Category Archives: Online Learning

Day 2: Introductions and Welcoming Students

In your face-to-face teaching, when students arrive on the first day of class, you greet them warmly, smile, and generally make them feel welcome. In addition, usually students learn who else is in the class, and start getting to know each other. How can we accomplish this in an online class?

Introductions Forum

One easy way to welcome students as a class is to create a forum for Introductions. I usually put this forum in the first block in Moodle, right below my welcoming note. Here are some suggestions for creative introductions:

  • Include some basics: i.e. name, location, degree sought, interest in the class, etc.
  • Ask students to describe the space where they are studying online and describe what they see out the window or on the walls of the room
  • ice breaker
    Icebreaker by pellesten

    Use an ice-breaker activity or question. Have students include their answer in their introduction post. Here are some ideas such as:

    • If you could change one event in history, what would it be?
    • What would you do with one hundred dollars?
  • Have students make a 3 slide PowerPoint introduction and then narrate it with video. Knovio is a cool tool for this. Students then share the link to their Knovio presentation in the introductions forum.

Interact

Ensure that conversation happens in the Introductions Forum. Online students feel unsure, wondering if anyone else is “out there” who cares!

  • Invite students to respond to each other, and let them just talk as they get acquainted.
  • In the forum, reply to EVERY student, preferably within 12 hours. Say something welcoming, i.e. “glad you’ve joined us” or “looking forward to learning with you”. If possible share something personal as well: i.e. “I visited your town…” or “do you know so & so who lives in your town or went to your school”. Help the students feel connected to each other and you as the instructor.

Monitoring Student Logins

Another way to welcome students is to monitor their progress in the first few days.

  • Track logins. I like to make a spreadsheet for my online courses. It holds grades as well as notes on student progress. I have a column to mark whether they have logged in and posted their introduction. You could track this on paper, or you may think of another way that matches your preferences.
    • 2013-01-06moodleusersHow to: In Moodle, on the left, find the Settings block. Make sure the Course administration section is open (click the title if needed). Open up the Users section by clicking Users. Click Enrolled users. Note when they last logged in.
  • Contact students personally. I try hard to have students logged in with at least their introduction done by the third day of class. You’ll have a much easier time later in the course if you can prod them into functioning well in the first week. So consider this time an investment in your sanity throughout the rest of the course!
    • I email students who haven’t logged in by the 2nd day of class.
    • I call students on the phone if they haven’t logged in by the 3rd day.
    • Then I give them a few days till I contact them again if they still aren’t functioning.

PROCESS CHECK: Did you send your students a week 1 email? Did you give them instructions on what to do first and a suggested schedule for the week? These steps will ensure greater success in the first week of your online course.

Your Turn

Reflect. How do you make students feel welcome in your face-to-face classes? What other ideas do you have for welcoming students? Feel free to disagree/comment/discuss using the comment link below.

This post is Day 2 of the 20 Day Challenge to Teaching Interactive Online Courses.

Day 1: Countdown to the Start of Your Interactive Online Course

Welcome to this 20 Day Challenge to Teaching Interactive Online Courses. Each week day for the next few weeks, you will receive in your inbox tips and tricks for teaching online. The tips will be organized to guide you through the first few critical weeks of your course, providing support to ensure the success of you and your students in this online journey.

Last Minute Checkup

We start today with a check-up. Your course starts in just a couple days. Let’s do a last minute review to ensure everything is in order.

1. Your Introduction

Is your course home page welcoming to students? Have you included your picture and some welcoming, friendly text? Can students see easily how to contact you? Here’s an example of how I like to put the intro in my classes:

2. First Email to Students

Have you emailed your students a welcome yet? Here are some details you may wish to include:

      • Some tantalizing information to motivate them to get started learning
      • How to login to the class (web address, login info, and tech help)
      • How to order textbook(s), if applicable
      • What to do first when they login (i.e. post an introduction in the first forum)
      • A suggested schedule for the first week
      • How to contact you (email & phone)

3. Your Home Page

Take a critical look at your course home page. Imagine yourself in the student’s shoes. Or get some feedback from a non-techie / non-academic person. Ask yourself some questions from the student’s point of view. Are the answers easy to find?

