodle on saturday, 7 november by 7:54 p.m.)
These Learning Objects were chosen for different reasons, such as, their content, simplicity and attraction.
First I will talk about Sandra´s work and then Pedro.
Sandra has made a simple and comic cartoon using a new tool: Toonlet that I really consider interesting, motivating and captive. This cartoon is understandable to any one.
She has made this cartoon that talks about the importance of The Learning Partner, a very interesting issue. She focused the importance of not feeling lonely while/during a study process, whether it might be a course or other learning situation. Sandra refers that e-students can combine meetings by Chat, e-mail, phone, personally, or other recurring to other technological means.
The results can be much more positive and higher and the learning process simpler and motivating.
Good and expressive cartoons were applied and very expressive too. The background color was carefully used and the dolls well chosen.
Pedro has made a video that explains very well the Theory of Cooperative Freedom. He gives us a brief explanation (like he said)…”in a few steps” about this theory. He focused in the principal aspects of the contents. He took on individual learning and collaborative and led us to Cooperative Learning.
In the video, Pedro uses key words and brief sentences, making the video very understandable and objective.
The video made by Pedro is simple and attractive, and due to the fact that he didn’t use too much colors and animations in the video it didn’t scattered the watcher’s attention, on the contrary, captive. He combined very well backgrounds and text together with images.
It´s a short term video that is not boring due to his short lengths and the combination of text and images.
The sound (music) accompanying the video is not too strong, so I considered it adequate.
Globally, I liked both works and my colleagues are to be congratulated for their Learning Objects.
(This was posted on UAberta Moodle on saturday, 7 november by 7:54 p.m.)
domingo, 17 de janeiro de 2010
Unit 3- Activity 2 - Learning Object
Unit 3 - Activity 2 - Learning Object
A two individual work about Transparency in Online Education!
Transparency in Online Education
“I’ve gained much from being a transparent learner. Over the last nine years – on blogs, wikis, and recently Twitter – I’ve expressed half-formed ideas and received the benefit of constructive (and critical feedback). I generally focus on what I’ve gained, but I suspect readers of my sites and articles have gained something from the experience as well.” (http://www.connectivism.ca/?p=122)
By Telma Jesus e Sónia Valente
A two individual work about Transparency in Online Education!
Transparency in Online Education
“I’ve gained much from being a transparent learner. Over the last nine years – on blogs, wikis, and recently Twitter – I’ve expressed half-formed ideas and received the benefit of constructive (and critical feedback). I generally focus on what I’ve gained, but I suspect readers of my sites and articles have gained something from the experience as well.” (http://www.connectivism.ca/?p=122)
By Telma Jesus e Sónia Valente
sábado, 9 de janeiro de 2010
Distance Education
"I learn so much from my fellow students. Everyone brings in a different perspective and experience. Being in the Masters of Non-Profit Management program, it's great to network with other nonprofit leaders across the country." – Brian Laskey
Unit 3 - Transparency in Online Education
In this annotated bibliography, i will try to respond to this important questions raised by professor Paulsen. I'll try to comment different articles in order to answer the following questions:
1.How much transparency should we allow in online education?
2.What are the implications of transparency in online education?
3.What are the pros and cons of global student catalogues?
The first article is Transparency in Cooperative Online Education by Christian Dalsgaard,
Aarhus University, Denmark and Morten Flate Paulsen, The Norwegian School of Information Technology, Norway
Transparency can be considered as a strategy that reach, catch, hold, motivate, and inspire students. Transparency gives students insight into each other’s actions.The pedagogical potential of social networking lies within transparency and the ability to create awareness among students...A central characteristic of social networking is the potential to facilitate transparency between students. The basic assumption is that transparency is important to cooperative online education. People can cooperate only if they know about each other and have access to some common information and services."(Paulsen and Dalsgaard, June 2009)
Here is a definition of Transparency by Paulsen and Dalsgaard: "Transparency means that you and your doings are visible to fellow students and teachers within a learning environment. For instance, transparency could mean that students and teachers are made aware of and have access to each other’s interests, thoughts, concerns, ideas, writings, references, and assignments. The purpose of transparency is to enable students and teachers to see and follow the work of fellow students and teachers within a learning environment and in that sense to make participants available to each other as resources for their learning activities."
