For close to 2 years now, I have been working with a number of faculty and instructional staff to bring synchronous learning to our e-learning campus. Like any new technology, I had early adopters, the wait and sees or WASs, and those that well, let’s just say preferred not to use synchronous technology at all. There was one group that I had forgotten about. A group that is probably the most important--the students.
I’ve been doing this long enough that I’m never surprised by the folks that are willing to be one of the first to implement a new technology in their classroom. The biggest reason for adding synchronous learning to our campus’s toolbox was that we had a rather large group of faculty members that refused to use asynchronous technologies alone. They wanted to have direct real-time access to their students. My initial thought was that this was the missing piece. The magic bullet that would bring all faculty members into the distance learning fold.
Two years passed, and the synchronous environment is finally beginning to take off. We have a number of faculty using our synchronous tool Elluminate Live, in a variety of ways. Many use it to conduct lectures at a distance. Some hold virtual office hours. Still others are capturing their face-to-face lectures and then sending out a link or even using RSS to create Vodcast archives of their lectures. Students can then review and make-up work. I have also worked hard to establish some partnerships between faculty members and our campus tutoring center. We now offer limited tutoring sessions in English and Statistics.
While faculty have not been the quickest to embrace this modality, students seem to love it! I’m certain there is a level of novelty to all of this, but students are quick to notice the necessity of such a tool. After “attending” a course meeting via Elluminate Live, a group of students asked if they might use the tool to facilitate their group meetings. We are currently using this student group as a pilot.
The day after the students met for the first time on their own in Elluminate Live, I watched the session via the automatically generated recording link. I would give the session a mixed review. The student that agreed to be the moderator had done their homework. Facilitating the group’s discussion using the technology went off without a hitch. If what I was seeing was an indicator of future performance, I was concerned that the group wouldn’t stay on track and use their time wisely. However, by the time the group requested their second session, they had figured out that in order to be successful as a group, as well as take advantage of Elluminate Live’s tools, they had to have a larger part of their assigned work completed prior to meeting online.
Now, this might not seem like a complicated concept. Stop and think about all the meetings you have attended in the face-to-face format. How many times have those meetings never achieved what they were supposed to? More often than not, you walk out of these meetings feeling dumber than when you went in.
As far as I know there is no technological tool on the face of the earth that will prepare your work and deliver it for you. But the use of synchronous tools like Elluminate Live help facilitate group member buy-in to a process and project.
This synchronous tool helped students realize something very early on. They needed to work closely as a group, take ownership of a piece of the work, and be ready to present their work. Regardless of the subject matter, these career skills will help them perform their jobs as employees. This kind of first-hand group experience is the type of thing that employers have been asking of Higher education providers for at least the last ten years.
From an academic standpoint synchronous tools allow students to set meeting times that are convenient for them. They allow the student be in a comfortable physical environment, such as their home, and to have access to all of their work in the same location as their communication tool--their computer! All of these attributes combine to make synchronous communication a welcome addition to our virtual campus. It helps to build community, but most importantly, it helps the learner.
Useful Link:
http://www.elluminate.com
Please stay subscribed for more features on both asynchronous and synchronous practices in education and how they directly affect the learner.
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Online Orientation Considerations
For most people in higher education, this time of year means the start of a new semester. We have succumb to the holiday rush, and now we are making a mad dash to kick off the new year with the Spring semester. For those instructors teaching online, part of the rush always entails hosting some type of orientation session for students. On my campus, faculty have the choice of hosting orientations as a face-to-face or online session.
Many will argue that they enjoy the face-to-face session because it gives them the chance to personally meet their students. After all, this may be the one and only chance they will physically be in the same location. I have no issue with this train of thought. Please continue to meet face-to-face, but integrate an online component into your orientation session. It will give you and your students a head start.
An instructor must change their pedagogy when they transition from the traditional classroom to online instruction. This paradigm shift needs to make it all the way to the level of the course orientation. Teaching strategies in an online course are different, and so orientation strategies must change as well!
