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Week 4 Materials for Online Courses

Posted by: | September 28, 2011 | No Comment |

In a continuation of Week 3 Course Design topic, this week focuses on the selection of content, materials and ways to utilize it in an online or blended course.

I’ll take this moment to discuss my recent course design process for an Intro to IT class.  I’ll give you some background information that will be critical to understand my design thought/decision-making process:

  • The college provided the textbook, course description, outcomes, most of the syllabus, and the Bb Vista CMS.
  • The textbook publisher provided chapter presentations (PowerPoint), glossary, instructor notes & test bank questions.
  • I was allowed to choose from 2 previously taught online courses as templates for my new online class.
  • I got the assignment about a month before the quarter started.
With all that in mind, besides taking a good look at the textbook, I went ahead and took a examined the two previously taught online courses and studied how the courses were organized. Needless to say, they were quite different: one was setup almost like an individualized online course. It has no interaction with either the instructor or the other students. It reminded me of old style correspondence courses, the only difference was this one was online and the time was the 21st century! The other course had a lot of student-led participation but information and materials were quite dispersed. I wasn’t pleased with neither one of the potential templates… so, I was back to the drawing board.
I decided to look at the syllabus as a way to help me figure out how to organize the course. I had two sample schedules from which I draw my course calendar. Once I knew what I would teach on each particular week of the quarter, I went ahead and talked with my mentor about my frustration with the templates. She suggested I create learning modules with the following basic structure:
I. Intro
     a. Chapter Overview & Assigned Readings
     b. Learning Objectives [provided by publisher]
     c. PowerPoint presentations [provided by publisher]
     d. List of key terms (aka Glossary) [provided by publisher]
II. Activities
     a. Discussion boards
     b. Assignment
     c. Assessments [provided by publisher]
               1. Self-Assessment
               2. Quiz
In this way, content and activities would be clearly separated and students wouldn’t need to navigate outside of the module in order to complete all associated tasks for that particular week.
After working out the structure for the weekly learning modules, I went ahead and work on designing the particular discussion board prompts and the various assignments I would need. I’m now done with 4 of the 11 modules. The class is in progress and modules are hidden but released the particular week they are scheduled for.
In retrospect, after reading Chapter 3, I realized I used my syllabus course calendar as the primary engine behind my design when I should have used the course objectives. Perhaps the only good thing was that by incorporating weekly learning objectives my modules are actually in track with what I set out to do, even if I didn’t fully consciously do it that way.
under: Teaching experience
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Week 3 – Pedagogy and Course Design

Posted by: | September 27, 2011 | 1 Comment |

Hola!

First of all my apologies for the late posting of my Week 3 reflection. Even when I scored 10 out of 20 points on the Beginner’s Questionnaire, I feel I lean towards the constructivist theory because I could have easily picked the lower point options.

  • Students should be given a choice on how to learn the material (2 pts) – Absolutely, they will end up picking learning ways that best adapt to their learning styles!
  • The content should be at least partially created by students (2 pts) –  Definitely, this brings buy-in and ownership which will result in more engaged students.
  • Students should be active participants in creating their own knowledge (3 pts) – Of course, same as above.
  • Assessments are most important to test application of skills (3pts)
Total points: 10
In looking at the Seven Principles – Technology as a lever, I can see how principles 1, 2, 3 & 7 can somehow fit with my constructivist approach. Below is the list of principles:
1. Good Practice Encourages Contacts Between Students and Faculty
2. Good Practice Develops Reciprocity and Cooperation Among Students
3. Good Practice Uses Active Learning Techniques
4. Good Practice Gives Prompt Feedback
5. Good Practice Emphasizes Time on Task
6. Good Practice Communicates High Expectations
7. Good Practice Respects Diverse Talents and Ways of Learning
I’m currently teaching an Intro to IT course. The objectives and outcomes below were provided by the Department.

Course Description: Presents a general overview of information technology. Topics include how computers work, different types of computers, input and data storage devices, operating systems, data communications, systems analysis and design, and ethics.

Course Objectives:  Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

  1. Use computer industry terminology
  2. Describe the components of a computer system and their functions
  3. Describe data representation and the manipulation of data by a computer
  4. Describe the uses and the limitations of computers
  5. Describe social implications of technology
  6. Describe various careers in IT

Course Outcomes: 

