As for this update, I have commenced the planning of an online version of my Introduction to Computing class. That is what is taking so much time. Not only that, but in talking with my boss, I am also starting to plan an Introduction to Online Learning class that would become a prerequisite for students in our online programs. So I am redesigning an entire class, and creating one from scratch. All of that in, at best, an hour day. I don’t always get that hour, and since this is really the first time I have design a class in any fashion, redesign or first time design, it is taking awhile.

But fear not, I will be posting updates, and probably even some of the planning that I have been doing, although I don’t want you all to steal all of my wonderful ideas.

Well that is all for now, keep checking back, and I will keep posting when I can

Peace

Intro to Computing Online

Analysis

1.  What is your student audience? For example, is this course for twenty or 120 students? Is thie course for beginners or advanced students? For majors or primarily for non-majors?

The student audience for my class would be all students at GLCC, but in groups of probably no more than 30-40, the students will range from beginner to advanced students depending on the knowledge they bring from previous classes or experience.

2.  What types of materials should be made available to students online?  For example, will any on-campus activites or labs be available, or must all class activities be delivered online?

For my class, I could offer specific Lab times that would be available for certain projects, for instance, maybe offer a 2-hour lab time when working on the Microsoft Access assignment, since databases tend to be difficult.  However, all assignments would be turned in online.

3A.  What kind of internet access will your students have?

The speeds of internet could range from dial-up (Hopefully not many) up to very high-speed.

3B.  Will students access this online classroom from campus networks or from their homes or even mobile devices?

If this is primarily a class offered at first to on campus students, then the assumption would be mostly on campus network.  That isn’t to say it doesn’t provide the flexibility to work from home or even from a mobile device.

3C.  Do most students have unlimited internet access through the university, or do they pay for their own access?

Through the campus they would have unlimited access, if they are off-campus, then they would have to make their own arrangements for internet access, Free Coffee shops or paying for internet to their homes.

4.  What Support will you have available to assist you in creating online course materials?

Currently the support would be the academic dean and myself

5.  Is there an integrated suite of tools or course management software available to house your course, or will you have to create everything on your own web pages or free resource sites?

We use Moodle as our course management system.

So that is the analysis aspect of planning my first class.  The next thing we will be looking at is Course Objectives and Goals.

Again, for anyone who actually reads this, your feedback is much appreciated.

Peace.

This Chapter was a pretty interesting chapter.  It was more of the nuts and bolts of how to take a Face-to-Face(f2f) class and turn it into an online class.  Obviously there is too much here to go over everything, but I want to touch on a few things.

One of the major points that this chapter hit for me was the fact that you can really take just about any course and teach it online.  Personally I teach the Introduction to Computing course and have always thought it would be counter-productive to try to teach a computing class online.  I mean it is an introduction class, if they don’t know how to use computers, how can I expect them to use a computer and the internet to learn how to use a computer and the internet?  In reading this chapter however, I looked at my course in a slightly different way.  I’m not teaching people how to use a computer, mostly I am teaching them how to use programs.  With the internet being so prevalent now, most people can get online.  However, there skills are limited.  That is where my class comes in.  I take them from a base knowledge of turning a machine on and double clicking on an icon, to understanding what an icon represents, and once the program is running, all the different things they can do with the program.

With this chapter explaining a lof the different ways of taking a class and moving it to an online format, I think I am going to at the very least work through the steps with my class.  Not saying that I will be offering it online, but going through the process will allow me to effectively help others with the same process.  I’m not sure of the process I will take.  Looking at the coming chapters, I could take this week and next and start the development of my online class, and postpone more reading.  And then, after I have created my class, then continue on with the reading.  Making adjustments according to what the book has to say.  This would help me with the tweaking that will have to happen with all online classes.

Any thoughts on how I should proceed?

Some of the questions included things like:

• Does your institution already provide courses online, either completely or blended
• What courses do they offer online
• Who teaches them
• Who put the courses together
• Is there a policy in place for those who want to teach online?
• Are there requirements for synchronous vs. asynchronous teaching/learning
• Is there an orientation to prepare students for online learning and technical staff to support them

As I read down the list, I can answer most of those questions for GLCC, and I see a few short comings that I think we, as an institution, need to address.  We offer classes online, fully and blended.  In fact I think right now a majority of our classes have some sort of online component to them.  That means many of our professors use Moodle and to my knowledge, they all put their own classes together.  I’m not sure , but I don’t think that we have any sort of policy about teaching our online courses or teaching a blended course.  I know that we don’t have anything in place right now as far as synchronous vs. asynchronous learning.  The final point is where I really think we need to work on.  Especially for those classes that are fully online.  I feel we need to make it a point to have a good flow of information to our online students, helping them to understand what will be expected of them, as well as what they can expect from the institution and the professor.

