In a regular classroom, students have many opportunities to interact with their professors and show that they are serious about their coursework. By contrast, in an online course, professors can only see students’ grades and completed work; they cannot watch…
Whether you are taking an online class for the first time or you have taken one before, there are several ways you can get a head start on your course and make sure everything runs smoothly.
Here are 5 smart things to do before your course begins:
1. Make sure your computer can handle the level of technology required. For example, will you need to use programs that require Adobe Flash or JavaScript? Will you need speakers to hear lectures or participate in virtual meetings with your professor?
2. Before the class begins, make sure you are able to log on to your LMS. Familiarize yourself with the setup and where the class materials are located so that you wont be disoriented when you have to begin working.
Stuck with producing a linear course?
Here are 5 ideas that add some life to the boring “Next” button.
From multiple-choice questions to fill-in-the-blanks to thought-challenges, there are so many activities to choose from when deciding how students should review material in e-learning modules.
Cathy Moore, an award-winning writer, speaker, and international thought leader, suggests constructing quick prototypes to determine which type of activity will best promote learning and information retention.
The following infographic shows how each of the 6 types of thinking identified by Bloom’s Taxonomy can be applied to classroom assignments.
View this great slideshare by Jackie Gerstein which is chock full of strategies for developing online communities.
How can you teach a course to 40,000 faceless students and still maintain some semblance of a teacher-student connection?
This was the challenge that Professor Mitchell Duneier of Princeton University faced last year when he offered an online course in introductory sociology. The non-credit course was offered free of charge through Coursera, and had an enrollment of 40,000 students from 113 different countries.
How can colleges and universities get started with developing an online learning program?
This infographic from Blackboard Blogs depicts the process of developing and executing an online learning program from start to finish.
ADDIE is a commonly-used acronym for the 5 steps of course design, from the initial planning stages to the evaluative process at the end.
Learn about the 5 steps of the ADDIE process: Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, Evaluation.
A word cloud is a collage of words, often displayed in interesting shapes, colors, and fonts.
To create a word cloud, simply type (or copy and paste) some text into a word cloud generator, such as Wordle. Whichever words are repeated most frequently within the text will be displayed larger and more prominently within the word cloud.
In recent years, educators have come up with numerous ways to use word clouds within their lesson plans.
Here are a few ideas…