Hello Everyone,
To preserve my formatting, I have included the Added Media link below for you to access my responses to this session-5 assignment.
Thank you,
Glen
Click on the link below for my responses (includes links to two other documents within):
Hello Everyone,
Because my formatting gets changed by the auto-formatting of WordPress, I have included the Added Media link below for you to access my responses to this week-4 assignment.
Thank you,
Glen
Click on the link below for my responses:
Hello Classmates,
Here are the ETEC-674, Session-3 Tasks and my responses, available through the given link.
To see them, just click on the blue link below:
674, Graham, Session 3 Focus ITEMS, responses v2
Best wishes,
Glen
Week-1, Self-Introduction:
Glen Graham is my name. An E-Learning Certificate is my goal, along with an M.A.. This is my first class toward the certificate, otherwise my fourth quarter. I have been teaching Electricity, Electronics, Supply Chain Technology, and Automation at several community colleges in our area. After creating this blog, I will create the directed Talkshoe account.
Welcome to my fellow classmates! I invite your responses to this and future posts.
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Week-2, Questions to Answer and Post:
Graham, ETEC-674, Week 2, Responses to Focus Questions for Chapter 1 and 4 (Waterhouse, S. A. The power of eLearning) and CMS/LMS Investigation:
Above, (A) Edvance360 reports their product as being used across the board, but seems more slanted toward K-12 and Higher Educational institutions than the others, but also targets business needs. Inquisio and Topyx sound to be more slated toward business, although all of them could be adapted toward K-12 and Higher-Ed, as well. (B) Inquisio is SCORM compatible. Inquisio can also be used with mobile devices and for eCommerce sales, which seems to differentiate it from the other two products. It also promoted selling courses online, which was unique. (C) Topyx says it has no user fees, which implies that the others charge for this. It also says its services are a single price for all configurations, which they dub “all you can eat” pricing. Topyx touts their social learning as a real benefit (but that could be what Inquisio describes as mobile. They can also synchronize their records with an SQL database. The pricing structure seems to set them apart from the others. Of these three, Edvance360 seems best suited for use in educational institutions, even though it can be used to target the training and certification needs of business too. The other features seem to be aligned with one another, regarding training, assessment and record keeping. None of them mentioned a student-student, or student-instructor, communications channel, but one might assume that exists in all such systems (virtually unbelievable if not). But, those would need to be verified since they were not specifically noted on their product information sites.
3a. If you were going to create an online class right now, what LMS/CMS software would you use? Explain what you know about your system’s functionality in each of the four areas identified by the book. (If you don’t have access to LMS/CMS software just use Blackboard for your discussion in this area.)
I am a freeway flyer, and have taught at five Community Colleges in the Inland Empire/Orange County area. Right now, I save large files on my dropbox.com account, and link them to my classjump.com website for both San Bernardino Valley College, and for Riverside Community College. Classjump.com limits the size of what I can store there. I have chosen to save my intellectual property on a non-college site for the protections that Dr. Newberry listed earlier–to prevent my colleges from claiming rights to any portion of materials that I originated. Classjump.com could be considered one-way communications, except that I have the option (which I have recently enabled for each of my courses) to allow for user forums. That allows me to participate in discussions among students, and to receive questions that I can answer through the same forum channel. That gives us two way communications that were not formerly enabled.
If I were to need a full CMS system today, I would default to what I know the best, which would be Blackboard, on which I have received training. The added consideration is that all of my colleges support Blackboard, which cannot be said for many of the others, except WebCT, which is also supported at SBVC. Also, many of the publishers, whose textbooks I specify, have instructional plug-ins that can be uploaded easily onto Blackboard, which is a real plus, including test-generators and other instructional resources that accompany their textbooks that I use in my courses. Blackboard allows for (A) Distribution of Course Information; (B) Student-Instructor & Student-Student Communications; (C) Student Interaction with Course Resources; and (D) Online Testing & Grading. So, all of those basics would be covered, along with some extended functionality. And, the nicest part is that there is 24/7 tech support if something goes awry, so I would not need to perform tech-support.
3b. Chapter 1 of our text identifies six steps for getting started with eLearning. Discuss each step and use each step as a springboard for discussing what you want to do with eLearning either now or in the future.
