Making the Virtual Classroom a Reality: Study of an Exemplary Faculty Development Program

Sloan-C - Publications - Journal: JALN
"The Illinois Online Network (ION) is a faculty development partnership between all forty-eight community colleges in the state of Illinois and the University of Illinois. The goals of the ION program are to help faculty to develop and deliver courses in a completely online format, and also to produce online courses that incorporate best practices for engaging students in discussion and critical thinking. ION, http://illinois.online.uillinois.edu/default.asp, accomplishes its goals with a variety of programs, such as the Making the Virtual Classroom a Reality series of online faculty development courses. Evaluation surveys indicate that ION activities have had an impact on the satisfaction and confidence of faculty teaching online courses."

The Interactive Syllabus: A Resource-Based, Constructivist Approach to Learning

The Interactive Syllabus - A Resource-based, Constructivist Approach To Learning
“The advent of course management systems brings urgency to providing a truly interactive design for the course syllabus. Too often, uploading word-processed documents directly into the system is confused with ‘putting content’ into a course site…the interactive syllabus becomes the initial reservoir of course knowledge that permits students to engage in fruitful and profound study.”

Simulation Software Beats Traditional Approach in Online Course

Penn State Live
"Students in an online class who learned networking through a commercially available simulation scored higher and retained more course information than students taught with a traditional network-diagramming software package, says a Penn State researcher."

Discipline Specific Resources

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The University of Hong Kong has a wonderful list of discipline specific resources. As you build your online or web enhanced courses, check out some of these print and animated sites. Take a tour of the Taj Mahal (http://www.taj-mahal.net) just to get a feel for the web resources available.

Video Streaming Of Lectures Via The Internet: An Experience

Video Streaming Of Lectures Via The Internet: An Experience :: Distance-Educator.com's Daily News :: Distance education news from around the world!
"This paper reports on an investigation into methods of efficiently introducing video streaming into subjects in a large Economics and Commerce faculty. Several software options were investigated before finally settling on RealSystems. The paper provides a brief review of the background of the project followed by a general overview of video streaming. The challenges we identified in effective video streaming are outlined together with a discussion of possible solutions. The paper concludes with an outline of key indications from our investigation of this mode of subject delivery."

Using the Project Approach to Online Course Development

Using the Project Approach to Online Course Development
“While business and industry training programs frequently have a highly-structured, process-driven approach to course development, the approaches used in higher education are usually informal and independently planned. Such a difference is not surprising when we consider that each instructor or faculty member in higher education has a great deal of control over the course content, one of the strengths of such advanced coursework. The informal nature of course development in higher education is even more prominent in online course development due to a lack of dedicated technology personnel to work with faculty, faculty unfamiliarity with online technologies, faculty desire to remain autonomous, and a lack of the necessary project management skills. The needs and desires for more and more online multimedia-enhanced courses far overwhelms the resources and skills available to faculty, most of whom lack the confidence, time, and incentives to do all tasks related to developing and supporting their courses (Fink, 2002).”

Usability Of Hypermedia Educational E-Books

Usability Of Hypermedia Educational E-Books :: Distance-Educator.com's Daily News :: Distance education news from around the world!
"To arrive at relevant and reliable conclusions concerning the usability of a hypermedia educational e-book, developers have to apply a well-defined evaluation procedure as well as a set of clear, concrete and measurable quality criteria. Evaluating an educational tool involves not only testing the user interface but also the didactic method, the instructional materials and the interaction mechanisms to prove whether or not they help users reach their goals for learning. This article presents a number of evaluation criteria for hypermedia educational e-books and describes how they are embedded into an evaluation procedure. This work is chiefly aimed at helping education developers evaluate their systems, as well as to provide them with guidance for addressing educational requirements during the design process."

When Is a Learning Object Not an Object

IRRODL: When is a Learning Object not an Object: A first step towards a theory of learning objects
"For some, “learning objects1 “ are the “next big thing” in distance education promising smart learning environments, fantastic economies of scale, and the power to tap into expanding educational markets. While learning objects may be revolutionary in the long term, in the short term, definitional problems and conceptual confusion undermine our ability to understand and critically evaluate the emerging field."

Q of the Week: "reUsability"?

On a slightly different tack from OIT Clippings, we've been thinking that weblog software ought to enable more archived dialogue and commentary, so with that in mind, I'd like to pose a "Question of the week" - encourage folks to comment, and if you've got a question you'd like discussed, please let us know (e.g. email Mike) - so here goes:

Question of the Week: Learning "Objects" - Reuseable and otherwise

Folks ask me fairly regularly something like "Mike, what's up with "Learning Objects?" - or "SCORM"? - or "RLOs"? or other related acronyms and concepts of digital knowledge and learning management, and the specifications that are supposed to enable such use and management.

So, first an observation, and then my question.

Observation: Seems to me there's both more hype and more money chasing “LOs” in and around the discourse and practice of “training” – specifically, corporate training. Less attention (and money) is spent thinking about and developing either “LOs” for higher education, or the discourse of “LOs” within the discourse of Higher Ed.

The question then, is this: what role (or roles) and responsibility does Higher Education have to take in the discourse of “LOs,” both in order that some of the purported benefits of reusability, portability, and searchability can be realized within our bailiwick? Purview? Scope?, and in order that the tools and practices being developed under the rubric of “knowledge” or "content" management systems account for the needs and purposes of higher education?

An example of the discussion about the relationship of elearning and knowledge management:
e-Learning World: Bridging the worlds of e-learning and KM

Even though I think there are serious questions of scholarship and pedagogy that are and should be embedded within these questions, I’m hoping that the context of a weblog environment could foster a collegial dialogue around these questions, with one potential result being to foster some more elaborated collective knowledge about just which questions we should be asking in higher ed about these developments. Or something like that …

-mike

Please comment by clicking on the "Comments" link below …

Explore the Literary Tradition of Los Angeles

A Professor and His Students Explore the Literary Tradition of Los Angeles on a Web Site

By BROCK READ

Los Angeles has a long-standing reputation for superficiality and glitz -- not exactly the stuff of which acclaimed fiction is made, says Scott Bryson, an assistant professor of English at the city's Mount Saint Mary's College. But according to Mr. Bryson, such stereotypes obscure the city's rich literary tradition. It's a tradition that mines the same themes -- glitter and grit -- that dominate the films with which Los Angeles is more often associated.

Mr. Bryson and students from a freshman survey course he teaches make the case for their city's literary exploits on a new Web site, Los Angeles Literature. The site collects information on a range of books, including noir classics like Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep and contemporary works like Karen Tei Yamashita's Tropic of Orange.

More ... The Chronicle: Daily news: 02/19/2003 -- 01

MIT Open Courseware (OCW) Initiative FAQ

MIT OpenCourseWare | FAQ

Learn more about MIT's Open Courseware initiative from this Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) page.

"The idea behind MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) is 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. MIT OCW will advance technology-enhanced education at MIT, and will serve as a model for university dissemination of knowledge in the Internet age. This venture continues the tradition at MIT, and in American higher education, of open dissemination of educational materials, philosophy, and modes of thought, and will help lead to fundamental changes in the way colleges and universities utilize the Web as a vehicle for education."