“This is where it’s going.” We all hear the rumblings of some sweeping changes in higher education, and it sounds like they are poised to happen soon. Classes, degree programs, and even entire colleges are being taken online at a rapid pace. For professors who’ve been at it a long time, it can seem like an unbelievable burden to have to learn so much new technology in order to stay current in the classroom. This is separate from their own pursuits in scholarship, or their teaching loads, and often has to be treated as just one more thing to do. A truly effective teaching tool might be overlooked, because the professor simply doesn’t have the time to learn how to use it effectively.

Make no mistake, online teaching is a different animal than a face to face class. Continue reading →

In her post, A Rectangle is Not a Square, Melissa Koenig describes some of the differences between what most universities consider online courses and the newer model of MOOCs (massive open online courses). While I know it’s important to understand these differences when looking at the big picture of online education today, I’m also curious about the similarities. What can those of us developing and teaching online courses learn from MOOC design and delivery?

To get an inside look I enrolled in Model Thinking, offered on the Coursera platform. I almost couldn’t believe how easy it was to sign up and jump right into a University of Michigan course from my living room. As a course designer it is always a treat to peek into other institutions’ online courses. Typically you have to go to conference presentations to do this; I only had to provide a username and password. Imagine the shared learning that can take place when online course designers and instructors have such open access to one another’s materials. Of course there are intellectual-property and financial considerations, but ignoring these for a moment, it’s an opportunity to build on the success and innovation of others. Continue reading →

The following techniques can be employed to address the issue of plagiarism in an online setting. Some of the techniques are specific to Desire2Learn while some are general guidelines to consider when creating assessments.

From Flickr

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One of the things to be praised about Desire2Learn is the flexibility it offers to instructors in the way they can present course materials and content. You don’t just have to tell students to go to the Quizzes tool for an exam; you can link to it from Content, from a Checklist, or even from within an already-established HTML page. You can create a special widget that will link to it, or a News item that points to it. You can even make a special navigation bar button that will go directly to it for that all-important final. More is better, right?

Not always. Some instructors provide multiple links to the same documents, quizzes, or content, in an effort to make things easier for their students to navigate. Although this gives you incredible versatility in how you can set up your course site, linking in many different ways can, in fact, actually reduce the overall perceived usability of your course site. Furthermore, you may be creating extra headaches for yourself in course design to maintain all these links. Consider these things:

1. What if you change the location of a piece of content that is linked to from three or four different places? It creates a situation in which every time you move content around, you risk breaking not one, but three or four different links, which you will have to replace manually.
2. Having multiple links to the same thing can in some cases reduce the security you have been careful to apply to certain materials. For example, you might have a link to a quiz that is set to appear in Content with a release condition, so students must satisfy a condition in order to see it. At the same time, you must remember to set the same condition for every link to that quiz in your course site, or you risk students getting into the quiz without your knowledge. Here’s the even bigger kicker: if you create that quiz link in an HTML page in Content, or in a News item, you simply can’t apply the release condition to it even if you wanted to.

On the surface, since the majority of complaints we get as instructors from students about our course sites are access-related, it would seem to make sense that the more ways we give them to find things, the less likely they are to have these issues. However, this is only partially true. When students are confused about where to find things, giving them more links may or may not actually have any effect. It’s like applying the scattershot approach to solving the problem. “If they can’t find one link, I’ll give them four, in different places. That should do the trick.” However, is this really a solution, or just a quick fix?

The real solution lies in how we think about a course’s UI, or user interface. Desire2Learn does a great job of making a lot of the hard stuff easy by presenting an interface that is fairly intuitive. For example, when you first come to a Course Home page, you will see News items front and center, you will be notified about upcoming course events, and you will see a navigation bar that presents the major tools that will be used in the course. It is pretty obvious that the notifications are there to be read, and are visible for that purpose. It also is pretty obvious that there are a number of features in the navigation bar that are important to the functioning of the course.

Beyond that, as much as we wish we could, we can assume nothing about one course site as compared to another. No two course sites are created equally, as the flexibility D2L offers instructors also means that they can make radically different course content without changing much of anything in the default ways their site runs. For example, some instructors use the Quizzes tool extensively for all their exams in a course, while some use it only for low-stakes ungraded weekly problems. Some instructors eschew the Quizzes tool altogether for essay exams, using the Dropbox tool instead so they can run essays through Turnitin plagiarism detection. If you’re a student coming into a course site, can I assume you will know just what to do, given this huge array of possibilities, if you are just dropped into the course site?

Of course not. Therefore, the onus is on the instructor to provide a clear path to navigating success in the course, which includes the course site. Rather than giving students many different ways to do the same thing, which in some cases will confuse them, it turns out to be far better to give them one, but to explain it completely.