The author went on to set three scenarios after you answer these questions.  Basically, how ready is your institution.  Low Readiness, Mid-Range Readiness, and High  Readiness.  According to the book, we are currently at High Readiness.  And while we have a lot of stuff in place to help with the process, there is still a lot a teacher has to do to be ready to teach online.  The next section of the book, is going to take us through planning an online class.

Thank you again for reading, I told you I would keep this one short.  Again, any comments you may have, I would love to hear them.

Peace.

Peace be with You

So, as I stated before, this blog is going to have my reflections on the current book that I am reading.  This is for accountability as much for thinking through the ideas presented in the book.  Please feel free to comment, in fact I encourage it.  So now it is time to begin.

Chapter 1 – Teaching Online: An Overview

By the title of the chapter you will assume correctly that this was a general overview.  One of the great things about this book is the fact that they take time to help you understand the jargon that is used in the online learning world.  Even though I know most of the terms, when I look at this from the perspective of someone who is new to the online learning world, this is very helpful.

One of the first things they hit on is the convenience of online learning, not only for the student, but also for the teacher.  The author talked about how you can literally teach from anywhere there is an internet connection.  Let’s say for instance I am teaching an online class.  If I happen to be sick on day, I have internet at my house, so I can still check in on my class, or maybe I am in Florida at a conference, I can still post to the discussion boards while sitting having coffee in the lobby, or even during a boring session.  The same is true for students.  They don’t have to be in a certain classroom of a certain building at a certain time anymore.  School is 24/7/365.  And it isn’t limited to a computer anymore either.  Smartphones, tablets, and other portable devices can access the same information.  So even if there isn’t a free wifi signal for me to leech from, I can be on my iPhone and still check in on the class.  So the freedom and convenience for faculty and students is amazing.

One of the interesting stats the author wrote about as well, is how online learning isn’t a novelty anymore.  In a Sloan Consortium Survey, in the US alone, nearly 20% of all higher education students in the fall of 2007 were taking at least one online course.  And that was 4 years ago.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see that number much higher now.  In 2008, over 55% of South Korean internet users were using the Internet for the purpose of accessing education and learning.  And again, now in 2011, those numbers are bound to be greater.

The Author went on to give two case studies, one of a teacher who’s class was completely online, and the other who’s class was a hybrid.  After the case studies the author dove into what it meant to teach in either situation.  She said that one of the most daunting tasks was to teach a course completely online.  However, what Ko suggests is that the same strategies that you have done for “on the ground” classes can still work, setting goals, describing specific objectives, defining the required tasks, creating relevant assignments, they all apply to online classes as well.  The difference is that with online, there are different techniques you must use and you must discover new ways of finding learning and teaching opportunities.  And the most important of these is…The Written Word.  In “on the ground” courses, the teacher stands in front of the class and gives a lecture, but there is so much more than words that are communicated.  Body language, intonation, expressions, gestures, and all sorts of other non-verbal forms of communication.  In the online world we don’t have that, we have    ;)     >:(    Thats right, emoticons are suppose to transfer our emotions in what we are talking about.  Anyone see an issue here?  Emoticons can’t convey all the nuances that we want to get across in the written word.  Therefore, one of the most important things for online teaching, and I believe for online learners, are good writing skills.  Teaching a class fully online is challenging, there is no doubt about that, but teaching a blended course isn’t a walk in the park either.

With blended or hybrid course, teachers need to now split time.  In a non-blended course, teachers will have certain expectations of their student’s out-of-class time.  When adding online elements, you are adding out-of-class time.  However, you can do this simply by looking at ways in which the Internet can further your students learning.  In the case study, the teacher put her notes online before class.  She noticed a marked difference.  Student would come to class, with the notes printed off and pay more attention to her lecture, because they already had the notes.  They were also coming to class with more engaging questions, since they had weren’t busy furiously scribbling down everything that came up on the screen.  Instead, the were doing more critical thinking on the subject, and after all, isn’t that one of our end goals, to get student to think critically about different subjects?

