Desire2Blog

I am the presenter for a Magna Publications webinar scheduled for March 23, 2010. The title is: Free Web 2.0 Tools to Use Inside Your LMS. This seminar costs $249 if you register at least a week in advance. The slides below (embedded from Zoho Show ) indicate the things that I will be demonstrating during the online seminar. Because there are so many of them, I will likely have time to show either one or two examples for each of the eight goals. I've done this workshop many times live and at least once before as a webinar. I'm looking forward to it. We'll see how it goes.

Remember when D2L was fighting the good fight? My single biggest disappointment (at least professionally) in 2009 was when D2L decided to make peace and lie down with the devil. That warm fuzzy feeling for me is all gone now. That's a shame. Partnering with Blackbeard? That's a much bigger shame. And what the hell is going on with the USPTO re-examination of that stupid patent? Is that no longer an issue? It is for me.

The LSC Online Programs Advisory Committee decided to craft a set of netiquette guidelines that would serve as the recommended list that faculty could use for their online courses. It's not a full policy or anything like that, just an attempt to give them some useful information to post in their online courses. Faculty are free to use them, change them, add to them, not use them at all, or whatever. The list is posted in the LSC wiki . This project was taken on because many of our online faculty had been using a particular web resource for many years as a netiquette guide. That web page began carrying less-than-attractive banner ads and quite frankly was always more about general online netiquette rather than focused on online learning. There are quite a few other sets of guidelines out there, but many of them are rather lengthy or include items that we don't feel are needed, and occasionally we just disagreed with them. So, we decided to write a relatively short list of our ow...

I usually keep an eye on a Twitter search looking for posts that have something to do with D2L . The beginning of the semester is always interesting, especially as students are posting their unfiltered thoughts about school, online courses, professors, D2L, and lots of other things. Here are some examples. I'll leave out their Twitter names since I don't know these people. Dear D2L though my college, please fix yourself so I can take quizzes on Firefox. THANK YOU! Love, Cissa trust me, everything you click on d2l... and the time u spend on each "page" they cn see.... 71 unread discussions on D2L? CRAP! I was only gone for one weekend! In class with a professor that doesn't know how to work the internets and d2l. Maybe he should use the googles. ocu's desire2learn has to be the shi**iest web page ever. period. well, aside from the other ocu web pages. Online classes start today. Not liking their new D2L system. Go to a "Laptop Campus"...should ALL of ...

You might need to read the previous three posts to get a feel for all of my concerns about the proposed changed to MnSCU course definitions. For now let's just say that I think they're on the verge of turning a molehill into a mountain. (That's my photo from Pilot Mountain, NC - definitely not a molehill.) So, you should be asking, what is my proposed solution? Very simple. Here they are. On-ground courses: any course that is scheduled in a traditional classroom setting for the traditional amount of seat-time, which for us equals about 16 hours per credit. It should not matter whatsoever whether the faculty member chooses to use the Internet (in reasonable ways, see caveat #1 below) , whether they use active learning exercises, whether they use PowerPoint, or whatever. Faculty members teach their classes how they choose to, within the normal guidelines of the institution. Blended courses : any course that meets in the traditional classroom for a portion of the normal amoun...

Part one looked at the proposed changes to definitions of on-ground courses. Part two looks at the state of affairs regarding blended/hybrid courses in MnSCU. Part three will now parse some of the information related to the new proposals to further define what is and what isn't an online course. The main reason for this effort appears to be a response to complaints/feedback indicating that students find information in the course registration system to be confusing regarding the delivery method that they should expect when they sign up for a class. Therefore, MnSCU is attempting to create additional class codes so that students will have better advance notice as to whether the course will use the Internet in any way, whether they will have any required seat time, and even what types of online activities they should expect to engage in. That might not sound too bad on the surface, but the devil is in the details - as usual. (synchronized swimming photo (CC) courtesy by Eric Bégin ...

Part one examined the confusion about what is and what isn't a traditional classroom course. Part two will take a look at what is a hybrid or blended course. Part three (coming soon) will look at the new ideas about what is an online course. Within MnSCU, media code 09 has been used for many years to represent those courses that fall into the following description: 1. Course blends online and face-to-face delivery. 2. Some of the content is delivered online. 3. More than two class sessions face-to-face. 4. Reduced classroom seat time. 5. Also know as "web-enhanced." One reason for differentiating between an online course and a blended course is the special $5 per credit Minnesota Online fee. If a course is coded as an online course it will include a $5 per credit surcharge that is used to partially fund the budget for Minnesota Online. This budget is used to pay for the IMS (D2L) licensing and support costs, a state-wide D2L help desk (which we don't use at my school...