With the above paragraphs as a given, I share with you a Web site. This site is one that I recommend faculty send their students to as part of their orientation:
http://www.harperdoit.net/dlo/DLOwebsite/index.htm
I have several reasons why I like this site. The first (and honest) reason is that I helped put some of the content together. Secondly, this site is well rounded. It makes an attempt to walk students through multiple areas that are necessary for successful distance learners. Finally, the site delivers the information in a nonthreatening way while addressing multiple learning styles that inevitably access the site.
The site is divided into three major sections: Learning online, Using Blackboard, and computer skills. Each of these sections is a learning unit unto itself. An instructor could assign a specific piece, or they could have their students complete all three units. We have instructors that link to a specific component. Most of the time this is done with the Blackboard section. Instructors will link to a piece as a reminder for students on how to complete a task. For instance, submit an assignment in Blackboard.
Regardless of how its used, this site, or something like it should be available for instructors teaching an online course. It's a great way to introduce students to online learning. It's also a great way to show students early in the course that while there may not be a course prerequisite, there is a certain level of technology proficiency and an appropriate mind-set for taking an online course. Just like a face-to-face course, it's important for the student to know what they're getting into.
Many have probably already started their semester, but think about implementing something like this for next semester's online orientation. After initially setting up the site, the work is minimal. The session can be accessed anywhere you can get an Internet connection, and watching which students encounter problems with the distance environment you will be able to intervene and help those students determine if this really is the learning format for them.
Using the various surveys, tools, and video tutorials, students will have a good idea of what it is like to be a student in a virtual classroom. They will have an environment in which they can experience online learning. They can control that experience and learn about things that they may never ask about in a face-to-face session for fear of being ridiculed by their peers. Finding a comfort zone early in the semester means, the technology recedes into the background, the content becomes king, and the students are stars.
Useful links:
http://www.harperdoit.net/dlo/DLOwebsite/index.htm
Please stay subscribed for more features on both asynchronous and synchronous practices in education and how they directly affect the learner.
Many will argue that they enjoy the face-to-face session because it gives them the chance to personally meet their students. After all, this may be the one and only chance they will physically be in the same location. I have no issue with this train of thought. Please continue to meet face-to-face, but integrate an online component into your orientation session. It will give you and your students a head start.
An instructor must change their pedagogy when they transition from the traditional classroom to online instruction. This paradigm shift needs to make it all the way to the level of the course orientation. Teaching strategies in an online course are different, and so orientation strategies must change as well!
With the above paragraphs as a given, I share with you a Web site. This site is one that I recommend faculty send their students to as part of their orientation:
http://www.harperdoit.net/dlo/DLOwebsite/index.htm
I have several reasons why I like this site. The first (and honest) reason is that I helped put some of the content together. Secondly, this site is well rounded. It makes an attempt to walk students through multiple areas that are necessary for successful distance learners. Finally, the site delivers the information in a nonthreatening way while addressing multiple learning styles that inevitably access the site.
The site is divided into three major sections: Learning online, Using Blackboard, and computer skills. Each of these sections is a learning unit unto itself. An instructor could assign a specific piece, or they could have their students complete all three units. We have instructors that link to a specific component. Most of the time this is done with the Blackboard section. Instructors will link to a piece as a reminder for students on how to complete a task. For instance, submit an assignment in Blackboard.
Regardless of how its used, this site, or something like it should be available for instructors teaching an online course. It's a great way to introduce students to online learning. It's also a great way to show students early in the course that while there may not be a course prerequisite, there is a certain level of technology proficiency and an appropriate mind-set for taking an online course. Just like a face-to-face course, it's important for the student to know what they're getting into.
Many have probably already started their semester, but think about implementing something like this for next semester's online orientation. After initially setting up the site, the work is minimal. The session can be accessed anywhere you can get an Internet connection, and watching which students encounter problems with the distance environment you will be able to intervene and help those students determine if this really is the learning format for them.