It seems a bit pejorative to say that you should strive to make your course sites “foolproof,” but that is exactly the way to go about it. This is something we at FITS are always encouraging instructors to do. When students arrive at the site, do they find instructions that tell them how to get started? Is there a clear and consistent navigation scheme present that students can easily figure out? Are materials there given titles that demonstrate where they fit in the hierarchy? The best course sites should take little to no extra time on your part to explain, because they should be simple enough to navigate and understand that a first-timer should know what to do. Are your typical procedures pretty much the same from week to week? If so, trying to keep everything consistent as far as look and feel will greatly reduce any confusion later on. Here are a few things to think about and do that can help:

1. Give students a “Welcome” News item on your Course Home page that links directly to the syllabus, schedule, and other pertinent materials to get them started right away.
2. Use an easy-to-follow module structure in Content. Many professors use a week per module, but you could use a case study, a unit, or anything you can think of, so long as the module structure is consistent and easy to figure out.
3. Use the same consistent structure for your modules in Content each week, including keeping things in the same order (you might think ordering doesn’t matter to students, but it definitely does). If you have additional materials for some weeks, put them at the end of the week’s list.
4. Brevity is key. Students hate exhaustive detail (and sorry students, I don’t mean in long reading assignments!). The more complicated your course structure is, the more likely a few will get lost!
5. If you’re not using the tool in the navigation bar, get rid of the button. Some students will actually email you asking about why you don’t have quizzes when you might not even be doing online quizzing!

Rethinking your user interface isn’t easy; in fact, it can be one of the hardest things to do in taking a course online. But fear not: we’re here to help. You can find your college or school’s embedded Instructional Technology Consultant at http://fits.depaul.edu/Contacts/Pages/default.aspx , or you can get answers to those burning course design questions by emailing fits@depaul.edu.

Many institutions are looking at options to seamlessly integrate global connections into courses offered virtually, and DePaul University is no different.

Distance education offers a myriad of possibilities for contextualizing content in different ways. One example of this is establishing partnerships with universities in other countries that allow students from diverse cultures to engage with one another while learning the subject matter.

The course design below is one professor’s approach to integrating global collaborative activities into her fully online course.

OVERVIEW

With the amount of ubiquitous technology available, it’s easy to concentrate on the course’s modality or the types of technology that can be integrated into the course from the outset. But in the design of any course, the content should be the focal point and not the technology.

In working with a professor whose expertise is in public relations and advertising, the course that we chose to pilot was Advertising and Public-Relations Ethics. Since the professor had taught this topic multiple times while in Nairobi, Kenya, it was a natural first choice for the pilot.

In designing this course, we considered the following:

• Content Planning
• Course Design
• Evaluation

CONTENT PLANNING

At the outset of development, it was important to establish what course- and module-level objectives would be most conducive to eliciting engagement among students. From there, we were able to work backwards to identify which assignments and content would be best suited to test during the collaborative sessions.

In fleshing out the content, the professor introduced a widely utilized model, the Potter Box Model of Reasoning to frame the conversations between the students.

Next, she strategically identified case studies, being careful not to include pop culture cases. From there, students would be assigned roles in group discussions: (1) the analyst role: interpreting the model based on the case assigned and (2) the commenter role: responding to another student’s explanation of the case based upon the model.

To preface the sessions, the professor delivered a video introduction that included etiquette not only in the context of working in a virtual environment but also cultural considerations and group dynamics.

COURSE DESIGN

Our first conversations about course design were about how we would be able to connect the students logistically. As the designer, I was interested in identifying seamless solutions, whether low tech or high tech, that didn’t disrupt their fundamental learning experience.

To do this, I researched technology solutions that would support collaborative discussions—whether synchronous or asynchronous.

Asynchronous and Synchronous Solutions

Aside from providing an experience with minimal technical interruption, the solution needed to take into consideration the time-zone difference and be hosted on a secure platform.

For this pilot, we decided to start with an asynchronous solution that met the expectations of the professors and factored in university policies. The students from Nairobi were provided with guest access to the DePaul learning management system, which enabled them to utilize the online discussion forum and other functionality within the tool.

Now that a solution was solidified, logistics was the next consideration. Since the students from Nairobi hadn’t used the LMS, we created a table-style matrix on the course’s homepage that directed students to the assignments within the LMS.

A master schedule that included due dates based on time zone was also included in the matrix.

The final resource was evaluative surveys to identify each student’s experience within the course.

EVALUATION

During the course planning stage, I utilized the ADDIE model to frame much of the way in which this course was structured. In the needs assessment/analysis phase, I posed a number of questions to both professors to ascertain the outcomes they were striving for with this course.

