What are the necessary ingredients?

1. What are the necessary ingredients?

2. Necessary Ingredients • Design Considerations • Planning the media depends on lifestyle, lifestyle, lifestyle! • Choice of technologies must be matched to the needs of the learners. • Level of Administrative Support • Technical support systems available to faculty and students • Instructor and Facilitator Training

3. Necessary Ingredients • The Online Course • Students need to assess their mode of learning and online learning - self-assessment • http://cf.lbcc.cc.or.us/disted/de_survey.cfm • FAQ’s • Online Interactive Orientation • http://www.webct.com/service/ViewContent?contentID=5920910 • Must maximize the learning and teaching process while using offered tools

4. Necessary Ingredients • The Syllabus: What Structure? • Students’ lives should be accounted for • Expectations must be communicated with weekly schedule and assignments • Faculty need to keep schedule for interaction • Communication lines should be clear • Access to tutorials and assistance is clear • Discussion questions with readings • Variety is KEY! • Require assignments to be turned in. • Reasonable due dates

5. Necessary Ingredients • Interaction • Interaction is essential!!! • Address group dynamics, encouraging student involvement in course activities, providing visuals and careful planning • Being invisible is not possible • Communication is essential!! • Must be ongoing, regular, continuous, and easy • Communicate confusion • Contact when invisible • Peer critique of assignments, chat rooms, online discussions, small-group projects and study groups

6. Necessary Ingredients • Creating Community • Faculty must work towards this!!!!! • Students need to feel connection to materials and others • Professor must comment on students’ comments • Many opportunities to build community and it is our job to do it!

7. Necessary Ingredients • Feedback • Continual feedback mechanism is needed • Feedback is needed by student and instructor • Students provide feedback more often when they can do it anonymously • Mechanisms must be implemented to evaluation web-based environments, content, format design, and structure • Online feedback form

8. Necessary Ingredients • Presenting Course Materials • Array of possibilities exist • Instructors must KNOW the technology • Key Considerations for Video • Use long, medium, and close-up shots to establish visual introduction • Using zoom-in to focus the learner’s attention on a specific object • Focus on object long enough to “register” • Use various video formats - “walkthrough” • Use first-person to personalize video • Use audio and video together • Use video if learning requires movement

9. Necessary Ingredients • Key Considerations for Graphics • Use graphics to reduce nonapplicable detail • Avoid use of biases or stereotypes in graphics or animations • Use humor cautiously • Key Considerations for Text • Limit amount of text on screen • Position text appropriately • Create lists and headers when appropriate • Verify appropriate use of color

10. Necessary Ingredients • Key Considerations for Interactivity • Break content into small units and build in questions with postive and negative feedback • Move from content to practice to summary to keep learner from being bored • Provide opportunity for interaction every three to five screens • Base questions upon previously acquired knowledge • Present information through active exploration such as problem solving or learning through discovery

11. Necessary Ingredients • Tracking Student Participation • Identify what course a student is in • Questions should be cataloged into topics to limit individual typed responses • Utilize bulletin board whenever possible • Monitor online discussion but keep participation to minimum • Humor or self-disclosure will humanize the instructor • Structuring Online Discussions • Utilize online discussion frequently • They foster community • Writing thoughts enhances thinking • Eliminates time restraints

12. Necessary Ingredients • Structuring Online Discussions • Why use online discussions? • Facilitate overall discussion • Encourage group interaction on problems • Stimulate class discussion and build community • Facilitate after-hour discussion • Enourage ESL participation • Provide forum for discussion • Assessment • Students must know how they are doing • Self-assessment tools should be made available • Faculty should monitor students and give personal feedback • Students also need to be able to provide professor with feedback