Each individual creates his/her own page wich he/she develops and modifies as it develops its activities. Other people can follow these pages. It is called passive form of communication and sharing.
The discussion forums, are the opposite of this type of personal page and is a place where students send comments, posts, messages or documents in order to communicate or share.
Having a personal page (weblog or other...) is a form of socialization since it is connected to other personal pages and the indivudual is notified whenever a page is modified. In general it is buildt a network of personal relations. This is what is happening with us in this master. We are enable to follow the work of our colleagues and be aware of the activities they are developing and even make use of that information that we consider important. Everyone should be voluntary engaged to a network and contribute to the learning community. A commitment should be established so that the individual can serve as a resource for all the learning community.
"This transparent information may include personal information about the users and statistics related to the users’ deployment of the online tools. It may further include work students and teachers provide in online notebooks, blogs, and discussion forums as well as results from quizzes, surveys, and assignments."
" Transparency is also an important driver for improved quality. It has the following three positive effects on quality:
Preventive quality improvement
We are prone to provide better quality when we know that others have access to the information and contributions we provide.
Constructive quality improvement
We may learn from others when we have access to their data and contributions.
Reactive quality improvement
We may receive feedback from others when they have access to our data and contributions."
"Transparency may reduce the number of low quality contributions and may make high quality work more accessible as paragons for others. In transparent online learning environments, poor contributions from teachers and course designers cannot be hidden easily behind closed doors. It is important to realize that transparency must be handled carefully with regard to privacy issues. The users must be confident that their privacy is assured. They should be able to choose their preferred privacy level and understand how this choice controls how much of their personal data and contributions will be available to others."
In the article written by Christopher Hill, Principles for Improving Online Transparency, Quality it is focused aspects like: What are the benefits of every online student be well-informed,..."." A key focus of the plan is providing program-specific outcomes data that allows students to make informed decisions about their education investment",he says.
“To meet the education needs of adult students, we must provide them with trustworthy and transparent ways to choose among many available options and to gauge the potential of each one to further their careers.” The goal of the program is “to lead universities and colleges toward greater accountability and transparency.”, said Michael Offerman, president of Capella University.
"All types of transparency in Online education are very important, aspects like student demographics, completion rates, costs, student engagement, and knowledge and skills learned are essencial information for students.This kind of data can be viewed in annual reports." Most important, Transparency by Design reports include outcomes at the program specialization level, allowing prospective students to assess how well a program will prepare them for their professional pursuits."
"One of the requirements for implementing Transparency by Design is the development of a new set of best practices for participating institutions. “You want to make sure things are in place at the institutional level,”" says Merle Harris, president of Charter Oaks State College, who has been instrumental in developing just such standards. “Collectively we went back and we looked at best practices that have been put out by other organizations for online learning and then we developed our set based on those,” she says.
"Merle Harris, president of Charter Oaks State College and her associates concluded that there were a few basic principles for institutions that really want to be transparent." You can take a look on them by reading this two articles: Principles for Improving Online Transparency, Quality and More Principles for Improving Online Transparency, Quality.
The principels for improving online transparency are:
#1 Make distance education a central element of your mission:
#2 Accountability to stakeholders:
#3 Responsiveness:
#4 Faculty competence:
#5 Institutional integrity:
#6 Excellence in student services:
#7 Integrity in marketing:
#8 Curricular quality:
“The keys are disclosure, transparency, the ability to interact with students easily and the quality of the curriculum. So that we know what we’re trying to achieve and we regularly measure it.”
In this blog entitled Higher Education Management Group
A LinkedIn Group (Founded by Keith Hampson, PhD) if found one post that consists in an interview with Dr. Mike Offerman, Capella University entitled: Quality, Access and Transparency in Higher Education focusing aspects like: Quality in higher education, the capacity (and willingness) to meet the needs of “non-traditional” learners, What role does increased access to data on institutional performance and student learning play in higher ed reform.