  • Describe the five categories of computer hardware: input, processing, storage, output, and communications.
  • Explain what a computer-based information system is by focusing on hardware, software, data/information, procedures, people and communications (connectivity).
  • Explain how data is represented and stored in a computer system
  • Explain the function of processor, RAM, and registers.
  • Describe input and output hardware, including video devices, electronic cameras. Sensors, multimedia, pointing devices, scanners, and terminals.
  • Describe storage, including the difference between primary and secondary storage, the characteristics of diskettes, flash memory and backup.
  • Name and describe system software, including the components, interfaces, and common operating systems.
  • Describe features common to applications software, software specialty tools, and the importance of software copyright violation.
  • Explain the basic communications principles of analog and digital signals, modems, communications software, and protocols.
  • Identify and explain the various communications channels, both wired and wireless.
  • Make preliminary decisions about which career in computers to pursue.
  • Describe the phases of the systems development life cycle, four basic approaches to implementing a new computer-based information system.
  • Explain what a program is, compare and contrast object-oriented and visual programming, and identify some traditional programming languages.
  • Describe the function of a database, and the differences between a file management and database management system.
  • Define e-commerce and its impact on computer systems.
If I’ve learned anything about goals and objectives this week is that my current course needs to be revised. It seems to me goals are missing while objectives and outcomes are been seeing as two different things, when indeed they are supposed to be the same. Bloom’s Taxonomy will help me evaluate these and create clearly defined goals and learning outcomes. Will I have the time to do that this week? The answer is no but I will give it some serious thought in the next few weeks.
under: Pedagogy
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Week 2 – Program for Online Teaching

Posted by: | September 14, 2011 | No Comment |

I took it a bit more laxed after being overloaded with info the previous week. I took Lisa’s advice to stay on track and reduce the information anxiety… it worked.  I ended up watching Alec’s presentation twice.  I have to say he is a very good presenter and knows how to keep the crowd connected/motivated.  From his lecture I took a few statements or concepts to heart:

  • We are in the era of mobile devices
  • Open Content – Access to content
  • What does literacy looks like today?
  • Reverse Instruction
  • Changes to our ideas of privacy
  • “Education is something we create for ourselves” – S. Downes
  • “Don’t limit child to your own learning, he was born in another time” -Tagore

From the lis of recommended sites, I liked Delaney Kirk & Cathy Jo Nelson’s sites the best.  Both blogs were organized and provided quite a bit of information without falling to much into the “buy my book” sales pitch. in not distant third place is followed by Thinking Things (aywatt). One new tool that I found from browsing these was www.Zotero.com.  From their site description: “Zotero is the only research tool that automatically senses content and adds it to your personal library with a single click. Whether you’re searching for a preprint on arXiv.org, a journal article from JSTOR, a news story from the New York Times, or a book from your university library catalog, Zotero has you covered with support for thousands of sites.”  Alec’s presentation also provided us with a great web resource: Stephen Downes, which in my humble opinion has more wealth of information. He is also running a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) look for #Change11 tags.

Making the best of RSS feeds – I setup my Google RSS Reader a while back and actually had forgotten about it as research time became more scarce. So when Lisa reminded us to use RSS readers, I was reminded of this tool I haven’t used in quite some time.  I read people’s updates using the reader all week long and remembered how helpful the reader is and smack myself for not using it more frequently.

Ch 1 Reading – I finished the chapter but it didn’t add much to my knowledge but I probably expected that of an introductory chapter.

under: Pedagogy
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How to protect your work online

Posted by: | September 9, 2011 | 1 Comment |

Often people are detracted from publishing their work online because someone else is going to plagiarize it, use it without permission, copy it and even alter it.

Check out the link to this article discussing ways to protect your work online and related new web tools: http://thenextweb.com/apps/2011/09/09/5-ways-to-protect-your-work-online/

under: Resources
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Information overload

Posted by: | September 3, 2011 | 6 Comments |

Hola!

I’m just starting the MiraCosta College Program for Online Teaching (MCC POT). I’ve gone through the list of tasks associated with week 1 [almost done] and I’m already suffering from information overload! Between designing my first online class and taking this certificate course I hope my brain can keep up!

Wow, it is amazing how much good information is been shared by my virtual classmates. I’m literally drowning in a see of information and wondering what do I have to offer. You can find a small contribution to our shared knowledge by clicking on my del.licio.us links on the right hand side of my blog.

agnes

under: Resources
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¡Bienvenid@s!

Posted by: | August 18, 2011 | 2 Comments |

Welcome to a small niche for online teaching and instructional technology. I can’t even remember how I stumbled upon the Miracosta Online Teaching Program but I’m so glad I did.  I’ll be teaching my first online class this fall quarter, Intro to IT at Bellevue College in WA. I’m currently in transition both professionally and personally. Just until this week I was the Director of Computing Services at the college, which meant I oversaw all the technology operations on campus, phones, computers, servers, projectors, and the network infrastructure. I will be moving back home to Puerto Rico to take care of my elderly parents and online teaching will allow me to be productive while mentally challenged.

Instructional technology & its crossroads with pedagogy have been a passion of mine for the past few years. I’ll be moving from supporting the back-end of online education to the front lines of virtual classrooms. I’m thrilled to join the Miracosta program, it came in at the right time for me. I look forward to a lot of learning. I think I will have a bit more time now to continue the research and learning into this fascinating subject.  Thank you all for all you bring and all you’ll share with us. I’m also excited to have my younger sister join this class as well. It will be the first time we are both in the same classroom and she is already pushing my stakes higher… a little competition bring the best in us ;)

Enjoy,

agnes

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