Those steps are:
I have already asked myself (A) why, and given myself the answer, that I want to put all of my classes online, simply for reaching a wider audience. I have approached my administration to get support for teaching my classes online, and they are leaning toward supporting my desire. Once they will support it, we can make the (B) commitment to do that. I am searching for existing course materials, so that I need not “reinvent” what others have already done. My new (C & D) vision is to integrate what others have already built with my own, original material, in order to efficiently improve teaching and elearning in my field of instruction. I am taking courses toward my elearning certificate, so that I can prepare myself with (E) improved technology skills that will help me to properly organized and digitize my instructional content, and to launch it via CMS for the greatest effectiveness.
With one-way communication, there is no expectation of a reply or response, or in the case of online, no channel to deliver the response. An example might be an online video lecture, or television broadcast, where no provision is even made for accepting, let alone responding to replies from the audience.
With two-way communication, a channel is available, and a reply is expected, especially a response a query, such as, “Are there any questions?”, or, “May I clarify that for anyone?” Email and discussion boards are good examples of a two way communications, where give and take is not only possible, but expected.
I think that the most important tool on the list in queston-1, above, that would focus on one-way communication would be (A) Distribution of Course Information. Such information would include one-way information, such as podcasts or video lectures. To these, no direct reply channel exists, and no response from students would be expected. Yet, the information would be broadcasted on a one-way communications channel. The text of the syllabus, and the schedule of assignments are things that I find myself repeatedly visiting for each Blackboard course I take. Those are also examples of one-way communication of (A) Distribution of Course Information.
Student-Instructor communication and Student-Student communication are both examples of two-way communication. They can be done through the LMS/CMS via an embedded port messaging (like email), linked email accounts (outside the LMS/CMS) or via discussion board channels. Those would be examples of (B) Student-Instructor & Student-Student Communications, from the functionality list of question-1, above.
Because the CMS/LMS is theoretically available 24/7, the (C) Student-Content interaction functionality is asynchronous, which is the highest form of convenience to benefit a student, who cannot always be available to respond to discussion board posts, or emails from the instructor or other students. In my view, that is of the highest value to the student who is accessing the content of the CMS/LMS. However, that is a big disadvantage to students who are more available that the “otherwise occupied student”, because their messages may go without timely reply, leaving them to feel neglected, or unimportant. So, Student-Student and Student-Instructor communications may also suffer this apparent neglect, even if the “otherwise occupied student” does not mean to convey that message of neglect, due to a busy schedule. Also, if a teacher, with many classes, and many students in each class, does not reply in a timely manner, it can leave the student feeling neglected, or unimportant, even if the instructor does not mean to imply that message. Out-of CMS/LMS, linked emails, embedded CMS/LMS email-like messaging, and discussion boards all have the same problem with timely round-trip communications coordination. Two-way communications, even though they do not require synchronous coordination on both ends, they do require timely maintenance in order to be the most effective. Any lack of timely response on either end tends to make whatever message go stale, and lack ultimate effect, when it does get a reply.
Since we are speaking in first person, this is obviously an informal environment, so I will assume that strict adherence to normal citation format is not a requirement, yet I will still give credit where credit is due, to our textbook, listed below, for help in researching the answers to this assignment; also, in question 2, the URLs were listed for each referenced, and were accessed today, January 25, 2015.
Waterhouse, S. A. The power of eLearning, Pearson Ed, 2005
Well, the above phenomenon is interesting. There is the same unintended reformatting as with WORD, where my letters and numbers have been substituted with auto-formatting that I did not intend, and do not like. It is difficult to fix, just like auto-formatted WORD docs. The lettering and numbering I intended has be altered, automatically. Well, live and learn. I still have this lesson to learn–how do I fix it? For now, I did the best I could to recover from the auto-formatting. At least you can see what I originally intended, even if I cannot control some of the content distortions. Are any of you having these same sorts of difficulties? Have you found solutions for them? Maybe this is like Curricunet.com, where I need to do all editing inside of WORDPAD, which does not add any embedded (invisible) formatting and control characters.
End of Week-2 Blog post.
glen graham 