"It was access to data that drove the creation of Transparency by Design. We realized that the online delivery format generates huge amounts of data. Unprecedented data—data on every interaction in the learning exchange, including data about demonstrations of learning outcomes. But, most of us were not looking at the data in any coherent manner.", says Dr. Mike Offerman.
I also foud this list of 21 questions that will help you (student) choose the degree program that is right for you.
"Learner characteristics are influenced by several factors, including:
•Locus of control: Is the individual student in control of the learning or are there external forces in charge of what the student learns?
•Task orientation: Is the learner able to stay on task without going too far astray?
•Level of motivation: Is the learner intrinsically motivated or extrinsically motivated?", as refered by Christopher Hill in his article:Online Course Design Should Consider Learner Characteristics.
In my opinion, distance Education Resistance is origined by the lack of transparency in all aspects. See tha article:Distance Education Resistance: Understanding Its Origins, written by Christopher Hill.
Paulsen and Dalsgaard considered that "Student catalogues are important tools for showing students that they have access to a learning community. A comprehensive catalogue that provides relevant information about students is crucial to students acquiring an overview of the learning community. Student catalogues usually provide information about all students enrolled in a course; however, if students can access information about the students enrolled in other courses offered by the institution, they may benefit from taking part in a larger learning community. Moreover, a catalog that includes alumni could be of interest to students who seek advice on courses they are considering or on future employment.To facilitate cooperation, a student catalogue should include information that makes it easy to initiate and maintain communication, such as e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, chatting identities, etc. It may also include information on geographical location (e.g., zip codes) to facilitate identification of potential partners for occasional face-to-face meetings. Similarly, it may include progress plan information so that students can identify peers who are working with the same study unit. Finally, one may argue that student catalogues should include CV-type information to make it possible to search for peers who have special competencies.
Student catalogues must address privacy issues appropriately. Some information in student catalogues may be regarded as sensitive and may require student consent. Some students may also be opposed to inclusion in a student catalogue."
The students who seek learning partners are asked to do the following:
1.Register their personal presentations.
2.Decide who may access their presentations.
3.Search for potential learning partners.
4.Invite somebody to become their learning partner. "
"The new challenge is to motivate students to engage in joint work...transparency is a prerequisite for distance students to work cooperatively.
Transparency enables students to be visible to each other as potential partners and resources
an important objective is to support an individual’s consciousness and awareness of the activities of others. This can be achieved by making a variety of information transparent, for instance by developing student catalogues and learner profiles, by encouraging learners to become partners, and by sharing personal learning tools.
Whereas discussion forums and other tools for direct communication and collaboration focus on direct sharing, social networking can support students’ indirect sharing of resources, thoughts, ideas, productions, writings, notes, etc. This kind of sharing can provide students with insights into the workings of other students, and, thus, give them an increased consciousness and awareness of the activities of other students.
The pedagogical potential lies within developing social networks in which students’ activities are visible to other students. The potential is to support transparency through a combination of personalization and socialization and through sharing personal information and tools within social networks (Dalsgaard 2006)".
1.How much transparency should we allow in online education?
2.What are the implications of transparency in online education?
3.What are the pros and cons of global student catalogues?
The first article is Transparency in Cooperative Online Education by Christian Dalsgaard,
Aarhus University, Denmark and Morten Flate Paulsen, The Norwegian School of Information Technology, Norway
Transparency can be considered as a strategy that reach, catch, hold, motivate, and inspire students. Transparency gives students insight into each other’s actions.The pedagogical potential of social networking lies within transparency and the ability to create awareness among students...A central characteristic of social networking is the potential to facilitate transparency between students. The basic assumption is that transparency is important to cooperative online education. People can cooperate only if they know about each other and have access to some common information and services."(Paulsen and Dalsgaard, June 2009)
Here is a definition of Transparency by Paulsen and Dalsgaard: "Transparency means that you and your doings are visible to fellow students and teachers within a learning environment. For instance, transparency could mean that students and teachers are made aware of and have access to each other’s interests, thoughts, concerns, ideas, writings, references, and assignments. The purpose of transparency is to enable students and teachers to see and follow the work of fellow students and teachers within a learning environment and in that sense to make participants available to each other as resources for their learning activities."
