Distance Learning Mentoring Group (DLMG) Resources

There are an incredible number of resources to help you in developing an online course. The links below may get you started.

Where to Begin

The checklist helps you align course objectives and/or competencies with the course resources/materials, learner interactions and assessment/measurement. The checklist reflects the Quality Matters guidelines. Quality Matters is a research-based system for evaluating and creating exemplary online courses that many colleges and universities espouse.

Click on this link: http://www.units.muohio.edu/cool/tools/index.html. Note the options on the left side of the screen that appears. Click on How to Begin Workshop to view the workshop presentation. Click on CoOL Tools to access the checklist.

 

Syllabi for Online Courses

The syllabus is as important for an online class as a face-to-face class, if not more so. What should you include in your syllabus?

Maricopa Community College District has very specific guidelines for what needs to be incorporated in your class syllabus. Familiarize yourself with these guidelines and view examples of excellent syllabi crafted by MCCD faculty at http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/syllabus/index.php

The University of Delaware has information on Designing a Learning-Centered Syllabus.

Professor James Lee's Introduction to Media Production course homepage is a terrific example of a syllabus that is a strong practical tool, marketing commodity, and outreach resource. Check it out at http://www.unc.edu/~jimlee/14page01.htm.

Prince George's Community College provides a very useful Checklist for Online Faculty.

MCC's Beth Alsen, Education Faculty, has created several extremely attractive, functional documents in Word that are used in her online course and may serve as templates for you, including her course syllabus, information on contacting the instructor, before you begin, and getting started. She's given you permission to use them and/or edit them and use them as you'd like.

 

Viewing Online Courses

You might not have to start creating your online course from scratch. Publishers have created online courses called E-packs. You can edit, remove, or add to content in the E-Pack, customizing it for your students. Click on this link to see if there is an E-pack for your course! Searching for E-packs.

When you first begin to create an online course, it is extremely helpful to visit a few online courses (in your discipline if possible) to see what features appeal to you and which features you want to be sure and avoid. A starting place for finding online courses are these sites:

MIT has created an Open CourseWare site to make MIT course materials that are used in the teaching of almost all undergraduate and graduate subjects available on the web, free of charge, to any user anywhere in the world. Check it out to see what they have available that might help your students.

 

Using a Learning Management System (LMS - WebCT) to Deliver Your Online Course

If you are an MCC faculty member, you can download a copy of Respondus software by clicking on this link. Use the MCC username and password that you use to log onto your MCC email account. If you encounter any downloading problems, contact Jeff Anderson in the Center for Teaching and Learning [jeffa@mail.mc.maricopa.edu, phone (480) 461-7709]. 

There are links on the CTL website that give step-by-step directions for using Respondus. After clicking on this link, select Using Respondus to Create Quizzes/Exams from the list that appears. You can also view demo movies on how to use Respondus at http://www.respondus.com/products/demos.shtml#importing

Many publishers provide test banks in Respondus format. Click here to check if the publisher of the textbook your students use has one available: Publishers' Respondus Test Banks. More information on Respondus Test Banks can be found at http://www.respondus.com/update/2008-11-d.shtml

If your publisher hasn't already made its test bank available in Respondus, it is likely that you the publisher's test banks into Respondus yourself. Click on this link for a video showing you how to Import Publisher's Test Banks. If you need assistance in this task, the CTL can help.

Beth Alsen, of MCC's Educational Studies Department, has created a number of grading forms (rubrics) for her English as a Second Language education students. She agreed to share them with other faculty. She grants her permission to use them as is or edit them as you wish. Click on the links below to access her grading forms:

Autobiography Rubric
Discussion Rubric
Interview Rubric
Introduction Rubric
Student Powerpoint Rubric

Bruce Harrison kindly shares his rubric for discussions with us at http://bruceb.harrison.googlepages.com/ Click on his link to Discussion Board Scoring Rubric (17 April 08) at that site.