Using the various surveys, tools, and video tutorials, students will have a good idea of what it is like to be a student in a virtual classroom. They will have an environment in which they can experience online learning. They can control that experience and learn about things that they may never ask about in a face-to-face session for fear of being ridiculed by their peers. Finding a comfort zone early in the semester means, the technology recedes into the background, the content becomes king, and the students are stars.
Useful links:
http://www.harperdoit.net/dlo/DLOwebsite/index.htm
Please stay subscribed for more features on both asynchronous and synchronous practices in education and how they directly affect the learner.
A Reason to Podcast
You don't have to travel far to encounter people with white buds in their ears, connected to white wires, tethered to machines almost as thin as a credit card holding mountains of data. The iPod is all around us. Just about every household has one in some form or another.
It didn't take folks long to begin to understand that this machine, initially produced to sell music, could also be used for a lot of other cool things. Now, with the release of the iPod Touch, the content market has exploded. Not only can a user listen to music and watch feature length movies, they can view pictures, surf the Web, check email, and use all kinds of Web 2.0 applications that are rolling out every day.
I know a technology has hit the mainstream when I get daily phone calls from faculty requesting help implementing it in their course materials. Podcasting is here! The issue I'm facing is that many faculty like the idea of being able to say they have a podcast, but many don't truly understand what a podcast is and how it should be used.
Many of the requests I receive start as a request for a podcast but end up being delivered in a different format. Somewhere in the not to distant past, people became confused by what it is to deploy a simple audio file versus delivering a podcast.
A podcast is an audio file that is saved in a specific way and paired with some code that broadcasts not only a specific podcast episode but any subsequent episodes that you add to your list. This is the same idea as a blog. Podcasting takes advantage of the same RSS feeds that blogs employ. What you are doing is syndicating your audio in a podcast as opposed to the written word in a blog. Whether you are delivering an audio episode or a written installment, podcasting/blogging assumes that there will be a somewhat steady flow of content from the publisher.
Instructors want to use podcasting, but many of them don't need podcasting to accomplish their goals. There is a strong misconception that if they have an audio file, it needs to be set up in a podcast. If what they have is a single file, or a group of files that once published are complete, podcasting is not the best avenue. Remember podcasting assumes a continued effort by the publisher to produce materials on a somewhat regular basis. If the files that need to be uploaded are a one and done scenario, then creating small mp3 files or flash audio files will work just fine.
Before you prepare your audio for deployment, stop and think about what the goal of posting this information is. Are you going to continue to add to it? Are there a finite number of files? Are you, as the publisher, willing to continue to contribute to a long-running publishing schedule? Answering these three questions is all it takes to help determine whether you should go down the road of starting a podcast or find server space to host audio files that support your course content. In the end, the decision to include audio in a course will give students the opportunity to learn in a way that's different than typical lecture and writing. You'll be glad you did it, and it will help the student.
It didn't take folks long to begin to understand that this machine, initially produced to sell music, could also be used for a lot of other cool things. Now, with the release of the iPod Touch, the content market has exploded. Not only can a user listen to music and watch feature length movies, they can view pictures, surf the Web, check email, and use all kinds of Web 2.0 applications that are rolling out every day.
I know a technology has hit the mainstream when I get daily phone calls from faculty requesting help implementing it in their course materials. Podcasting is here! The issue I'm facing is that many faculty like the idea of being able to say they have a podcast, but many don't truly understand what a podcast is and how it should be used.
Many of the requests I receive start as a request for a podcast but end up being delivered in a different format. Somewhere in the not to distant past, people became confused by what it is to deploy a simple audio file versus delivering a podcast.
A podcast is an audio file that is saved in a specific way and paired with some code that broadcasts not only a specific podcast episode but any subsequent episodes that you add to your list. This is the same idea as a blog. Podcasting takes advantage of the same RSS feeds that blogs employ. What you are doing is syndicating your audio in a podcast as opposed to the written word in a blog. Whether you are delivering an audio episode or a written installment, podcasting/blogging assumes that there will be a somewhat steady flow of content from the publisher.