Each individual creates his/her own page wich he/she develops and modifies as it develops its activities. Other people can follow these pages. It is called passive form of communication and sharing.
The discussion forums, are the opposite of this type of personal page and is a place where students send comments, posts, messages or documents in order to communicate or share.
Having a personal page (weblog or other...) is a form of socialization since it is connected to other personal pages and the indivudual is notified whenever a page is modified. In general it is buildt a network of personal relations. This is what is happening with us in this master. We are enable to follow the work of our colleagues and be aware of the activities they are developing and even make use of that information that we consider important. Everyone should be voluntary engaged to a network and contribute to the learning community. A commitment should be established so that the individual can serve as a resource for all the learning community.
"This transparent information may include personal information about the users and statistics related to the users’ deployment of the online tools. It may further include work students and teachers provide in online notebooks, blogs, and discussion forums as well as results from quizzes, surveys, and assignments."
" Transparency is also an important driver for improved quality. It has the following three positive effects on quality:
Preventive quality improvement
We are prone to provide better quality when we know that others have access to the information and contributions we provide.
Constructive quality improvement
We may learn from others when we have access to their data and contributions.
Reactive quality improvement
We may receive feedback from others when they have access to our data and contributions."
"Transparency may reduce the number of low quality contributions and may make high quality work more accessible as paragons for others. In transparent online learning environments, poor contributions from teachers and course designers cannot be hidden easily behind closed doors. It is important to realize that transparency must be handled carefully with regard to privacy issues. The users must be confident that their privacy is assured. They should be able to choose their preferred privacy level and understand how this choice controls how much of their personal data and contributions will be available to others."
In the article written by Christopher Hill, Principles for Improving Online Transparency, Quality it is focused aspects like: What are the benefits of every online student be well-informed,..."." A key focus of the plan is providing program-specific outcomes data that allows students to make informed decisions about their education investment",he says.
“To meet the education needs of adult students, we must provide them with trustworthy and transparent ways to choose among many available options and to gauge the potential of each one to further their careers.” The goal of the program is “to lead universities and colleges toward greater accountability and transparency.”, said Michael Offerman, president of Capella University.
"All types of transparency in Online education are very important, aspects like student demographics, completion rates, costs, student engagement, and knowledge and skills learned are essencial information for students.This kind of data can be viewed in annual reports." Most important, Transparency by Design reports include outcomes at the program specialization level, allowing prospective students to assess how well a program will prepare them for their professional pursuits."
"One of the requirements for implementing Transparency by Design is the development of a new set of best practices for participating institutions. “You want to make sure things are in place at the institutional level,”" says Merle Harris, president of Charter Oaks State College, who has been instrumental in developing just such standards. “Collectively we went back and we looked at best practices that have been put out by other organizations for online learning and then we developed our set based on those,” she says.
"Merle Harris, president of Charter Oaks State College and her associates concluded that there were a few basic principles for institutions that really want to be transparent." You can take a look on them by reading this two articles: Principles for Improving Online Transparency, Quality and More Principles for Improving Online Transparency, Quality.
The principels for improving online transparency are:
#1 Make distance education a central element of your mission:
#2 Accountability to stakeholders:
#3 Responsiveness:
#4 Faculty competence:
#5 Institutional integrity:
#6 Excellence in student services:
#7 Integrity in marketing:
#8 Curricular quality:
“The keys are disclosure, transparency, the ability to interact with students easily and the quality of the curriculum. So that we know what we’re trying to achieve and we regularly measure it.”
In this blog entitled Higher Education Management Group
A LinkedIn Group (Founded by Keith Hampson, PhD) if found one post that consists in an interview with Dr. Mike Offerman, Capella University entitled: Quality, Access and Transparency in Higher Education focusing aspects like: Quality in higher education, the capacity (and willingness) to meet the needs of “non-traditional” learners, What role does increased access to data on institutional performance and student learning play in higher ed reform.
"It was access to data that drove the creation of Transparency by Design. We realized that the online delivery format generates huge amounts of data. Unprecedented data—data on every interaction in the learning exchange, including data about demonstrations of learning outcomes. But, most of us were not looking at the data in any coherent manner.", says Dr. Mike Offerman.