    • What should I do first?
    • Where is the schedule of assignments?
    • How do I contact my instructor?
    • Who else is in the class?
    • What are the requirements of this course?
    • When is the first assignment due?

Make any desired adjustments. Now, take a deep breath. Relax. You’re ready to go! Congratulations on starting this learning journey!

Your Turn

Reflect. What do you check the week before a face-to-face class? What else would you include in a last-minute check-up list? Do you agree with this list? Feel free to disagree/comment/discuss using the comment link below.

A Taste of Two MOOCs

This afternoon I am hosting a workshop called A Taste of Two MOOCs: OR What is a Massive Online Course?
It’s an exploration of a couple MOOCs and a discussion of the implications for Adventist higher education.

Here are the links and resources for today:

What is a MOOC?

References for Connectivism

Taste a cMOOC

  • Another cMOOC: DS106
    • Digital Storytelling, The University of Mary Washington
    • a cMOOC connected to a course for credit

Taste an xMOOC

After this exploration, we will have a lively discussion. Looking forward to it!

Organizing Your Online Course to Provide Structure and Routine

This post contains supporting information for the 2012 NAD Teachers’ Convention (North American Division of Seventh-day Adventists) session titled Organizing Your Online Course to Provide Structure and Routine.

Powerpoint: Organizing Your Online Course

Links:

Onboard! Moving from Orienting to Us to Onboarding for You

Live blogging another USDLA 2012 session.

Onboard! Moving from Orienting to Us to Onboarding for You

Presenters: Susan Bartel and Tina Ehrhardt from Stephens College

Susan works with the graduate business programs.

Components of Orientation Modules

Things that can be included in the orientation module:

  • how to navigate Blackboard/LMS
  • can cause high stress to students who are new to technology
  • academic dishonesty
  • do you have the technology needed?
  • policies
  • how to use the IM, how to post on the discussion, how to use VoiceThread (etc)
  • practice
  • a discussion board place for any type of question

Who Owns Online Orientation?

Discussion of who owns the orientation – academic? student success? technology people?

Definitions

Definitions of orientation from the audience: exposure, acclimation, getting started
Definitions of onboarding: getting buy-in, similar to orientation, making employees part of the team

“the process of helping new students adjust to social and performance aspects in their academic journey quickly and smoothly” “organizational socialization” – source: Onboarding: How to Get Your New Employees Up to Speed in Half the Time

Building Blocks for Onboarding

  • Compliance (like grading scheme and things like that)
  • Clarification (role clarification, etc.)
  • Culture (no extra credit etc.)

Benefits: Students feel welcome and know what their responsibilities are.

Outcomes (Bauer 2010): self efficacy, role clarity, social integration, culture knowledge = successful onboarding. (with a little hunting, I think this might be the document referenced)

They include a test on the APA format. Thinking of the School of Ed online programs that could use this idea.

Students liked the orientation as self-paced.

They also included: How to write with academic integrity (what a great idea!)

Reflection

This gives good food for thought as I consider the online degree programs we have at Andrews University and Griggs University – with varying degrees of how they currently orient students to their online programs.

It’s something we definitely need to work on – and this gives us some good resources and references to get started.

Reflecting on Federal Definitions of Interaction

Since January, I’ve been working hard on creating new Andrews University definitions of distance education that match these federal definitions (34 Code of Federal Regulations 602.3):

Correspondence education means:

Education provided through one or more courses by an institution under which the institution provides instructional materials, by mail or electronic transmission, including examinations on the materials, to students who are separated from the instructor.

  • Interaction between the instructor and the student is limited, is not regular and substantive, and is primarily initiated by the student.
  • Correspondence courses are typically self-paced.
  • Correspondence education is not distance education.

Distance education means:

Education that uses one or more of the technologies listed in paragraphs (1) through (4) to deliver instruction to students who are separated from the instructor and to support regular and substantive interaction between the students and the instructor, either synchronously or asynchronously. The technologies may include:

  1. The internet;
  2. One-way and two-way transmissions through open broadcast, closed circuit, cable, microwave, broadband lines, fiber optics, satellite, or wireless communications devices;
  3. Audio conferencing; or
  4. Video cassettes, DVDs, and CD-ROMs, if the cassettes, DVDs, or CD-ROMs are used in a course in conjunction with any of the technologies listed in paragraphs (1) through (3).