Instructors want to use podcasting, but many of them don't need podcasting to accomplish their goals. There is a strong misconception that if they have an audio file, it needs to be set up in a podcast. If what they have is a single file, or a group of files that once published are complete, podcasting is not the best avenue. Remember podcasting assumes a continued effort by the publisher to produce materials on a somewhat regular basis. If the files that need to be uploaded are a one and done scenario, then creating small mp3 files or flash audio files will work just fine.
Before you prepare your audio for deployment, stop and think about what the goal of posting this information is. Are you going to continue to add to it? Are there a finite number of files? Are you, as the publisher, willing to continue to contribute to a long-running publishing schedule? Answering these three questions is all it takes to help determine whether you should go down the road of starting a podcast or find server space to host audio files that support your course content. In the end, the decision to include audio in a course will give students the opportunity to learn in a way that's different than typical lecture and writing. You'll be glad you did it, and it will help the student.
PPTs that load ASAP and easy to see!
Everyone at one point or another has been locked in a dimly lit room while someone read from a screen...eh I mean used PowerPoint to enhance the super interactive and highly motivational presentation right? If you haven’t, then consider yourself lucky! At the very least I’m sure that you have read one of the many articles floating around about how America suffers from PowerPoint poisoning.
I’m not going to get on my soap box and talk about whether PowerPoint is wrong or right. I think that each instructor must make that call for themselves and their students. What I do want to talk about is what you can do with the PowerPoint presentation that you created for your face-to-face class that you are now thinking about using with your online class. The easiest way would be to log into your institutions CMS and upload that gangly .ppt file. In a perfect world this is great. Your students have access 24/7 and there are no excuses. Right?
Let’s take a look at this question from a couple of different angles. The first issue I see is that there is an assumption being made. The instructor assumes that all students in her class have a working copy of Microsoft’s PowerPoint installed on their computer. I can assure you that much to Mr. Gates’ dismay, not everyone owns a copy of this digital slice of Americana.
According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project just under 50% of adults have access to a high speed Internet or Broadband connection at home. If a PowerPoint file is chock full of media goodness, there is still a good chance in America that about 50% of your participants may not be able to download it, or they may have to wait a significant amount of time to download content that is considered critical to successful completion of a course.
This entire argument boils down to accessibility. However, this time it’s not accessibility in terms of those with cognitive or psychomotor skill handicaps. It’s about a failure to address the technological lowest common denominator. When this happens both the instructor and the student fail.
Fixing this is actually very easy. Many may already have the tools necessary to bring PowerPoint files to the asynchronous world. I know that there are several ways to overcome this limitation. The process I am describing is only one. Please don’t dismiss me if my way is not your way. Come to think of it, if you already have a way, then I have to ask; why are you reading this?
On the Macintosh side, the Mac OSX operating system has roots in PDF when it comes to rendering on screen fonts. Because PDF is so tightly integrated in the operating system, it is as easy as issuing the print command from the “File” pull-down menu in PowerPoint (or any other application for that matter) and then clicking the button labeled “ PDF”. Then, select “Save as PDF”. That’s it, no other software or file massaging is necessary. Choosing to save a PDF through the print command, we have all the options for creating a PDF as we would have if we were printing the document. For instance, before saving as a PDF, we could choose to PDF the .ppt file in 3up view, or notes view. It is entirely up to you.
While we are talking about the Macintosh, I think it is important that we address this same process with Keynote. Apple’s version of PowerPoint. Turning a Keynote file into a PDF is even easier. All one needs to do is choose to export the file. When the export dialog box appears choose PDF file, and you are on your way.
I don’t claim to be as familiar with the PC side of things. However, I do know that there are a number of freely downloadable applications that will do the same thing that I have described above. At the bottom of this article, I will include a couple of links to some of these sites. The latest incarnation of the Microsoft Windows Operating system may even have PDF writing capabilities built in.