I also foud this list of 21 questions that will help you (student) choose the degree program that is right for you.
"Learner characteristics are influenced by several factors, including:
•Locus of control: Is the individual student in control of the learning or are there external forces in charge of what the student learns?
•Task orientation: Is the learner able to stay on task without going too far astray?
•Level of motivation: Is the learner intrinsically motivated or extrinsically motivated?", as refered by Christopher Hill in his article:Online Course Design Should Consider Learner Characteristics.
In my opinion, distance Education Resistance is origined by the lack of transparency in all aspects. See tha article:Distance Education Resistance: Understanding Its Origins, written by Christopher Hill.
Paulsen and Dalsgaard considered that "Student catalogues are important tools for showing students that they have access to a learning community. A comprehensive catalogue that provides relevant information about students is crucial to students acquiring an overview of the learning community. Student catalogues usually provide information about all students enrolled in a course; however, if students can access information about the students enrolled in other courses offered by the institution, they may benefit from taking part in a larger learning community. Moreover, a catalog that includes alumni could be of interest to students who seek advice on courses they are considering or on future employment.To facilitate cooperation, a student catalogue should include information that makes it easy to initiate and maintain communication, such as e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, chatting identities, etc. It may also include information on geographical location (e.g., zip codes) to facilitate identification of potential partners for occasional face-to-face meetings. Similarly, it may include progress plan information so that students can identify peers who are working with the same study unit. Finally, one may argue that student catalogues should include CV-type information to make it possible to search for peers who have special competencies.
Student catalogues must address privacy issues appropriately. Some information in student catalogues may be regarded as sensitive and may require student consent. Some students may also be opposed to inclusion in a student catalogue."
The students who seek learning partners are asked to do the following:
1.Register their personal presentations.
2.Decide who may access their presentations.
3.Search for potential learning partners.
4.Invite somebody to become their learning partner. "
"The new challenge is to motivate students to engage in joint work...transparency is a prerequisite for distance students to work cooperatively.
Transparency enables students to be visible to each other as potential partners and resources
an important objective is to support an individual’s consciousness and awareness of the activities of others. This can be achieved by making a variety of information transparent, for instance by developing student catalogues and learner profiles, by encouraging learners to become partners, and by sharing personal learning tools.
Whereas discussion forums and other tools for direct communication and collaboration focus on direct sharing, social networking can support students’ indirect sharing of resources, thoughts, ideas, productions, writings, notes, etc. This kind of sharing can provide students with insights into the workings of other students, and, thus, give them an increased consciousness and awareness of the activities of other students.
The pedagogical potential lies within developing social networks in which students’ activities are visible to other students. The potential is to support transparency through a combination of personalization and socialization and through sharing personal information and tools within social networks (Dalsgaard 2006)".
Online Teaching
The challenge to colleges in the 21st century is not to decide why they should have an online distance learning program, but to decide how to design and implement such a program.
--Dr. Suzanne Levy, OJDLA, 2003.
You must read this article, i found it very interesting:
Six Factors to Consider when Planning Online Distance Learning Programs in Higher Education
--Dr. Suzanne Levy, OJDLA, 2003.
You must read this article, i found it very interesting:
Six Factors to Consider when Planning Online Distance Learning Programs in Higher Education
Activity 4 - One Question Interview
Activity 4- One question Interview
The original work from Activity 4 is posted in the forum Discussion on online teaching techniques. Sorry i forgot to posted it here in my blog.
It was a stress because in the beggining noone answered my question or the teacher was retired.
At least some one answered and here are the registration of both question and teacher's answer, but first a little of her biography.
Kaye Shelton is the Dean of Online Education for Dallas Baptist University, a certified online instructor, teaching online since 1999, and also an online education consultant. Her education includes a B.A.S. in Management of Information Systems, an M.S. in Education emphasizing Online Teaching and Learning and is currently pursuing her PhD in Educational Studies at University of Nebraska. She holds a certification in Online Teaching and Learning and has published and presented on the subject of online education, including a recent book entitled An Administrator's Guide to Online Education. She has presented at numerous conferences and workshops, regarding the creation of an online education program and the best methods for teaching online. She has served as an advisor regarding online education programs for several peer institutions.