Interaction!

The emphasis in the quotes above is mine. I find it very interesting that the focus of the difference between the two types of education is interaction. It reminds me of the development of the AVLN standards in the early 2000s. What did we emphasize? Interaction:

Courses developed shall address the relational basis of learning

  • a design for interaction between learner and content
  • a design for interaction between learner and learner
  • a design for interaction between learner and teacher
  • a design for interaction between learner and self (reflection)
  • a design for interaction between learner and the community (includes service)
Interaction (photo by ConferenceBasics)

At best, correspondence courses only address the interaction between learner and content, and learner and self; and may not even do reflection well if the course uses primarily objective assessment methods like multiple choice, true/false, and matching.

Is Correspondence “Old”?

I have found it interesting to observe the objections and concerns on campus about the term correspondence. It is a term that makes people think of paper correspondence courses from the World War II era. However, given the federal definitions, many online courses are actually correspondence courses!

  • Courses that are self-directed and self-paced (what about independent studies?!)
  • The concept of putting syllabi and PowerPoints online to make an “online course”. Problematic! No interaction!
  • Even a course consisting of video clips, recorded lectures, either online streaming or on DVD/CD is correspondence is there isn’t INTERACTION.
  • If a course doesn’t have a thriving discussion area, is it correspondence?
  • If a course consists of readings, assignments turned in to the instructor, and the instructor never initiates communication with the student, is it correspondence?

Reflection

When you really think through the ramifications of these definitions, it raises the bar for the quality of the course!

I can see a focus emerging for faculty development workshops in the coming months: interaction. What is it? What does it look like? How do you design for it?

I know Carol Skyring has been researching interaction and some of you are constantly thinking about it as well. What other tips and resources do you suggest for ensuring quality interactions in all forms of distance education?

Estimation Applied to Course Production

A few years ago, my brother, a programmer, shared with me the concepts and challenges with estimating time for software development. For example, as addressed in Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art. I’ve found the concept interesting before, but now more applicable in my work.

Bean Counting! (Photo by cookbookman17)

Griggs University brought about 120 distance education courses to Andrews University, and many of them are in need of upgrades and complete rewrites.

Part of my recent work has been to start developing a system of course development and revision. As I organize a small force (army?) of student workers and staff to work on courses, I’ve been looking more closely at estimation. I am heading towards having an estimate for how long it takes to do certain sets of jobs – like creating quizzes, applying CSS designs to content pages, etc.

This includes teaching my workers how to do their own estimation for converting lessons to HTML pages with appropriate CSS applied. In one case, we thought through carefully two different ways to approach the estimation process. I thought it might be helpful to share here two simple methods that I taught:

Approach #1: Starting with known amount of time on a task

If you know how much time it takes to do a certain task, then you can estimate how long it will take 10 or 20 items of the same type of task.

So, the question is: Given a known amount of time to finish a task, how long will it take to finish x tasks?

For example: given 1.5 hours to finish 1 lesson how long will it take to finish 40 lessons from where I am now.

Steps:

  • 40-14 = 26 (40 lessons – 14 done = 26 lessons to do)
  • 26×1.5 = 39 (26 lessons left x 1.5 hours to do the lesson = 39 hours to complete goal). Round up to 40 hours; which is about 5 days of work
  • Given that 80-90% of work day is accomplishing tasks; 10-20% is interruptions and breaks etc. …
  • 40 hours x 10% is 4 more hours; so that is about 45 hours actually accounting for breaks etc. Or a better more generous estimate would 45-50 hours left for this job.

Approach #2: Starting with a desired end time (pedal to the metal method)

If you have a desired end time, then you can estimate how fast each task needs to be completed.

So the question is: Given a specific deadline; how fast do I need to do each task?

For example: Given that I want to finish 26 lessons by the end of the day on Thursday, and it is now Tuesday afternoon, how fast do I need to do each lesson?

Steps:

  •  I have 26 lessons left (40-14=26 see above).
  • In two days (Wed & Thu) I plan to work 9 hour days with an hour of interruptions and breaks, so I can estimate about 8 hours a day per day.
  • 16/26 = .61 (16 hours divided by 26 lessons = the fraction of an hour that I need finish a lesson in)
  • Convert the decimal to hours:.61 x 60 minutes = 36 minutes per lesson

Reflection

I’ve come to the conclusion that this type of thinking isn’t necessary “caught” or “taught” in our high schools and colleges. Students may know what estimation is, but might not be able to apply it to real-life scenarios when they graduate.

