Student Issues

I was working on my student issues section of my online course development. I wanted to present to students the fun side of attending college- be it online or not. I approached the orientation module with friendly verbiage and the old adage try, try, again...but never give up. Online learning as well as, traditional learning can be daunting and frustrating to say the least. The more you ask questions, bond friendships, and verify understanding the better your chance at succeeding. Students need to realize that online learning is much different than traditional classroom so they need to prepare, to email classmates, meet up with any classmates that live in the same city with them, or whatever they need to do to have a successful experience. The student of today’s generation is much more capable of taking online classes and being successful than the older student like myself, yet slowly but surely I see myself taking another step forward in the process.

Camtasia

One of the aspects of developing an online course was the ability to voice over a power point in order for the student to hear the teacher delivering a lecture. I used Camtasia on my Mac and spent around 4 hours trying to adjust the voice and the slides so the student would understand what was being presented. The power point was developed by another student and I was the voice over- the problem with that was I had to decipher what she was trying to address - I initially did the lecture and it took around 5 minutes for me to address each slide, but she had 24 slides. The presentation would have been much too long- so I cut my lecture down drastically- but felt that if I was truly presenting this to students I would have not been giving each area on the slide enough time. The workload should have been rearranged so each person could make their own power point and voiced it over and then make adjustments to the slides as necessary. You hate to butcher another teacher's slides!!!!

Online Course Evaluation

I completed the online course evaluation using the Medline Plus as an example course and the CSU evaluation form as my evaluation tool. I really think the exercise helped me to understand what should be included in an online course. I also was glad to see that there is an actual tool that instructors can use to evaluate their online courses. So much of the time, faculty are left to decide and try to decipher what should and shouldn't be included in the course. The tool was and will be a definite asset when planing for online instruction. One thing I was curious about was the fact that the CSU form included the requirement for special needs of the student. Since you are online teaching there is no need for wheelchair access or having to place certain ADD students up front, however, the need for translation for foreign language students and blind students, etc., how do we know if we are meeting state requirements for these students. I was somewhat surprised when I saw that the course I evaluated provided for 70 different languages- is there software that can be bought by the student to change English into another language?

Topic One

In topic one, we read different articles regarding distant education. The use of online education in different school settings was described as well as a comprehensive review of most aspects of online learning. I thought the Guides to Distance Education at a Glance was the most educational for my needs. The article concerning students' needs made me really think about my student's needs and difficulties they might encounter. For instance, I had never considered that students might not realize that the demands of an online course are high, and one reason being, that they don't have the support of a peer group. I normally think of the students peer group as a social oulet, however, the peer group also provides explanation of assignments, help with assignments and even help with the technology. Since the online instructor isn't present, the lack of a peer group, and difficulty with technology can all lead to student stress and perhaps withdrawal from a course. I need to evaluate the students' ability to use technology and offer some type of technology instruction should they need it.

AIL 604

I am starting this blog to cronicle my experiences in AIL 604- Distance Technologies- I read the instructions on Blogger.com and found them to be very easy to follow. I added a picture and details under my profile.