Developing eLearning Environments

Public

Ask a question from your peers to help you in your professional work. Seek different points of view on a topic that interests you. Start a thought-provoking conversation about a hot, current topic. Encourage your peers to join you in the discussion, and feel free to facilitate the discussion. As a community of educators, all members of the Career Ed Lounge are empowered to act as a discussion facilitator to help us all learn from each other.

Suzie Goodenough-Lawson

Media Strategies and ISD

I read a study that it is important for todays online active learning gaming generation that media formats need to have hyperlinks and power points must have color, animation, graphs, statistics,movement and sound to capture and keep their attention.

Suzie Goodenough-Lawson

Course Components

I definitely feel that structure and design are even more important for online courses. I taught an online class for students new to online courses and one of the challenges was to keep them engaged and interacting. I believe a Question and Answer format assists greatly with keeping students focused and on track and so distractions don't interrupt the learning environment.

Suzie Goodenough-Lawson

Learning activities

I taught some online courses where we played games such as treasure hunt research games in Medical Terminology that created a fun interactive environment which I feel greatly enhanced the online learning activity environment.

Suzie Goodenough-Lawson

Quality Online Courses

I have experienced what a difference in quality an interactive online course versus asynchronous discussion forums. I feel that the asynchronous discussions create a lack of interaction that can negatively affect students engagement level. I took online classes that I felt left out from lack of interaction. I will keep this in mind when designing my online classes.

Katina Petsas

Integrating imagery into the classroom

As a media and visual arts instructor, I find that it is essential to use visuals as a part of online learning--in fact, it would be exceptionally difficult to attempt without visuals. With the exception of text materials, what can any of you recommend is safe to use? I am worried about issues of copyright and credit when it comes to the use of artwork in the classroom.

Katina Petsas

Online Chat Attendance

Hi, all! What methods have you found encourage Live Chat attendance? It used to be a requirement of our institution that students attend at least one of the 2 standard Live Chats per week, but since that requirement has been dropped, so has the attendance in chats. Asynchronous learning is wonderful, and we archive all of our Live Chats, but I find that when students attend, they produce better work. Any thoughts?

Katina Petsas

Guest Speakers

Sometimes I am fortunate enough to get other instructors and professionals to present or critique in my online classes. What are the best ways that some of you have found of making that happen?

Katina Petsas

Keeping Students On-Track, Managing Content and Time

When developing your online strategies, how many of you have found that breaking things into smaller parts is preferable? I know that some instructors favor larger lessons given less frequently in the week. There are obviously pros and cons to each. What ways have you organized content? Larger and less frequent vs smaller and more frequent?

Michael Mattingly CHEP

Evaluation

Evaluation is a constant. Yes it is important to adjust when necessary. How do you mitigate adjustment without over-doing the fine tuning of a class?

Michael Mattingly CHEP

Office hours

I'm relatively new to online instruction. I don't really get a whole lot of questions etc...from office hours. Is this normal or are there times in the day that you've found to get responses and questions.

Michael Mattingly CHEP

Communication

In the ever increasing online socializing, I find that engagement is dependent on the information and discussion. Delivering information in an entertaining way and stimulating conversation rests with the instructor. The instructor must make sure that they are reaching out to the students to keep them engaged.

Michael Mattingly CHEP