As a result, they were able to craft questions that they would pose to students at the end of the course. The categories of questions focused on the students’ experience with the content and engagement with peers from different cultures and the operability of the technology throughout the course.

Having data from the professors and students will be essential as I continue to work with others in the university who opt to integrate global connections in their courses.

Additionally, resources that organizations such as NAFSA’s Internationalizing Teacher Education Online provide will help as I work with faculty looking for ideas on how internationalization may work in their online course.

In FITS we are big proponents of using the Checklist feature in D2L. Using Checklists gives students an opportunity for self-assessment and eases the pressure on the instructor to answer "when is XYZ due" questions.

But every tool has a cost, and the cost of using the Checklist feature (with dates) is that whenever you copy a past or current course Checklist into an upcoming course, the dates are all out of whack and need to be updated (since dates don’t automatically roll forward in D2L).

In this post I’ll cover:

1. Modifying Large Numbers of Date-Specific Checklist Items Quickly (Part 1)
2. Condensing Checklists from 10 Weeks to 5 Weeks (Part 2)

Part 1 – Modifying Large Numbers of Date-Specific Checklist Items Quickly

Now the big secret isn’t really a secret. This process is essentially using Excel to pre-format the dates, keyboard shortcuts to copy/paste, and CMD+Tab (OS X) or ALT+Tab (Win/*nix) to navigate between Excel and Firefox.

First thing you need to do is update the syllabus with the new assignment dates. I recommend to my professors that they update the information on their syllabus first so they have a master list of assignments and dates to pull from.

Now that the syllabus is updated (ha, wasn’t that easy?) open Excel and copy/paste all the tasks/checklist items into Column A and the dates they are due into Column B. Ensure the dates in Column B are formatted as MM/DD/YYYY (for example: Wednesday, July 4, 2012 would become 7/4/2012) since MM/DD/YYY is the format D2L uses. This part, converting the human-readable dates to dates D2L can use, is probably the most time-consuming part of the whole process of updating Checklists.

Now that you’ve got your prettily formatted tasks/checklist items and their dates, go into the Checklist area of the course (https://d2l.depaul.edu/d2l/lms/checklist/checklists.d2l?ou=<whatever the OU is>) and you should see all the Checklists.

1. Click on the Checklist you’d like to edit.
2. Check the box at the top of the list of Checklist items (Fig.1, 2).
3. Click on the double pencil Icon (Fig.1, 3).
4. You should see a page with the Checklist item information displayed nicely (Fig.2).
5. Go to Excel and click on the cell in Column B that corresponds with the first Checklist Item.
6. Press CMD+C or CTRL+C to copy the information in the cell.
7. Press CMD+Tab or ALT+Tab to go back to Firefox.
8. Click on the date for the checklist item and press CMD+A or CTRL+A to "Select All" the information in the cell and then press CMD+V or CTRL+V to paste the contents of your clipboard into the cell.
9. Press CMD+Tab or ALT+Tab to go back to Excel.
10. Press the down arrow to go to the next cell down in Excel.
11. Repeat Steps 6-10 for all the Checklist items.
• Note: The key here is to make sure you are using the shortcuts. Think about the patterns your fingers are making as you CMD+Tab, Down-Arrow, CMD+C, CMD+Tab, Left-Mouse Click, CMD+A, CMD+V, CMD+Tab, etc. It’ll take a while but after 3-5 items your fingers will start to remember the pattern and you’ll get faster.
12. Once all Checklist items have their dates updated, click SAVE to save the fruits of your labor.

(Fig.1)

(Fig.2)

Congratulations, you are on your way to modifying your enormously long list of Checklist item dates in record time.

Now enjoy your repetitive stress injury.

Part 2 – Condensing Checklists from 10 Weeks to 5 Weeks

If you’re teaching a 10 week course in 5 weeks, instead of spending a considerable amount of effort on condensing two weeks of checklists into one, try renaming each of the weeks into A/B categories as follows:

• Week 1 becomes Week 1A
• Week 2 becomes Week 1B
• Week 3 becomes Week 2A
• Week 4 becomes Week 2B
• Week 5 becomes Week 3A
• Week 6 becomes Week 3B
• Week 7 becomes Week 4A
• Week 8 becomes Week 4B
• Week 9 becomes Week 5A
• Week 10 becomes Week 5B

Now you have 10 weeks of checklist content condensed down into 5 weeks. This also helps keep your "10 Week Professor" mental-model intact, so there is low or no cost having to re-learn where information is in the checklist (it’s in the same spot, but with a different name).

Now you can start removing or shuffling content from the checklists if necessary and the students have solid cognitive divisions between blocks of content (rather than jamming two weeks of probably-not-totally-related checklist content into one checklist).

Conclusion

You are now a Checklist master.