Do you want your class to do some group work? While working together has definite benefits, students often complain that some group members don't do their share of the work. Base part of the grade for the assignment on rankings students provide of their peers' contributions. A rubric for this purpose is available at http://www4.nau.edu/assessment/oaalibrary/Rubrics/Group_Participation_Rubric.htm

 

1. Respondus and WebCT - Use MCC's Learning Management System's (WebCT) anonymous survey function. Those of you familiar with WebCT and Respondus can download and "save as" the following file: dl_survey.rsp This Respondus file consists of survey questions drawn from the ÒStudent Instructional Rating QuestionnaireÓ currently in use for classroom-based courses, the online Distance Learning Student Survey used in 1998 and 1999, and from faculty feedback from members of the Distance Learning Committee during the 2003-2004 academic year. Faculty have the option of using these questions, editing them, deleting them, or creating their own in addition to those provided.

If you are an MCC faculty member, you can download a copy of Respondus software by clicking on this link. Use the MCC username and password that you use to log onto your MCC email account. If you encounter any downloading problems, contact Jeff Anderson in the Center for Teaching and Learning [jeffa@mail.mc.maricopa.edu, phone (480) 461-7709]. 

Click here for step-by-step directions to use Respondus. After clicking on this link, select Using Respondus to Create Quizzes/Exams from the list that appears. Demo movies on how to use Respondus are available at http://www.respondus.com/products/demos.shtml#importing

For help using Respondus, contact the MCC Center for Teaching and Learning.

2. GetFast is a free, online assessment tool. A number of MCC faculty have been using this tool for course evaluations. ItÕs web-based, totally customizable and does not require any additional software. For more info and to set up an account, see http://www.getfast.ca.

Consider using a course calendar you create using Google.com (a Google calendar) that you embed in your WebCT class. A great video available on You Tube gives you the details of how to do this simple task.

Google provides a host of free applications besides the calendar. Shelley Rodrigo provided this list of resources if you want to learn more about them:

Series of videos about Google Apps: http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=75A212616E0E1924

list-o-apps: http://www.google.com/intl/en/options/

more apps: http://labs.google.com/

some online office competition: http://www.zoho.com

thinkfree: http://www.thinkfree.com/main.jsp

 

 

* BANNER

 

Adding an attractive banner to your course homepage can add a lot of interest. It's quite easy to create an attractive banner using Microsoft Powerpoint software. Here's an example:

 

 

Click on this link for step-by-step instructions to create your own banner http://ctl.mc.maricopa.edu/wiki/index.php/Category:Help_Resources

Under the letter C on the screen that appears, click on the title Creating a Banner for Your Online Course.

 

Links You May Want to Provide Your Students

 

 

intro video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v =x66lV7GOcNU
delicious: http://del.icio.us/
diigo: http://www.diigo.com/

Open Office: http://www.openoffice.org/ - similar to Microsoft Office

GIMP: http://www.gimp.org/ - software similar to Photoshop

KompoZer: http://www.kompozer.net/ - software similar to Dreamweaver

A web site offers links for downloading the best free and open-source software for Windows.

Audacity: http://audacity.sourceforge .net/ - audio recording & editing. Here are three documents that take you step-by-step through the process of using Audacity.

a. Click here if you want to download Audacity.

b. Click here if you want to record your own audio files.

c. Click here if you want to work with audio files that have already been recorded.You need Adobe Reader to view the files listed under "b" and "c". Download this free software from Adobe if you do not already have this program on your computer.

Research Tool: Teaching your students how to build an online research module is easy if you use Module Maker. Check it out at http://questioning.org/module/module.html

Mindmapping: http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Mesa Community College and Maricopa Community College District Resources

 

á       Your online course needs to fit the course description, competencies, and outline as described in the
Maricopa coursebank. See these guidelines for your course. Enter the prefix and number of the course you want to see, and you will be able to see and print all the course information. At this site, you can also enter just a prefix to see all courses in a given discipline, or enter a keyword from the title if you're not sure which prefix the course falls under.

á       The MCC Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) provides excellent workshops on many of the tools you will want to utilize in your online course. Take advantage of its workshops. You can see the list of what is available and even register online for any class that interests you. In addition, how-to-documents and hand-outs for many of the workshops are available online. Check it out on the CTL Homepage .

á       Technology Support Services (formerly the MCC Helpdesk) provides online answers to your questions on email, file transfer, virus protection, MCC portal, Webpages, Wireless Access and more. You can also get answers to your questions via the phone by dialing (480) 461-7217.