What do you think? I realize this is a very simplistic method to estimate how we are doing in our work, but it’s a start. Do you try to estimate progress on online course development? How do you do it? What data do you collect and track?

Writing Great Discussion Questions

I’m currently finishing up writing a class for the Adventist Virtual Learning Network that starts on February 27: Integrating Technology with Pathways: Themes 5-9.

One of my strong beliefs about online learning is the power of interaction. And most great interaction happens in an asynchronous discussion area IF the questions are well designed.

I’ve seen many boring, stilted, uninviting discussion areas. Have you?

Photo by Open Knowledge Foundation

What makes them engaging?

  1. Connections to experience. We all know students learn best when they connect new knowledge to prior knowledge (Presseisen, 1995). Include questions that invite students to connect the new learning / reading / articles to their previous experience. My class is for teachers, so I ask questions that connect their experience to the required reading articles.
  2. Choice & Variety. Nothing is worse that having one question with a correct answer. What a discussion killer! I build at least three question sets to start the discussion, and then require two. This allows choice and builds in variety to the initial responses to the questions (Stilborne & Williams, 1996).
  3. Substance. To get substance in the conversation, I require the participants to reference the reading, reflect on their own experience, and react to each other (for more, see Akin & Neal, 2007). This usually generates a substantive conversation. If not, I nudge the conversation further by asking more questions.

What about you? What works for your online discussion areas?

"One Technology Girl" No Longer

Today is my last day at Berrien RESA as an Instructional Technology Consultant. I have accepted a position as Associate Dean for Higher Education in the School of Distance Education at Andrews University (also here in Berrien Springs, MI) starting tomorrow!

I will be moving my blog over to http://blog.janinelim.com so that I can blog about a broader set of distance technologies: including videoconferencing, online learning, blended learning, and webinars / webconferencing. Soon, I’ll tell you more about my new job on that blog. There’s nothing there yet! Still have a bit of set up to do. I’ll let you know here when it’s ready for subscriptions.

But today, I’d like to thank all of you, my readers, for your great comments, input, and feedback over the 6+ years that I’ve blogged about videoconferencing. It’s been such a great learning journey and a great continuous conversation! I hope that you will continue the conversation with me on my new blog!

What will happen to VC Out on a Lim?

This blog is hosted on WordPress.com, and so will be here “forever” as vcoutonalim.wordpress.com for sure, and for another year or two as vcoutonalim.org.

I am also hoping to make an index to this blog sometime in the next month or two so it’s easier for you to find the information that is buried here. So watch for another post with that!

What about TWICE?

I’ll be staying on the TWICE board for another year at least. Sustainability plans are in place!

  • Sue Porter will continue to coordinate Read Around the Planet and be the front line support for CAPspace. Polycom‘s support of these two projects is still in place of course!
  • Scott Sherrill, our programmer for CAPspace will continue to improve the site. There are still many improvements we want to make to CAPspace!
  • Max Graves will take over the coordination of the TWICE Verification Partners.
  • The TWICE ASK committee has taken over the management of all the ASK programs, and billing will come from TWICE instead of Berrien RESA.

What about MysteryQuests?

The MysteryQuest and HistoryQuest sessions I’ve been running have been bequeathed by Berrien RESA to Whirlidurb, an excellent curriculum videoconferencing services provider. Roxanne Glaser, Content Director, is the best multipoint facilitator I’ve ever known, and she has assisted with materials development and facilitation slides for my Quests since 2007. In addition, Whirlidurb has the bridging capabilities (thanks to super bridge dude Shane Howard) to continue this project with a high level of quality for your experience.

Everything Else

The other videoconferencing activities of Berrien RESA, including VCcontentproviders.org and the Teachers’ Favorite Awards will be taken over by my replacement. Check our website in early September to get new contact information.

Keep in Touch

To keep in touch, please note these links/resources:

Thank you again for being part of my learning community and sharing feedback, ideas, resources, and suggestions!