"I am convinced that teaching online can be as effective as the traditional classroom. One of my greatest passions is to encourage faculty to begin teaching online thus instilling the confidence they can be successful.", Kaye Shelton.
First the Question:
Dear Professor Kaye Shelton,
My name is Telma and I am a student of Masters in E-Learning Pedagogy at the Open University in Portugal.
I´ve read some of your articles that I found very interesting. During this semester I have this activity proposed by professor Morten Paulsen that is teaching C.U. E-Learning Pedagogical Process- Unit 2 “ finding, studying and sharing materials related to online teaching techniques”, and I have to make a one-question interview. This question should be related to online teaching techniques, teacher workload or online assignments.
Since you are considered to be an expert in these issues, I would like to know your opinion about Distance Learning, and ask you earnestly to answer this question: As an Online Teacher and a researcher in distance education, I would like to know your opinion about planning, creating and managing an online course? How do you avoid teacher´s workload?
Thank you very much,
Telma Jesus
then the answer:
Telma,
I have a list of tips that I share with my faculty to save time when teaching online:
Carefully Develop Online Course Materials – This takes time but is worth it because it saves you from answering many questions during the teaching of the course. Before the class begins, you should move through the course as a student, checking to see if you have all resources necessary for success…such as clear directions for assignment submission, discussion board posting requirements, and articulate quiz/exam directions.
Course Schedule - Create a course schedule with all pertinent information such as when a module opens, the topics covered, reading assignments, other related assignments and when all submissions are due. Encourage your students to print this out and keep it with them at all times so that they are responsible for knowing when their assignments are due.
Write a Welcome Note – Writing a note to the students the first week should cover anything special about your course that you want them to specifically understand. It may be something in the syllabus but this would be a good place for clarification and additional information. At the end of the note, direct students to email you to let you know they read the note.
Syllabus Quiz/Activity – Create an activity that encourages students to carefully read the syllabus such as a quiz for bonus points or a scavenger hunt.
FAQ Discussion - Create a threaded discussion forum for frequently asked questions and post a synopsis of other FAQs from previous semesters – keep course information as surface level as possible. Remind students to post their general course questions in this forum so that others can see your response. Copy and paste replies to these questions from the course syllabus when applicable.
Print Out Student Introductions – The first week, students usually introduce themselves in a threaded discussion. Expand all of their introductions and print this out and keep it by your computer. When you are responding to a student the first few weeks, glance through their introduction and ask a question specific to their posting, such as…how is your son that is playing college baseball? This is a quick way to create community and demonstrate to the student that you care about your students.
Check Email Newest to Oldest – When checking your inbox for student email, go to the newest email instead of the one that came in earliest. Often times, students have sent you a question but a few hours later, they have found their answer and are telling you nevermind!
Use Grading Rubrics – While it takes time to develop your grading rubric, but when used, it becomes instant and customized feedback for the student.
Keep a Response Template – Often times, we give some of the same feedback on assignments. Keep these standard responses in a document handy on your computer so that you can quickly copy and paste in a response and then you can add additional feedback. This is a huge timesaver!
Allow Students to Facilitate Discussions – Allowing students to sometimes facilitate discussions can free up time for grading—especially when it is a week that you have a lot to grade. However, you still want to show some type of presence in the discussion at least once or twice.
Back Up Your Gradebook - Back up your gradebook at least once a month or more if you can. This only takes a few moments and can save you hours and hours if for some reason you lose the original—this can even happen in a courseware management system sometimes…for example, if you accidentally delete the exam topic, it may delete the grades in the gradebook.
Kaye Shelton
The original work from Activity 4 is posted in the forum Discussion on online teaching techniques. Sorry i forgot to posted it here in my blog.
It was a stress because in the beggining noone answered my question or the teacher was retired.
At least some one answered and here are the registration of both question and teacher's answer, but first a little of her biography.