á       The MCC Distance Learning Office Website has resources for online instructors and students, including an online orientation class. A useful site for answering many of your online students' questions is Distance Learning FAQ's . Students who register online are directed to visit this site to get started. See what they are being told to do at Welcome to Distance Learning. Give your students a questionnaire to determine if an online class is the right approach for them. Here is another questionnaire you can consider to help your students decide if taking an online class is likely to work for them: http://www.units.muohio.edu/cool/self_assessment.html

á       The MCC Library has a link just for you - journal articles about online learning. Check out the latest findings at http://mc.maricopa.libguides.com/online

á       Maricopa Community College District's MaricopaTech website is replete with links to software programs you will love. Check it out at http://maricopatech.wetpaint.com/.

á       The Journal of Educators Online published an article describing the Fifty-One Competencies for Online Instructors. Click on this link for an excellent discussion of features you want to incorporate in a quality online course.

á       The MCC library is a great resource for online research materials. Full text articles of many journals are available.  You can email copies of these articles to yourself. Some textbooks are also available online through the library. Students can log on to them for two hours at a time. However, some of these sites are limited to one user at a time (Netlibrary) while others (Ebrary) allow simultaneous logins from many users. Check it out at this link: E Resources .

á       If you decide you want to include a proctored exam in your online course, this Proctor Form may be useful to you. Modify it for your use and then your students can have their potential proctor submit it to you.

á       If you are gathering data on your students which you may later want to publish or present at a conference, you are required to complete an Application for Human Subjects Research Projects. Details on human subject research is provided by Maricopa Community College District at http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/about/orp/CRRC.html

á       MCCD faculty share their ideas for online and face-to-face classroom ideas at the Maricopa Learning Exchange (MLX) http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/mlx/index.php

 

Suggestions and Guidelines for Developing Online Courses

In this tutorial, you'll have a chance to explore some of the advantages and disadvantages of teaching in an online environment, as noted by faculty experienced in online instruction. A variety of resources is presented that should allow you to learn more about what it's like to teach online, the instructional and technical issues that must be accounted for, and key factors that contribute to student success in this new learning environment.

Participation at MCC is strictly voluntary. The QM website is http://www.qualitymatters.org/index.htm Click on the link to the FIPSE Grant Project.

Miami University has an extremely helpful site for taking faculty step-by-step through creating an online course that reflects the Quality Matters criteria. It's available at http://www.sloan-c-wiki.org/wiki/index.php?title=Miami_University:_Using_Quality_Matters_to_Guide_Online_Course_Development

 

Hazel Davis presented a workshop on Copyright for Online Courses at the Online Learning Group meeting on October 7, 2005. Click on this link to access Hazel's excellent presentation:

http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/ocotillo/olg/notes.php?yr=0506&id=3#davis

More info on copyright for educators can be found at this site: http://ctl.mc.maricopa.edu/wiki/index.php/Copyright_for_Educators

More information on the Teach Act can be found at http://www.utsystem.edu/OGC/intellectualProperty/teachact.htm

 

TAPING TV SHOWS - Stanford University provides guidelines for videos made from publicly available television programs at http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter0/0-e.html

 

Under the provisions of the Teach Act, faculty usually can keep a video they've taped from television for about 45 days. After that, permission must be granted or purchase of the video made. Education World (http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/curr280b.shtml) gives some details:

 

In 1981, a congressional subcommittee developed guidelines for off-air taping of television and radio broadcasts for educational use. Those guidelines allow educators to tape a radio or television broadcast for instructional (not entertainment) use if

 

* the program is recorded simultaneously with the broadcast.

* the program is being broadcast without charge.

* the program is recorded only in response to a specific request.

* the program is recorded (but not necessarily used) in its entirety.

* the program is not altered.

* the tape is retained by the educational institution for no longer that 45 days after the date of the recording.

* the tape is used only once with each class during the first ten consecutive school days of the 45-day retention period.

* the tape is used from the tenth to the 45th day of the retention period for teacher-evaluation purposes only.

