Many LMS are available. What ones do you all recommend that lend to ease of use for students? Susan

I agree with the fact that it is more important to manage the outcome results, rather then how they got there

I have found the utilization of Turn-It-In to greatly reduce the ability for students to cheat on assignment and research papers. It also assists in catching students who copy and paste material from the internet and plagiarize. One neat feature that Turn-It-In does is upon submitting an assignment it reviewes to see not only if the students response was copied from the internet but also from other students current/past responses. This has allowed me to capture many times where a student tries to submit the same research paper for multiple classes and in one circumstance where a student was turning in a paper previously submitted by a student a year ago in a different class.

Since ISD is NOT a linear process, what type of process is it? My first thought was dynamic, is that right? Just looking for the right descriptor.

I felt like Navigational would relate to lesson plan and structural would relate to sylabus. The lesson plan is what you do on a class to class basis. There's movement there which I relate to navigation. Structure seems to denote the whole of the course which is provided by the sylabus.

I have been teaching for about seven years now and I have found it to be a great challenge to adapt my traditional teaching methods to online methods. Of particular note is the live chat session. The main concern I have here is that the communication is more or less one way in the sense that my voice is the only one heard. With the software that I use, students are able to type a message to me or otherwise participate in side conversations via IM-style messages. To be honest, I really don't like this since it removes the primary form of communication: speech. Many students get frustrated with this, especially the slower typists. So the question now becomes: how can we adapt our methods to more strongly encourage not only participation, but learner satisfaction knowing that they can actually contribute to the conversation? One method I have found to be particularly helpful is to email my students the PowerPoint file BEFORE the live session. This gives them the opportunity to preview information and otherwise prepare questions for any particular point during the live session. I have asked my students about this and it seems as though they greatly enjoy this method.

I like how, in this first section of the course, relationships were identified between online curricula and face-to-face curricula. For example, having a clearly organized framework or structure of the course as with a syllabus corresponds to an easily-navigable online platform. I mention this because i think it is important to think about traditional teaching when designing online platforms. Each real-life component of classroom teaching should have a corresponding online component. I think if we approach online course design in this manner we will be successful. Another aspect I am particularly curious about is: how can we replace the human contact component of classroom teaching? The short answer is that we cannot. However I think that if we are creative we can. One simple example might be making phone calls to students when they are really stuck. I have done this in the past and my students seem to really appreciate the personalized and real-time attention to their concerns.

I do not feel online courses fully cover what is necessary for a hands-on trade (eg. auto, nurse, etc). Do you think online courses are favorable for these trades? Why and/or why not?

Is it not more important to new methodologies of teaching/learning to craft questions in a manner that forces thinking. Can't form od assessment such as those is Cloze Test, and mutltiple choice be effective if the question asked is well thought out? You thoughts?

I can't totally agree with all that was said in this module in regards to allowing students to access information in various forms. In my experience, too many, if given the opportunity to use the internet in class, will usually end up,very quickly, on socail sites etc that have no relation to course content. Perhaps it is the 18-25 year old groups I usually deal with but that is the majority of post secondary education is it not? Hyper links are OK as you can control the area acessed to some extent but to allow them to decide where they want to go to get more info usually leads to being distracted into other areas. It is too easy to "link off" into never-neverland. If time was no object they could be free to pursue information at whatever pace worked for them but in college time is an object!

I believe that anyone can learn the technology necessary to succeed. The mentality is that any student can learn and adapt to the course platform. However, I find it amazing that many instructors bulk at learning new learning platforms. Why are instructors immune from learning new material or technical abilities? What are your thoughts on this?

Personally, I tend to believe that the development of online courses requires a higher level of ability for a number of reasons. Primarily, the need to concentrate on the various levels of technical ability of the learners as well as motivating the students when the in class opportunities are not available. What are your thoughts on this?

Unfortunately, the opportunites for cheating online are numerous and extremely easy to do. The Internet provides the "dishonest" student sites to either copy or buy previously completed assignments. The major sticking point is how to deal with the plagarism and the student claiming they did their work themselves. Too many student advisors and counselors siding with the students and leave the instructor to stand by themselves when dealing with this issue. What are your thoughts on this?

One of my biggest issues is how approachable is the instructor for the online student. Personally, I have heard and seen how the instructors don't want to supply contact numbers for the students. I feel the students may feel isolated enough while in the online platform without further alienation by not be able to verbally communicate with their instructors? What are your thoughts on this?

TEAM!!! As Google has mastered, A simple change in the Structure of your Platform throughout the Semester can add to your students overall knowledge. What changing "Theme" or idea can you come up with that may stimulate further research or discussion in your courses???

How much prep work is required to manage on-line course work?

While it may take more time to create an online course initially, if the job is done correctly, it is a worthwhile investment. The reward will be afterwards, when the course will be effective in having students learn the material. Also, an effective course may be reused over ond over with minor adjustments and updates.

Required proctored exams decrease cheating by making sure that students are in a sterile and monitored testing environment. Furthermore, student identity can be verified. Are these proctored exams necessary?

In order to determine, without a shadow of a doubt, that students have mastered the competencies of the course, should a proctored final exam be required?

my most difficult portion of on line education is having students submit work in a timely fashion, yes you need to understand that an online education is at the mercy of the students schedule, however they must respect the due dates of their work.