Heidi Olson

One of the sessions I went to at WCET talked about two different online instructor training methods used at two different schools.

The first was a mandatory 3-week F2F workshop for all new instructors. The college used mostly adjuncts and has many regional centers. They followed up with a self-paced preparatory bb course or instructors could take a challenge exam. Instructors are given a test Bb site to play around with. Access or use is not being monitored. New instructors were paired with a mentor. It sounded like most of the training was LMS-related. Their big thing was that they create a “Blackboard Wizard” which I thought at first was something interactive but turned out to be just a persona (re: graphic – at least it wasn’t animated!). Basically they chose a theme for the quarter and pushed out (through email) blackboard hints and tricks, functionality, and some pedagogy, 4-5 times throughout the semester. If they received questions then they sent out a replay to all. These emails included step-by-step instructions or movies. They saw the “wizard” as humorous and non-threatening. You could also IM or skpe the wizard for help.

They also started a wizard’s archive through sharepoint blog.

The biggest factor leading to their President making the training mandated was complaints from students about the quality of courses.

The other school was a much larger school and the mandate for a certification program came from the provost to be operational within one year. There is one person working on the project and he also has other duties. They began this fall.

This idea is that the instructor will do this training the semester prior to delivering the class – so as he/she develops the class they are taking this training. Then after completing the 2 or 3 modules they will be assigned a mentor during the semester the course is being taught.

Phase 1:
Three, 10-day modules that are cohort based (15-20 learners) facilitated through online format. They anticipate running about 5 cohorts through in both fall and spring semester.

Module 1: Required. Course activities and communication, tying activities to assessment
Module 2: Required. Course goals, objectives, learning activities, facilitating, not directing.
Module 3: Optional, Focuses on current issues in Online learning, or on a specific theme requested. Learners can take this third module at any time, even after they begin teaching. Right now the topic is being generated by one guy but as soon as there are more cohorts, the topic will be faculty generated.

Successful completion is based on participation as well as a reflective piece on what they got out of session.

Phase 2:
Online Certification:
Requirements: complete 3 modules, teach an online course for at least one semester, initiate a full or partial redesign of an existing or new course. Course must pass a Quality review process (which wasn’t really discussed).
These folks then become mentors.

Phase 3:
Master-level certification
Requirements: taught online for 1 year, facilitate the instruction of the required 2 modules at least once, and have mentored at least one in the online certificate program

No pay is involved. Except for taking the initial two modules, all other requirements are voluntary. They are working towards coming up with some kind of compensation (equipment, work release, etc.). They are also working on having the Master certification be a part of promotion/tenure but that might only be department dependent.

The hope is that once a good base of instructors have gone through the certification process then the training becomes de-centralized or run by individual departments.

First two module training is at the request of the provost and he has said that he will cancel a class if the instructor does not comply.

They are trying to come up with a mechanism to “test-out” those instructors who have taught online courses at other institutions.

Getting through to students through email can normally be a really efficient way to communicate with them. But you have to make sure that if the students aren’t using their official UA designated email or that they forward email received at this address to one that they check regularly. Right now with students at UAF using both @uaf.edu and @alaska.edu there is no one single place to manage how students direct their official UA email to an email that they will check. Plus those student who are enrolled in a degree program through UAA or UAS (or had been at one time) maintain their official UA email from that unit and are probably using @uaa.alaska.edu or @uas.alaska.edu

Here are the links (and/or instructions) for forwarding email for all the official options for email at the University of Alaska:

@alaska.edu
http://www.alaska.edu/google/
Click on the Mail link. Click Settings at the top of any Gmail page, and open the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab. In the first section named, “Forwarding,” enter the email address to which you’d like your messages forwarded. Select the action you’d like your messages to take from the drop-down menu. You can choose to keep Gmail’s copy of the message in your inbox, or you can send it automatically to All Mail or Trash. Click Save Changes

@uaf.edu
http://www.alaska.edu/oit/email/mail_forwarding.xml
Follow directions as listed

@uaa.alaska.edu
http://username.uaa.alaska.edu/
go to Change Other Account Attributes

@uas.alaska.edu
https://uascentral.uas.alaska.edu/online
This takes you to UASOnline – go to Edit Profile and edit your email in the Essential Information section.