 

THE HISTORY CHANNEL

 

The History Channel has a special provision for educators. Here's the scoop from their website:

 

The History Channel¨ airs commercial-free educational programming Monday through Friday, 6-7 am ET/ &PT/5-6am CT. Check local listings for channel number and airtimes in your area. Programs airing on The History Channel Classroom are copyright cleared for educational purposes for up to 2 years from the airdate. Copyright information is provided at the beginning of each show; be sure to consult this information to confirm the exact copyright length. All other programs aired on The History Channel may be videotaped and used in the classroom in accordance with the fair use guidelines. The Classroom Calendar can be viewed at the following website: http://www.history.com/classroom/classcal/root.cgi

A & E CLASSROOM

A&E Classroom is an hour long, commercial-free, copyright cleared programming block that airs Tuesday through Saturday in the U.S. from 4-5 am ET &PT/3-4 am CT and in Canada from 8:30-9:30am NT /8-9am AT/7-8am ET/ 6-7am CT/ 5- 6am MT/ 4-5 am PT. The schedule of shows available on this resource can be found at http://www.aetv.com/class/classcal/root.cgi

 

Public Doman Images and Music

American Memory Project (Library of Congress)  http://memory.loc.gov/ammem

NASA Image Exchange    http://nix.nasa.gov and http://images.jsc.nasa.gov

Public Domain Music http://www.pdinfo.com/list.htm

Choral Public Domain Library - free choral sheet music http://www.cpdl.org

 

Copyright Friendly Images and Other Open Content (videos, etc.)

Flickr (be sure to do advanced searches for creative commons): http://www.flickr.com/

Pics 4 Learning http://www.pics4learning.com

Stock xchng http://www.sxc.hu/

TED: http://www.ted.com/

MLX: http://www.mcli.dist.maricopa .edu/mlx/index.php

MIT: http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web /home/home/index.htm

MERLOT: http://www.merlot.org/merlot /index.htm

Creative Commons: http://search.creativecommons .org/

LibriVox: http://librivox.org/

Blue Web'N http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/bluewebn/ - a library of Blue Ribbon learning sites on the web that you can search by content area, subject area, and grade level


more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Learning_object

 

Public Domain Book Collections

Project Gutenberg  http://www.gutenberg.org

Online Books Page, University of Pennsylvania http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/

Bibliomania, free online literature http://www.bibliomania.com

Knowledge Rush Online Books ( Australia )  http://www.knowledgerush.com/books.htm

 

Useful Sites for Links You May Want to Use in Your Course 

National Public Radio (NPR) interviews. http://www.npr.org/ A large number of fascinating interviews are available to you at this site.

A number of very expensive videos are available for free viewing at the Annenberg Media site. Go to http://www.learner.org/index.html Type in your discipline in the Teacher Resources search tool at this site.   

TED: Ideas Worth Spreading provides short online videos of talks by the world's great thinkers and doers that you can share with your students. At http://www.ted.com, categories include technology, entertainment, design, business, science, culture, arts, and global issues.

Teacher's Domain, a service of WGBH, the PBS station in Boston, offers a collection of multimedia resources (many clips from PBS series such as American Experience, Nova, etc.) that are readily available for download and educational use. Registration is free.

Great biology animations and videos are available at http://www.molecularmovies.com/

Lola is a website where you can locate high-quality learning objects created by faculty willing to share their work. Descriptions of how the object was utilized in a classroom setting are included. Check it out at http://www.lolaexchange.org/

Tools You Might Want to Use to Develop Your Online Course

1. Create games/quizzes/activities to make learning fun for your students is easy with a number of software programs available to educators.

a. For MCC faculty, the handiest gaming software to use is StudyMate. You can log on to Softsense Downloads to download your copy (we have a district site license) of StudyMate. Follow the directions on screen to complete the download process. To see the types of games you can quickly create using StudyMate, go to these sites:

- Example No Answer Games

-Example One Answer Games

- Example Multiple Choice Games

The CTL offers workshops on creating online games using StudyMate if you are interested. Other tools you can use to create online games include:

b. Powerpoint Games - this site, developed for educators, provides templates for you or your students to create a variety of interactive educational games, such as Jeopardy, Who Wants to be a Millionaire,  Twenty Questions, or Hollywood Squares.

c. Flash Learning Games - even more terrific software options!

d. Cute PDF- free software to convert any documents created on a Windows computer to a PDF file. It works just like Acrobat to create PDF files that will look the same no matter what hardware and software your student is using to view the file.

