I think one of the great difficulties is to keep the students engaged till the end. The instructor should be creative enough to keep the discussion board actively going, interesting, and interactive till the end of the course.

I think prompt feedback is one of the best ways to help students stay engaged as they see how to improve next time.

Gina

Online educators have to use the course shell, discussion questions, interactions, announcements, emails and even post creative videos to actively engage their students.  They do not have the opportunity as F2F educators of being inside the classroom and being able to use non-verbal communication as well as live interactions.  You must constantly adapt teaching styles each term and often times within the same course with different learners.  This is what makes being an online educator so exciting.  How have you gained success as an online educator? 

What does your writing demonstrate about your work ethic? Is it possible that careless grammatical errors can demonstrate to a future employer a correlation between how you perform in writing and how you will perform on the job? 

I had not thought about having a code of communication conduct to help the students have a clear understanding of what the communication expectations are. 

The Rubric can often become an automated response that is comprised of clicking on multiple criteria boxes with little individualized or meaningful feedback included in the process. Generic responses on a numerical line graph are often received by students as a shallow and impersonal form of grading. Although  the assignments that have Rubric  scoring are often for the maximum points of 35/35. They are considered too low a grade to spend much time on ! The key point here is to write individualized feedback, this is your one chance each week to show you are on top of your students… >>>

At the conclusion of  EL111, I realized that I had gotten into a habitual systematic communication which serves a large population of students, but not possibly be reaching those with various learning needs.

I've decided to be more attentive to my written directions and include audio files in my classroom.  Also am reformatting my announcements to have both photo and larger direct bullet information in order to be inclusive of ALL students.

What have you included in your classroom to be inclusive of all students with various abilities?

Hello students welcome to course xyz. Please see my contact info in case you have any questions.

I appreciated EL105's approach to looking at the various types of communication with technology,  various types of computer users, and various types of communication within an online course.  It seems as if they stirred all three of these categories in a bowl and pulled out of the oven two desserts:  a college or department communication guidelines and a personal I2S communciation guidelines as well.    I love desserts, don't you?   LOL

Which communications tips stuck with you?  Why?  And will you be able to utlize these skills in your current online class?

National Seminars has a free SELF assessment that I love to use with my teams.  I've shared it with my students as well to help them understand their personalities and they love it.  It's a fun and easy way to examine what makes us each 'tick' and 'tick-off'.  Try it out with your family -- it's quite eye-opening. 

http://www.nationalseminarstraining.com/selfquiz/

Wonderful module to take a look at different ways to communicate with students. 

Time management seems to be something online some students struggle with. I really liked the idea of helping students change the way they view time in order to be successful in the online environment. It was noted they should organize time just like they organize space. The analogy given of how they arrange their closet was a great way to conceptualize this. 

What tools can anyone sugges to provide assistance and motivation to a student(s) that just seem to not try or give up so easily? What motviational statements can one make that might register with a student in crisis? 

In my experince as a online instructor, I have found many students that simpl do not have the motivation and/or drive to finish the course. Many of them begin their claasses and eventually submit less and less assignments as the semester drags on How can we as educators find a way to keep those students engaged throughtout the semester without that face to face interaction? 

How would you deal with a parent who believes in No screen time (TV, iPad/tablets/phone) for young kids?

There are many pros and cons to this issue.  Educational content vs Advertising and harmful content, Educational games vs Time wasting games, Technical exposure vs no exposure.

What are you personal thoughts and experiences on having no screen time or too much screen time?

As I was pondering how I would apply Color-Full communication with my online students, I realized that the Discussions & Feedback would be the primary areas of communication to update in my classroom.

Then I realized that a simple solution that could easily be implemented would be:

Provide a simple reminder that the assigned discussion or class work could be completed & turned in anytime during the week and could be completed with via their laptop or smart phone (ORANGE).

Next, encourage the student to share or elaborate on the discussion topic with their own personal story &… >>>

What techniques have you used to deal with pracrastinators; particularly those who continually miss deadlines and seem to be only concerned about getting a passing grade.  Grade penalties for late submission do not seem to work.  

Engagement is crucial to keeping the student interested in the course and the content of the course.  If we as instructors do not create an environment that is inviting and interesting to the student; then they will fail to be present in the course and fail to complete assignments.   

It's difficult for students to open up when they have a disablity. Often times they go through life trying to compensate for the disalbity and cover it up as much as possible. How do we get students to be more forthcoming? 

I enjoyed learning about the True Colors personality profiling system as that was new information to me.

I plan on using the idea of asking questions on the Introduction/Ice Breakers Discussion boards that would lead me to understand the personality colors of the students.  Good information to know as we progress through the course.