Sorry this is all so complicated for you teaching distance courses – at least things are better today then they were in the past when students were often given a different email address from each of the main units and then had to maintain them all!

I found this sweet little crossword puzzle creator that helps you create puzzles that you can post on a website (say, in blackboard) and you can complete online as an interactive game, or you can print out the puzzle, clues and answer key on separate pages (or as separate pdf files you can post on blackboard).

Check out elipsecrossword.com. It is a free download for window users. I downloaded a copy of the offline software to my MAC using my parallels cross-platform software. It was very quick to set up and use.

There many options for saving the puzzle and clues – I’m sure you’ll find a combination that would work for you.

Here’s a puzzle that I created: States and their mottos

and here are the puzzle, clues, and answer key as pdf files.

Receiving feedback is an important exchange for distance classes for both students and teachers. Questions about whether student’s are getting the main ideas or concepts, understanding the importance of the big ideas and enduring understandings of your course, and being able to transfer what they are taking away from your class and applying it to their personal or professional lives are just some of the questions a teacher might be asking oneself as the course progresses.

In the same way, students in distance courses relying heavily on instructor’s feedback. Without comments from teachers, students will have no idea how to improve on homework assignments and will quickly loose motivation to improve or even continue in the course.

Here is an article from www.insidehighered.com that confirms the importance of feedback and offers an interesting way of providing it.

Little Shop of Horrors Cast – Feed Me (Git It) Lyrics
Feed me! Feed me! Feed me!
Feed me, Seymour
Feed me all night long
That’s right, boy
You can do it
Feed me, Seymour
Feed me all night long
‘Cause if you feed me, Seymour
I can grow up big and strong

from www.stlyrics.com

The beginning of the semester can be a busy time for students. When faced with events that meet at a specific time, students will often put those ahead of events that can be done at independently, without a specific commitment. It is easy for students to put off beginning their independent learning course. Sending a welcome letter as a student enrolls or at the beginning of the class is one way that instructors can make contact with their students and encourage them not to procrastinate and get with the program.

There are important elements that a welcome letter should include. Some suggestions have been added as a resource to the CDE Checklist.

Amazon Kindle2 Introducton Video

The Amazon Kindle 2, an electronic reader, was easy to set up and begin using. It is essentially a plug-and-play device. After you charge it up you can begin to use it. The users manual comes loaded and is pretty easy to navigate. You can either read though it page by page or go through the table of contents and select where you need more help.

One of the first things you’ll see, when the Kindle goes to sleep mode, are the nicely designed screen savers portraying different authors. Another very nice feature is that the power cable is also the USB cord so you only have to worry about one piece. The electrical plug end snaps off to reveal the USB connector. Nice feature when you are traveling.

Reading Material
When I got ready to obtain reading material I went to the Amazon.com website to redirect the registration on the Kindle. It was registered to CDE’s amazon account and I wanted to change the registration to my personal account. If you don’t already have an account on amazon its pretty easy to get one started.

Transferring from one account to another took a couple of clicks and was easy to navigate through the process.

Amazon.com keeps track of the files that you have requested a download for keeps a copy on your account in case you need it again. You can also see the download status of documents. Depending on file size and the wireless network speed, it might take a while for the downloaded file to show up on the Kindle.

Through Amazon, there are many free downloads, sample chapters, access to daily subscriptions like  newspapers or other daily blogs, as well as offering the service to convert your documents to Kindle ready files for others to use.

Whispernet Wireless Coverage
A wireless delivery system for the Kindle, Whispernet is a part of Sprint’s nationwide network. The technology allows you to have the capability to download books wherever you are – you don’t have to be tied to your internet source. Sprint uses the EV standard described as the following from Wikipedia:

Evolution-Data Optimized or Evolution-Data only, abbreviated as EV-DO or EVDO and often EV, is a telecommunications standard for the wireless transmission of data through radio signals, typically for broadband Internet access.