2. A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented activity in which most or all of the information used by learners is drawn from the Web. WebQuests are designed to use learners' time well, to focus on using information rather than looking for it, and to support learners' thinking at the levels of analysis, synthesis and evaluation. Many faculty are enthusiastic about using WebQuests to facilitate learning. San Diego State University has created a site that describes how this technique works and provides examples of WebQuests other faculty have created as well as a WebQuest template. Learn more about this strategy at The WebQuest Page.

3. Are you worried about plagiarism in your class? Consider having an online discussion early in the course about plagiarism. Give specific examples and ask students to weigh in on whether or not each example would be considered plagiarism (and if so, why). This puts your students on record for understanding what plagiarism actually is.

These sites may be helpful:

a. MCC has a site license for Turn it in.com , an online site that will check for a work's originality. To get information on how to use this tool with your students, go to the CTL homepage http://ctl.mc.maricopa.edu

b. Click here for more suggestions on how to reduce plagiarism.

c. UCLA has a website for calibrated peer reviews. Paul Hietter, history faculty at MCC, has extensive experience using this free software for students to evaluate each other's papers. It's a powerful learning experience for both the student writing the paper and the one doing the evaluation.

4. A company called Xanedu will customize a course for you by putting together journal articles or other resources you want for your students. Check it out at Xanedu.com .

5. Your students may find it fun to use this creative online Visual Thesaurus to understand some of the terms in your discipline.

6. James Jacobs has an outstanding list of links to help you create the web pages you want. His site includes directions for making your site searchable by Google. Check it out at James Q. Jacobs Resources.

7. SoftChalk software is an extremely user-friendly way to develop attractive, well-organized web content. To see an example of a lesson created in SoftChalk, go to http://ctl.mc.maricopa.edu/wiki/index.php/Creating_Webpages_Using_SoftChalk or http://www.softchalk.com

The district has a license for SoftChalk that faculty can download to their own computers (home or office). MCC faculty can download SoftChalk by clicking on this link.

Directions for using SoftChalk can be found at this link http://ctl.mc.maricopa.edu/wiki/index.php/Creating_Webpages_Using_SoftChalk and at http://www.softchalk.com

8. If you are teaching math, check out Interactivate: Lessons at http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/lessons/ With the kind support of the National Science Foundation, the Shodor Education Foundation continues to provide a wide set of resources designed to assist educators with the formidable task of teaching young people about math and science. Since 1994, they have been responsible for the Interactivate website, which is designed to create, collect, and disseminate Java-based courseware for exploration in science and mathematics. On this part of the website, visitors can consider some of the 90 items they have created so far. The subjects covered include geometry, algebra, probability, and discrete functions. Within each activity, visitors can read more about the intended audience for each one, and also learn about the prerequisites and objectives for each lesson.

9. Alisha Cooper created a very video on Creating a Grading Toolbar in Microsoft Word. If your students will be submitting papers online for grading, you'll find her suggestions very helpful.

10. Jing software lets you quickly and easily make a mini-video of what you are doing on the computer (screen captures complete with cursor movements). Each Jing file can't be more than 5 minutes in length and you can't edit out your mistakes (but you can start over). This is a great tool for showing your students exactly what they need to do in your course (like submitting an assignment, posting a discussion etc.) . Find out more about Jing and/or download it at http://www.jingproject.com/

11. Would you like to create a cartoon caricature of yourself? You could use this graphic as the icon for the folder that contains information about you in your online course, include it when you post a message to the discussion board, add it to emails you send, or use it any time you want to add a little interest to a document. Use the free tools available at http://www.weeworld.com to customize your image. You select the hair style/color, eye color, clothes, shoes, background, etc. Here is Peg Johnson's weemee : http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/%7Ejohnson/graphics/weemeeLG.jpg

Once you've created your weemee, directions for saving it as a jpg file that you can upload anywhere you want are available at http://forums.weeworld.com/forums/p/7747/53797.aspx#53797