If you are lucky, or flush with cash, you could purchase Adobe’s Acrobat standard, or Adobe’s Acrobat Professional. This would allow you to create PDFs with varying degrees of other functionality. At the time this article was written, the price for each version is $99 and $159 respectively.
Regardless of what platform the PowerPoint started on, The newly created PDF will be cross platform, be smaller in file size; meaning less bandwidth is needed to download, and the only application the end user needs is a free downloadable application called Adobe Acrobat Reader. Simply take your newly created PDF files and upload them to your institution’s CMS and voila. It’s a win-win situation, and most importantly, it helps the learner.
Useful Links:
http://www.pewinternet.org/
http://www.primopdf.com/
http://www.dopdf.com/
http://www.adobe.com/
Please stay subscribed for more features on both asynchronous and synchronous practices in education and how they directly affect the learner.
I’m not going to get on my soap box and talk about whether PowerPoint is wrong or right. I think that each instructor must make that call for themselves and their students. What I do want to talk about is what you can do with the PowerPoint presentation that you created for your face-to-face class that you are now thinking about using with your online class. The easiest way would be to log into your institutions CMS and upload that gangly .ppt file. In a perfect world this is great. Your students have access 24/7 and there are no excuses. Right?
Let’s take a look at this question from a couple of different angles. The first issue I see is that there is an assumption being made. The instructor assumes that all students in her class have a working copy of Microsoft’s PowerPoint installed on their computer. I can assure you that much to Mr. Gates’ dismay, not everyone owns a copy of this digital slice of Americana.
According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project just under 50% of adults have access to a high speed Internet or Broadband connection at home. If a PowerPoint file is chock full of media goodness, there is still a good chance in America that about 50% of your participants may not be able to download it, or they may have to wait a significant amount of time to download content that is considered critical to successful completion of a course.
This entire argument boils down to accessibility. However, this time it’s not accessibility in terms of those with cognitive or psychomotor skill handicaps. It’s about a failure to address the technological lowest common denominator. When this happens both the instructor and the student fail.
Fixing this is actually very easy. Many may already have the tools necessary to bring PowerPoint files to the asynchronous world. I know that there are several ways to overcome this limitation. The process I am describing is only one. Please don’t dismiss me if my way is not your way. Come to think of it, if you already have a way, then I have to ask; why are you reading this?
On the Macintosh side, the Mac OSX operating system has roots in PDF when it comes to rendering on screen fonts. Because PDF is so tightly integrated in the operating system, it is as easy as issuing the print command from the “File” pull-down menu in PowerPoint (or any other application for that matter) and then clicking the button labeled “ PDF”. Then, select “Save as PDF”. That’s it, no other software or file massaging is necessary. Choosing to save a PDF through the print command, we have all the options for creating a PDF as we would have if we were printing the document. For instance, before saving as a PDF, we could choose to PDF the .ppt file in 3up view, or notes view. It is entirely up to you.
While we are talking about the Macintosh, I think it is important that we address this same process with Keynote. Apple’s version of PowerPoint. Turning a Keynote file into a PDF is even easier. All one needs to do is choose to export the file. When the export dialog box appears choose PDF file, and you are on your way.
I don’t claim to be as familiar with the PC side of things. However, I do know that there are a number of freely downloadable applications that will do the same thing that I have described above. At the bottom of this article, I will include a couple of links to some of these sites. The latest incarnation of the Microsoft Windows Operating system may even have PDF writing capabilities built in.
If you are lucky, or flush with cash, you could purchase Adobe’s Acrobat standard, or Adobe’s Acrobat Professional. This would allow you to create PDFs with varying degrees of other functionality. At the time this article was written, the price for each version is $99 and $159 respectively.
Regardless of what platform the PowerPoint started on, The newly created PDF will be cross platform, be smaller in file size; meaning less bandwidth is needed to download, and the only application the end user needs is a free downloadable application called Adobe Acrobat Reader. Simply take your newly created PDF files and upload them to your institution’s CMS and voila. It’s a win-win situation, and most importantly, it helps the learner.