In the end of the chapter, Ko covered a couple of normal questions she gets from people.  Two that I personally liked were “What about support personnel and training?”  I first read this and though they were talking about having a support system to help with the online teaching, but what they were really asking was shouldn’t someone else design my class for me?  Ko points out that support personnel, The tech guys or TAs have their own jobs.  Tech guys are fixing hardware and software issues and TAs won’t necessarily know more about computer than the teacher will.  The other question was “Do I have to be a computer expert?”  Short answer, no.  Do you know what the internet is?  Can you download a file and open it? Can you e-mail?  Can you use a word-processing program like Word?  If you said yes to those thing, then you are smart enough to do this.

Overall the first chapter was quite interesting, and I think it would be very encouraging to read if you were starting out in the Online Learning world.  I look forward to digging in more to this book, and continuing to write here about what I find.  Sorry this is so long, but what can I say, I found it interesting.

Peace be with you.

Well, I’m not in an internship, however, I have been given time during my day to study more.  So I will be going through some books and as part of the accountability I am setting up for myself, I will be posting reflections on the chapters I am reading.  I don’t know how many will read this, but if you do, please leave a comment, I would love to hear from anyone and if people are reading this, it will help me to continue to write on here as I read.

Peace be with You.

As I am heading into the ministry, I know that I will be called on to do funerals.  In my homiletics class, we discussed this, but the book goes into greater detail.  One of the first things that I did during this internship was to attend a funeral with Frank.  That funeral was for a lady that had no association to the church.  The funeral home called Frank to see if he would do it and he agreed.  I know that Frank struggled with this funeral, he wanted to make it personal and powerful, but he couldn’t get the personal information that he wanted.  In the end, he did what he could with the information that he had.  Those who attended the funeral commented on how wonderful it was and that he had really captured the deceased.  Which as Frank pointed, God can use anything to touch the heart.

The author has some good things to say about sitting down and having a meal together. He talks about how setting the table in his house is a family job and how everything on the table isn’t matched it all represents different places they have been. They always pray as a family for the family, for guests they have with them. They also often have communion. It is a time for the family to relax and keep the Hebrew Day. After dinner is downtime, he offers up plenty of suggestions of things to do.

Then he goes into a chapter about small groups. He talks about how they originally had a small group of all church members far away from their home. How they started to become great friends with the neighbors and were sad to go to small group away from them. They eventually started a small group with their neighbors instead. Frazee talked about all how the church was a community, and that is what was important.

Going into the next chapter was on homework for your kids. Basically he said you can offer incentives to try to get your kids to get their homework done during school or on Saturdays so that the evenings were free. Limit the amount of sports they can play so that you aren’t overscheduled. Some of the extreme thoughts that the author had were to not enroll your children in organized sports until middle school or high school. As far as extreme for the homework thing, that was to just homeschool your children.

Then he went into the idea of work. Some of the things he mentioned to do were to change shifts if you work second or third shift, or if you can’t do that to shift the time you do everything in, so it is still 12 hours on, 12 hours off. Look at cutting down your lifestyle to fit under one income or atleast look for flextime jobs.

Overall I think he had some decent ideas, but the book as a whole really needed to have more application. I was able to apply some things of this book, and I hope I can learn to apply more of them as I start a family, but for me as a single, not married, college student, a lot of this book just didn’t apply. However, I still would recommend this book to read if you are looking to try to make room for life.

This sounds similar to my childhood.  Now I didn’t live in a big neighborhood, but there were a couple kids a little older than me, and we would all play together.  I lived in a fairly rural community, where everyone knew everyone else, and if I did something bad in town, my mom usually knew about it before I had a chance to ride my bike back home.  So I was able to connect with the first part of this chapter.

Now the author goes into the seven deadly sins of child rearing.  He states that because children don’t play like that anymore, they have very structured play time and overscheduled lives like their parents, there are certain things they are losing out on.  Frazee sees a loss of creativity, leadership, mentoring, conflict management skills, health, finances(of the parent, not the child), and loss of family meals.  I guess I have never really thought about it, but you do end up learning a lot about how to lead and deal with other people out on the playground or out playing with your friends.  I know, working with children, there are a lot of kids whose imaginations are severely underdeveloped.

In the book, Frazee says that there are medical professionals who believe that how children are highly structured today, is just leading to more stress in children.  Now again, he mentions the Hebrew Day Planner from several chapters ago as a possible solution to this.  While this is an application, I am hoping that he gets into a little more depth in the next section of chapters, which are so aptly named the How-To Section.