12. Project Management Software is available at these sites (identified by Shelley Rodrigo):

zoho: http://www.zoho.com/
goplan: http://goplan.org/
backpackit: http://www.backpackit.com/
CollectiveX: http://www.collectivex.com/
Keep&Share: http://www.keepandshare.com /index.php

13. Browser Applications - Your browsercan be customized, especially if you use Mozilla Firefox (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US /firefox/), which is open source. Some of Shelley Rodrigo's favorites:

Google toolbar: http://toolbar.google.com/
adding search engines to your firefox search in the upper right hand corner of the toolbar: https://addons.mozilla.org/en -US/firefox/browse/type:4/cat :all?sort=name

better gmail: https://addons.mozilla.org/en -US/firefox/addon/6076

delicious toolbar: https://addons.mozilla.org/en -US/firefox/addon/3615


zotero (research guide): http://www.zotero.org/ http://www.zotero.org/

diigo toolbar: http://www.diigo.com/tools

snapper: https://addons.mozilla.org/en -US/firefox/addon/2703


search for others: https://addons.mozilla.org/en -US/firefox/

14. Personal Portals -Shelley Rodrigo is a big fan of these three personal start pages:

iGoogle: http://www.google.com/ig
Pageflakes: http://www.pageflakes.com/
Netvibes: http://www.netvibes.com/

15. Mobile Applications can be very handy for your students who may be accessing their online courses on computers other than their own. If they are working in a public library, they are not able to download specific software you'd like them to have. The solution can be mobile applications - software they can carry around on a thumb drive and run on any computer.Check out portable apps for the thumb drive at http://portableapps.com/

16. Comics & timelines can be useful educational tools. Alan Levine covers the issue at http://cogdogroo.wikispaces .com/StoryTools.

Information on another timeline tool, Circavi, can be found at http://www.circavie.com/

 

17. Mary Beth Mason and Dr. Maria Harper-Marinick developed a wonderful reading log. Students can learn so much from assigned readings, especially if they take the time to reflect on the process. This tool helps you facilitate that reflection and assess student accomplishment. Access it at http://ctl.mc.maricopa.edu/wiki/index.php/Reading_Log

18. Audio recordings made easy: Gabcasts provides free software you can use to make an audio recording that your students can hear. All you need is a telephone (I used my cellphone) and a Gabcast account. If you use their free option, you can record a message that is no longer than 60 minutes. You can even have your students record a message.

I posted the link on my webpage. Click on this link and then scroll to the bottom of the page for the two gabcasts I recorded: http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/~johnson/ You could paste the link to your gabcast into your WebCT course.

It took me about 10 minutes to set up my Gabcast account, read their on-screen directions, and record. When you know what you are doing, it would only take a minute or two after recording your message to upload the link to your WebCT/home page.

PODCASTING

Podcasts can add a lot of interest to your class. You can have an audio podcast saved as an mp3 file that students can download to their computer, iPod or other MP3 player.  If you have access to a Smart board, you can capture what you write on the board and have students view that as they listen to your discussion. Check out suggestions on how to use podcasts as well as examples of exemplary educational podcasts at Jeffrey Daniel Frey's blog:  http://jdfrey.wordpress.com/podcasting-in-education/

Alisha Cooper at South Mountain Community College is the Queen of Podcasting in the district. You can find her excellent tips on podcasting at http://drcoop.pbwiki.com/CoopsWorld


After recording on Gabcast (see Gabcast description in #18 above), you can make your recording a podcast.. This means students would get your podcasts (Gabcast recordings) automatically downloaded to their iPod or computer. If you wanted to go this route, I'd work with Jeff Anderson in the CTL to get this into MCC's iTunesU.

Instead of using Gabcast and your cellphone, you could buy a microphone to make the recording. I purchased a nice Logitech desk microphone last semester online for about $30) and made a recording that way. But then you'd need to upload the file to the MCC server and put the appropriate link in your WebCT course. With Gabcast, they store the file for you and you just copy the HTML code they give you into your MCC homepage.