Useful Links:
http://www.pewinternet.org/
http://www.primopdf.com/
http://www.dopdf.com/
http://www.adobe.com/
Please stay subscribed for more features on both asynchronous and synchronous practices in education and how they directly affect the learner.
Monday, January 28, 2008
To Discuss or Not To Discuss...
One of the first things that I try to impress upon anyone that comes to see me for help in developing an online course is that they MUST use the discussion board. It is as simple as black and white. I can always tell the instructors that use the discussion board component to placate me versus those that use it as a serious learning tool. Those that use it because I said they should use it are always in my office the following semester complaining about how useless the discussion board tool is.
In a way, I’m glad that they are struggling. They get to see first-hand exactly what I’m talking about. Without the use of discussion in an online course, there is no community. When there is no community, the ability for students and the instructor to learn from each other disappears. Remember that old adage about it taking a village to raise a child? The same holds true for distance learning.
When these instructors visit me prior to the next semester, the first thing I do is ask them what kinds of topics were they posting for their students to respond to. When we open their discussion boards, I notice that many of their discussions can be easily answered in just a few short sentences; if not a simple yes or no! In my mind, this isn’t a discussion. When my wife and I are in a debate over what to eat for dinner, we often converse in paragraphs of point, counterpoint. Debate over course topics should generate as much discussion- if not more than a discussion over burgers or tacos.
The discussion board assignment is an opportunity for the instructor to move up Bloom’s taxonomy and allow students to begin to synthesize course content. Instructors that miss the face-to-face environment because they can’t see physical evidence of student’s understanding should welcome the discussion board with open arms. It is this higher level thinking that will help the instructor truly understand whether their student’s “get it” or not; without ever looking at a single face in class.
There are 5 critical pieces to setting up a proper discussion board. First, the instructor needs to decide how involved they want to be in the discussion. My suggestion is that instructors may want to be more involved in the first few semesters of developing a new course. This way, the topics themselves can be judged and/or modified if necessary. Once they are comfortable with the questions and how they are worded, their visits can be trimmed back. That’s not to say that instructors shouldn’t visit the discussion board at least twice a day when any discussion topic is active. It is also not enough to just visit the discussion. Make some comments to let students know that their work isn’t going unnoticed.
Secondly, for ease of grading, the instructor will want to recommend materials that students read or review prior to submitting their responses to the discussion board. I recommend this so that instructors can spend their time grading the responses and not combing the Internet looking for resources that may or may not be cited by the student, and may or may not be considered legitimate. This is also how an instructor can further control discussion so that it is congruent with the course learning objectives.
Next, instructors should think about the questions they want their students to respond to. Notice I said questions, as in plural. The thing to remember is that in an online course, the discussion board is taking the place of the discussion that students would be having in a face-to-face class. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that in the traditional classroom, instructors ask more than one question during a class period. When formulating these questions, create some that have definitive answers, and others that could be left open to the student’s own interpretation of the concepts. Student’s interpretations will elicit responses from their peers and give instructors the best indicator of their knowledge application and retention.
Finally, instructors should decide how each response is going to be graded. Once they have figured this out, they should make it public. Create a rubric that is shared with students at orientation. Make it part of the syllabus, and also have it posted somewhere that makes sense in online course materials.
I know, I said there were five pieces. The fifth piece is conditional. It is based on whether or not the instructor is teaching online or in a blended format. If teaching online, then the four pieces already outlined is all that is needed. If the course is blended, there is one final piece to think about.
Blended courses meet both in the classroom as well as online. The instructor needs to think about how the work done online sets up the next face-to-face session, or vise-versa. Make sure that traditional classroom time is spent discussing the work being completed online. When I say this I don’t mean providing dry reminders that X is due in the discussion board by this date. Use student’s written materials to inject involvement and interest in the topical conversations held in the traditional classroom. Make the student’s work worth more than just the grade they get at the end of the semester.