Kaye Shelton is the Dean of Online Education for Dallas Baptist University, a certified online instructor, teaching online since 1999, and also an online education consultant. Her education includes a B.A.S. in Management of Information Systems, an M.S. in Education emphasizing Online Teaching and Learning and is currently pursuing her PhD in Educational Studies at University of Nebraska. She holds a certification in Online Teaching and Learning and has published and presented on the subject of online education, including a recent book entitled An Administrator's Guide to Online Education. She has presented at numerous conferences and workshops, regarding the creation of an online education program and the best methods for teaching online. She has served as an advisor regarding online education programs for several peer institutions.
"I am convinced that teaching online can be as effective as the traditional classroom. One of my greatest passions is to encourage faculty to begin teaching online thus instilling the confidence they can be successful.", Kaye Shelton.
First the Question:
Dear Professor Kaye Shelton,
My name is Telma and I am a student of Masters in E-Learning Pedagogy at the Open University in Portugal.
I´ve read some of your articles that I found very interesting. During this semester I have this activity proposed by professor Morten Paulsen that is teaching C.U. E-Learning Pedagogical Process- Unit 2 “ finding, studying and sharing materials related to online teaching techniques”, and I have to make a one-question interview. This question should be related to online teaching techniques, teacher workload or online assignments.
Since you are considered to be an expert in these issues, I would like to know your opinion about Distance Learning, and ask you earnestly to answer this question: As an Online Teacher and a researcher in distance education, I would like to know your opinion about planning, creating and managing an online course? How do you avoid teacher´s workload?
Thank you very much,
Telma Jesus
then the answer:
Telma,
I have a list of tips that I share with my faculty to save time when teaching online:
Carefully Develop Online Course Materials – This takes time but is worth it because it saves you from answering many questions during the teaching of the course. Before the class begins, you should move through the course as a student, checking to see if you have all resources necessary for success…such as clear directions for assignment submission, discussion board posting requirements, and articulate quiz/exam directions.
Course Schedule - Create a course schedule with all pertinent information such as when a module opens, the topics covered, reading assignments, other related assignments and when all submissions are due. Encourage your students to print this out and keep it with them at all times so that they are responsible for knowing when their assignments are due.
Write a Welcome Note – Writing a note to the students the first week should cover anything special about your course that you want them to specifically understand. It may be something in the syllabus but this would be a good place for clarification and additional information. At the end of the note, direct students to email you to let you know they read the note.
Syllabus Quiz/Activity – Create an activity that encourages students to carefully read the syllabus such as a quiz for bonus points or a scavenger hunt.
FAQ Discussion - Create a threaded discussion forum for frequently asked questions and post a synopsis of other FAQs from previous semesters – keep course information as surface level as possible. Remind students to post their general course questions in this forum so that others can see your response. Copy and paste replies to these questions from the course syllabus when applicable.
Print Out Student Introductions – The first week, students usually introduce themselves in a threaded discussion. Expand all of their introductions and print this out and keep it by your computer. When you are responding to a student the first few weeks, glance through their introduction and ask a question specific to their posting, such as…how is your son that is playing college baseball? This is a quick way to create community and demonstrate to the student that you care about your students.
Check Email Newest to Oldest – When checking your inbox for student email, go to the newest email instead of the one that came in earliest. Often times, students have sent you a question but a few hours later, they have found their answer and are telling you nevermind!
Use Grading Rubrics – While it takes time to develop your grading rubric, but when used, it becomes instant and customized feedback for the student.
Keep a Response Template – Often times, we give some of the same feedback on assignments. Keep these standard responses in a document handy on your computer so that you can quickly copy and paste in a response and then you can add additional feedback. This is a huge timesaver!
Allow Students to Facilitate Discussions – Allowing students to sometimes facilitate discussions can free up time for grading—especially when it is a week that you have a lot to grade. However, you still want to show some type of presence in the discussion at least once or twice.
Back Up Your Gradebook - Back up your gradebook at least once a month or more if you can. This only takes a few moments and can save you hours and hours if for some reason you lose the original—this can even happen in a courseware management system sometimes…for example, if you accidentally delete the exam topic, it may delete the grades in the gradebook.
Kaye Shelton
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