If you want to create audio, video, pictures, and text files to post from your cellphone, check out Utterli.com (http://www.utterli.com). It's free to create the "utters" you post. Listeners can record replies to your postings. After setting up your free utterli account, do the following:

1.     Call (712.432.6666 in the US) to record a new utter, listen and reply to other utters.

2.     Send video, pictures and text to go@utterli.com for public messages or private@utterli.com for private messages. Sending within 10 minutes of recording will match up your video, picture or text with your recording.

3.     To see other peoples utters, simply go to http://www.utterli.com from your PC or visit http://m.utterli.com from your mobile browser.

4.     If you have online profiles at social networks or a blog, you can use Utterli to update those profiles with video, text, pics and audio.  Utterli supports cross posting to the most popular sites, such as YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Blogger, WordPress, and many more.  To start cross-posting, click here http://www.utterli.com/u/connections.

Shelley Rodrigo recommends these other cell phone applications sites as well:

Jott: http://jott.com/default.aspx
GrandCentral: http://www.grandcentral.com/
Radar: http://radar.net/
DukaBuzz: http://labs.jaduka.com/dukabuzz
DukaLink: http://labs.jaduka.com/dukalink /
Loopnote: http://loopnote.com/

 

RSS FEEDS

Once you've created podcasts, you may want to give your students RSS feeds to the podcasts. Then they receive your files without having to go out and get them (kind of like receiving a magazine subscription in the mail instead of having to go to the library to read the magazine). Shelley Rodrigo's suggested links for learning more about RSS feeds:

á       Google Reader best place to start: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0klgLsSxGsU

á       the funny video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEmss2lg-ug

 

ARTICLES OF INTEREST TO ONLINE FACULTY

Are you a little worried about teaching online? A reluctant professor shares her surprisingly positive experience teaching online when she really didn't think she'd like it. Check out the strategies she employed at http://www.elearnmag.org/subpage.cfm?section=case_studies&article=41-1 and find out what her students thought about the process.

 

Critics of testing through the computer often argue that itÕs difficult to tell if students are doing their own work. ItÕs also unclear to some professors whether using the technology is worth their while. A new study makes the argument that giving electronic tests can actually reduce cheating and save faculty time. Click on this link to read more... http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/08/29/e_test

Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education: These principles are important for both face-to-face classes and online classes. Check it out at http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/7princip.htm


A technical reportfrom a University of Houston Department of Health and Human Performance researcher finds that students in a hybrid class that incorporated instructional technology with in-class lectures scored a letter grade higher
on average than their counterparts who took the same class in a more traditional format.To read the complete article, go to
http://www.campustechnology.com/articles/60481/http://www.campustechnology.com/articles/60481/

Want your online degree accredited? All eight regional accrediting commissions identified what they identify as BEST PRACTICES FOR ELECRONICALLY OFFERED DEGEE AND CERTIFICATE PROGRAMS to guide you.
The document is available at http://wcet.info/resources/accreditation/Accrediting%20-%20Best%20Practices.pdf

There are some great articles in the free Merlot online distance education journal. It's available at http://jolt.merlot.org/ A recent article provided excellent suggestions for creating community in your online class. I especially liked their suggestions for having students introduce themselves to one another. One suggestion is to ask students to list four sentences about themselves, three of which are lies and one of which is true. The rest of the class guesses which of the statements is true.

The University of Texas was an early player in the online learning environment. They share research findings that can improve your online course in their Instructional Design website at http://www.utexas.edu/academic/cit/howto/resources/instructional_design/index.html

Research suggests that students learn more from active learning. How can you incorporate active learning in an online class? See https://cit.jmu.edu/ddls/resources/activelearning.asp for suggestions.

When and how could blogs help your students learn? Ruth Reynard offers sage advice in her article entitled "Avoiding the 5 Most Common Mistakes in Using Blogs with Students".  The article was found in Campus Technology, 10/1/2008. Access it at http://www.campustechnology.com/article.aspx?aid=68089

Scrapblog.com can create slide shows complete with transitions. This free software can embed links to UTube videos (embedded videos don't work consistently within Breeze). To read more about Scrapblog, see Jeff's posting on the CTL wiki at http://ctl.mc.maricopa.edu/blogcast/?p=123

 

Resource Created by Peg Johnson

 

Maricopa Community College District Legal Disclaimer