There are lots of considerations to be made when developing an online course. One that shouldn’t take too much pondering is the choice to use a discussion board. It is the best way an instructor can control communication about course topics while getting a good idea how each student is interpreting and applying course information. A little thought and careful planning will give instructors the results they are looking for while achieving the highest goal of all--helping the learner.
Please stay subscribed for more features on both asynchronous and synchronous practices in education and how they directly affect the learner.
In a way, I’m glad that they are struggling. They get to see first-hand exactly what I’m talking about. Without the use of discussion in an online course, there is no community. When there is no community, the ability for students and the instructor to learn from each other disappears. Remember that old adage about it taking a village to raise a child? The same holds true for distance learning.
When these instructors visit me prior to the next semester, the first thing I do is ask them what kinds of topics were they posting for their students to respond to. When we open their discussion boards, I notice that many of their discussions can be easily answered in just a few short sentences; if not a simple yes or no! In my mind, this isn’t a discussion. When my wife and I are in a debate over what to eat for dinner, we often converse in paragraphs of point, counterpoint. Debate over course topics should generate as much discussion- if not more than a discussion over burgers or tacos.
The discussion board assignment is an opportunity for the instructor to move up Bloom’s taxonomy and allow students to begin to synthesize course content. Instructors that miss the face-to-face environment because they can’t see physical evidence of student’s understanding should welcome the discussion board with open arms. It is this higher level thinking that will help the instructor truly understand whether their student’s “get it” or not; without ever looking at a single face in class.
There are 5 critical pieces to setting up a proper discussion board. First, the instructor needs to decide how involved they want to be in the discussion. My suggestion is that instructors may want to be more involved in the first few semesters of developing a new course. This way, the topics themselves can be judged and/or modified if necessary. Once they are comfortable with the questions and how they are worded, their visits can be trimmed back. That’s not to say that instructors shouldn’t visit the discussion board at least twice a day when any discussion topic is active. It is also not enough to just visit the discussion. Make some comments to let students know that their work isn’t going unnoticed.
Secondly, for ease of grading, the instructor will want to recommend materials that students read or review prior to submitting their responses to the discussion board. I recommend this so that instructors can spend their time grading the responses and not combing the Internet looking for resources that may or may not be cited by the student, and may or may not be considered legitimate. This is also how an instructor can further control discussion so that it is congruent with the course learning objectives.
Next, instructors should think about the questions they want their students to respond to. Notice I said questions, as in plural. The thing to remember is that in an online course, the discussion board is taking the place of the discussion that students would be having in a face-to-face class. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that in the traditional classroom, instructors ask more than one question during a class period. When formulating these questions, create some that have definitive answers, and others that could be left open to the student’s own interpretation of the concepts. Student’s interpretations will elicit responses from their peers and give instructors the best indicator of their knowledge application and retention.
Finally, instructors should decide how each response is going to be graded. Once they have figured this out, they should make it public. Create a rubric that is shared with students at orientation. Make it part of the syllabus, and also have it posted somewhere that makes sense in online course materials.
I know, I said there were five pieces. The fifth piece is conditional. It is based on whether or not the instructor is teaching online or in a blended format. If teaching online, then the four pieces already outlined is all that is needed. If the course is blended, there is one final piece to think about.
Blended courses meet both in the classroom as well as online. The instructor needs to think about how the work done online sets up the next face-to-face session, or vise-versa. Make sure that traditional classroom time is spent discussing the work being completed online. When I say this I don’t mean providing dry reminders that X is due in the discussion board by this date. Use student’s written materials to inject involvement and interest in the topical conversations held in the traditional classroom. Make the student’s work worth more than just the grade they get at the end of the semester.
There are lots of considerations to be made when developing an online course. One that shouldn’t take too much pondering is the choice to use a discussion board. It is the best way an instructor can control communication about course topics while getting a good idea how each student is interpreting and applying course information. A little thought and careful planning will give instructors the results they are looking for while achieving the highest goal of all--helping the learner.
Please stay subscribed for more features on both asynchronous and synchronous practices in education and how they directly affect the learner.
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