The technology lets you surf the web, download files from the internet, and check your email. But don’t get too excited about the service because it runs really slow! The Kindle is pre-programmed to search the Kindle store, Wikipedia, google, or the entire web.

I browsed the coverage map and found a map showing the coverage in Alaska for downloading Kindle files. It appears that the slower-speed access is available in Alaska along most of the major road systems. The map does not snow as having access in communities like Barrow, Bethel, or Nome. But don’t get discouraged. I have a feeling this is not accurate. Plus you don’t need to use the wireless connection to download files – if you have a computer with a usb connection you can always download the files to your computer and then hook up your kindle and transfer the files over.

Subscriptions
I downloaded the 14-day free trial of The Onion. The onion is updated daily on the kindle. The only problem I had with it is that if I didn’t get a chance to read the posts before the next day’s posts were downloaded then the previous articles disappeared. You snooze, you loose!

Also I was disappointed that the audio files that sometimes show up on The Onion as posts didn’t work on the kindle. I wasn’t expecting the videos to work.

Readability
I thought it was very easy to read on the Kindle screen. You can change the font size to about 5 different settings to fit your preference. The size is comfortable to hold and the buttons seem to be in the right place. They say you can even read it in the bright sunlight and having an opportunity I tried it outside!

It does not have a reading light or even a back light so in low level lights you still need to have additional luminance.

There are other places to get free downloadable books for the Kindle. Check out these resources gathered by 43 Folders or these gathered on a Kindle 2 blog.

I downloaded The Curious Case of Benjamin Button from feedbooks.com to my computer and then connected the Kindle through the ubs connection. The Kindle shows up on your desktop like any other external drive would show and I moved the .modi file from my desktop to the documents folder on the Kindle. Like other files, it will first appear in the Archive folder until you open it for the first time.

There are some textbooks that we use at CDE that are Kindle ready but after doing a short search I didn’t come up with more than a few and most of these might be considered tradebooks. I do not know but would be interested in seeing if the publishers are offering Kindle textbooks from their websites or are making them available for college bookstores.

If you get tired of reading the words for yourself, there is a text to speech function you can initiate. This is an experimental feature and could use some work on making the voice more authentic!

Audio Files
The Kindle will pay mp3 files in the background while you read – looking under the experimental area for both MP3 and Text-to-Speech functions.

Creating your own files to Kindle-ready files
Kindle will read document files such as: .azw, .txt and .mobi or .prc files. If you have other file types you will need to convert them to one of these formats.

There are a couple options for creating Kindle ready files: sending files to Amazon to convert to Kindle files, use of of the free download sites to create documents or a Digital Text Platform, a self-service publishing platform.

When you set up your amazon account you need to set up an email that you will use when you want to convert your files to files you can read on the kindle. Your email is [username]@Kindle.com. When you send your files as attachments they are converted and then available for download to your kindle account. They accept files in a variety of formats: DOC, PDF, HTML, TXT, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, PRC and MOBI files. Unfortunately, I have not been able to get this to work. I’ve tried several times but never get a message back from amazon.

There are a couple of free window applications that also proclaim to be able to convert files to be uploaded to Kindle: Stanza for ipod and itouch,  Mobipocket Creator and Auto Kindle eBook Converter 0.4.50.

Please note that I have not tried them out yet so can’t not endorse any of them.

The Digital Text Platform provides you the opportunity sell your document through the amazon store. There is a process you go through to make sure things are formatted correctly and where you set a price to sell your document.

The Kindle is a nice way to carry multiple documents you want to read with you. You are able to make notes with the keypad that you can save and use later. Its a nice size for holding and the screen is pretty easy on the eyes. If you travel or find yourself with time to read and want to be away from your laptop or a bunch of paperbacks then the Kindle might be a great tool to have for convenience. Here in Alaska I wouldn’t depend on the kindle for checking email or using the internet – its just too slow.

Chocolate Pie Chart Image taken from: http://www.maryandmatt.net/store/cpc.html

Microsoft is offering their 2007 office (XP and Vista) suite to students at a drasticaly reduced price – $59 for a downloaded version with an additional $13 for a DVD. Check out this offer which is only available to those with a .edu email address and may be only for a limited offer.

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