And now for something completely different

If you are a fan of Monty Python, then this is a familiar phrase, and you know that when it is uttered it means that something truly different is about to happen – so hold on!

Here we are in the midterm slump, and I’m waiting for John Cleese to pop into my online course and utter that magical phrase. And, I’m pretty sure the students feel the same way. All courses, whether online or on-campus, have ebbs and flows…points of high energy, activity, and engagement, followed by periods of apathy and an overwhelming desire to hide or at least nap. What can we do to reenergize our courses, and jolt ourselves out of the midterm slump?

This Friday, join Jenna, Brian, and Joni as we share ideas for shaking things up at midterm.

Trying something new to present content online...

A while back Joni suggested that I check out Xtranormal, a free online animation tool that you can use to turn text into an animated video. Today, I tried it out by making a brief introduction to the online conversations my hybrid students will be having about Phonology and Morphology. I copied and pasted (and yes, edited a wee bit) introductory text from our chapter into this tool, then I played around with a few settings, inserted a bit of direction and within a half an hour (honest- it took less than a half an hour!) Here's what I got:

Curious? check out more examples on the xtranormal website .

Then, on Friday, let's chat LIVE about presenting content in online classes. Bring ideas you have, things you have tried and/or challenges you are facing when presenting content in an online class and let's explore ideas together.

Orientation and Getting-to-Know-You Activities

The first week of class… Whether on-campus or online, we always plan a few orientation and getting-to-know-you activities in an attempt to get our courses off on the right foot. I actually really enjoy these activities, but I always look for new ways to accomplish my objectives. One thing I’ve learned is that, especially in online courses, orientation and getting-to-know-you activities cannot – and should not – just be addressed during the first week of a class. To really support students and help build a productive learning community, these types of activities need to occur throughout the semester. Below are a few of the activities I have used in my online course so far this fall.


Orientation –
In an on-campus course, it can be deadly boring to spend the first class meeting reading through the syllabus. However, there is important information in the syllabus that we want students to know and keep track of. In online courses, it can also be boring…and, therefore, students sometimes don’t go through all of the course materials as precisely as is need to be successful in the course. So, using the quiz feature in eCollege, I created a course and syllabus scavenger hunt that students had to submit by the end of the first week. To complete the 12-question scavenger hunt, students had to read the syllabus, locate materials in the course shell, and watch the orientation videos. The results of the scavenger hunt reassured me that students were locating and tracking important course information, and alerted me to any misconceptions or confusions that individual students had about the materials. Example questions:

• In your own words, what are the learning objectives for this course? What is the reason for listing the ILT competencies with the learning objectives?
  
• Why is "creative" part of the course title?
  
• There are four projects for the course: Presentation Makeover Magic, Job Aid Makeover Spectacular, Presentation Prowess, and Design Lessons Learned. Which project are you most looking forward to working on? Why?
  
• Why are the weekly agendas for each week's learning activities hidden at the start of the semester?

Getting-to-Know-You –
I don’t think it is very realistic to get to know people – especially in an online course – with one share-your-bio activity during the first week of class. Building relationships and community requires multiple opportunities to share and connect. So, every week or two, I reengage students in getting-to-know-you activities. Here are two activities I have used at the start of my online course this semester.

Superhero powers: For this activity, students responded to the following prompt:

What are your superhero powers? What is your superhero moniker? And, how do your superhero powers help you in life?

Using VoiceThread, students share a photo and record their response (see below). Their creative responses are so fun…and the results are that we really learn about the assets that each person sees as her or his strengths. It is a very positive approach to a typical share-your-bio activity that also results in learning more about each person’s playful side and creative spirit.


A 5-minute conversation: During the first few weeks of my online course, I invited students to participate in a 5-minute phone conversation with me. I did this so that the students and I might feel more connected and less distant from each other, and so we could hear each other laugh. About half of the students have taken me up on it so far, and my plan is to keep inviting students at different points throughout the course to make sure all who do want to talk have a chance to.


What do you do to help orient students to your online course? What do you do to help students connect with each other and get to know each other?

Improving the odds of students effectively engaging in collaborative work

One instructional strategy that I use a lot in my online and on-campus courses is collaboration -- group work, teamwork, peer review, connecting with professional communities, and so forth. I like to involve students in collaboration because:

• Group work can help counter the isolation some students may feel in an online course.
  
• Exposing students to multiple perspectives and approaches can open their eyes to diverse ideas.
  
• Students can achieve higher expectations with collegial support.
  
• The quality of individual student work can be enhanced through collaboration.
  
• It is a valuable professional and lifelong learning skill.

However, when I am not thoughtful about it and don't provide some structure around students’ collaborative activities, these activities tend to lead to a lot of problems.

I have a put together a handout that lists several guidelines (24 actually, so I need at least 1 more because 24 is bugging me...chocolate to the first person who posts the 25th guideline!) for improving the odds of students effectively engaging in collaborative work. These guidelines cover:

• Creating a supportive structure for students’ collaborative work
  
• Forming collaborative student groups
  
• Helping collaborative student groups manage the work
  
• Assessing collaborative work

During our FLC online discussion on Friday, October 10th from 11am to noon, let’s explore how we engage online students in collaborative work, what types of collaborative projects we have going on, and what works and doesn’t work. See you then!

FLC Passion

The FLC has been going strong for about two months and I really think we are on to something. This morning's conversation couldn't illustrate it any better. I jumped into the Connect room at roughly 10:50 a.m. to make sure everything was in order and then proceeded to slip upstairs for a moment to refill my water bottle. I came down only minutes later to find the conversation raging. I loved it! There was barely a chance to say hello! Questions and discussions about teaching and learning had already begun and the community was fully engaged. I am a very passionate person who thrives on it for motivation. To see this was music to my ears. Let's keep rockin and rollin!

This Blog.
As we have mentioned, this blog is for the FLC, that means anyone can be part it and we hope everyone will benefit from the potential that lays in front of us. It is meant to be a seedling and continuation of the meet ups as well as a dialogue of its own. So use it to post, comment, suggest, teach and learn. The possibilities are endless and with the innovations that come from such a community I am not about to predict the path but it will be a good one. I was reading some documentation sent over by a colleague this afternoon which had a valuable list of traits associated with a "Good Learning Blog" We are learners right? ;) Think about these as we build this community conversation.

• Diverge not converge
• Think about this (not do this)
• Constructive Controversy
• ***Group Ownership
• Need to know (not nice to know)