Almost everyone has heard of the famous “Gangnam Style” video that, since its release in July 2012, is the most viewed and liked video on YouTube. Now I’ve been pondering how this type of engagement would be great to recreate in e-learning.

What does Gangman Style mean? Gangnam style refers to the style of the people living in the Gangnam District of Seoul (much like Beverly Hills). In this area of Korea, there are many people who are considered posers and wannabes, and the “Gangnam Style” video is poking fun at these people trying to be something that they are not. The song lyrics explain the characteristics of the type of girl that Psy (the Korean artist in the video) wants – a classy girl who is modest during the day, but knows how to have fun at night.

Ready to put a little “Gangnam Style” into your e-learning? Here’s how.

The Element of Surprise

“Gangnam Style” has lots of different locations in the video. While it might be hard to get that many different scene changes for a course, it is important to keep a course fresh and a little surprising.

Don’t bore students with the same setting throughout the course. Change it up – surprise them, keep them wondering what is going they will learn next. Remember, it’s OK to be random; as long as it stays within the course objectives!

Humor

Humor is a great tool to engage and entertain in any venue. Who doesn’t love to laugh?

Mixing awkward humor (like the part in “Gangnam style” when Psy tries to lay on a man’s shoulder in the sauna) with just-plain-funny humor (like the little Korean kid dancing like Michael Jackson) is a great method to keep people curious and entertained. Make sure to implement a little awkward and just-plain-funny humor into your course for students to get a laugh. Think about how you can develop humor into an section introduction.

Call to Action Links

Knowing when and where to place call to action links is important. The natural way a person native to the English language will look at something is from left to right. Makes sense right – it’s the way English is written.

The most valuable link should be both at the beginning of a presentation in the top left corner, and at the end of a presentation on the top right corner.

“Gangnam Style” places their call to action links accordingly. The first link is a direct link to download their song on iTunes. This is paired with a link below it on the right side to subscribe to their channel.

The end of the video (before the extras) has two subscription links on the top right side. After the extras they again have their most important call to action link in the top right corner, to download their song.

Think about what is the most important call to action for your course’s presentation? Is it the objectives you want them to complete? Is it the project they will be working on in that section?

Title and Description

Keep it simple and to the point. Use keywords that are already popular with students to easily understand an area (“Gangnam Style” used Psy in the title because he is already a great Korean Pop artist, driving them more traffic).

In the description, link to areas where students can find out more about the topics and what it offers. Link to an educational website, a Wikipedia page, and videos on the same topic, etc.

Make sure to give students enough information so they don’t  have to go looking elsewhere for additional materials. Make the description a one-stop-shop for all the info they are looking for related to the topic being discussed.

Ready to add a little Gangnam Style in your E-Learning?

“Gangnam Style” is such a revolutionary video because it puts humor and fun into a portrayal of Korea, a country that is usually characterized as being professional, hard-working, and talented. Psy is basically making fun of himself, and this is the element of the video that makes it so compelling.

Many times e-learning courses are taken too seriously! All they need is a little “Gangnam Style” to spice them up and make them come to life.

Register today for Josh Murdock’s webinar on Wednesday, June 5 at 2:00 PM EDT. Engaging Diverse Learning Styles with Web and Mobile Multimedia Tools that Add PIZZAZZ to SoftChalk Content.

The Blended Schools Network is a not-for-profit company that empowers schools to teach and learn online by providing K-12 curriculum, learning technologies, professional development and a professional network for teachers.

I like to say that we’re a small organization with a wide reach. In the last 11 years Blended Schools has grown from a staff of two to a staff of ten. In that time we have grown from servicing a few hundred teachers to servicing over 10,000. In short our staff has grown five-fold but our teacher base has grown almost hundred fold.

This creates a lot of challenges for Blended Schools. As a not-for-profit company we want to position ourselves as a thought leader in education. To have real success in changing education you have to work teacher-by-teacher, a process that is clearly impossible with a 1 to 1000 staff to teacher ratio.

I’ve always been a believer in the power of others. While managers and team leaders certainly need to “pull rank” from time to time, I’ve always felt that the job of a leader in the professional realm is to help others shine. In essence making those above, below and on your level look good and hopefully feel good too. Throughout the years I’ve had many successes and many colossal failures with this approach.

Since I started as director of professional development for Blended Schools in July 2012 I’ve been working to apply this process to the way we run our training programs. I’ve spent most of the first six months building and building, and building, and it’s finally starting to come together. The first seedlings of this new program have just started germinating in one of our new member schools.

As I was getting my program going in late January our CEO sat in our staff meeting and said “I think we need to do a professional development MOOC.” While I’d thought of doing a MOOC many times I’d successfully procrastinated on it for six months. I looked at this as the excuse I needed to get going with the idea.

Then came the sweats. I have less than three months to build an execute a MOOC with a team of people that are already over 100% capacity. How can we build content in that time? How can we even decide what the course will be in that time and how can we do that without adding time to an already burdened staff. I spent a day researching MOOC horror stories (lest history repeat itself) and I spent time thinking while driving (the one time I get to sit and think). Finally it occurred to me that I was forgetting the idea that I’ve spent so long trying to bring to fruition.

So while we have some good solid content for the MOOC, the MOOC is more about the participants. We’ve chosen two platforms to make this happen. 1) Softchalk Cloud and 2) Google Plus. I wanted the content to be delivered in a simple, mobile friendly way, that would support 1000s of views at a time, that’s where SoftChalk Cloud came in. I also wanted the participants to be quickly able to build peer groups that would persist beyond the course, that’s where Google Plus came in.

I’m truly excited to get this process going. We have the content just about ready, it’s content about Blended Learning. We are now starting with the curation and creation pieces of the course. In all honestly the next four weeks are going to be a lot of work, but I have faith in the fact that what will truly make this MOOC successful are the people that participate.

So put the M in MOOC, sign up now for Today’s Blended Teacher: A MOOC made for Community and Curation and tell your friends.

SoftChalk is sponsoring a free Innovators in Online Learning webinar on April 3rd entitled “Building Peer Groups with a MOOC.” In this presentation, Mark Radcliffe and Dan Lucas from the BSN network will discuss their goals for the MOOC as well as the week-to-week agendas and strategies.

Register for the free webinar: Building Peer Groups with a MOOC.

View Press Release.

Today’s post is from Dr. James Brown who currently teaches both science and public health online for a number of colleges and universities. He has extensive expertise in bringing science courses online internationally.

When I was the Dean of Science, Engineering, Health Science, and Human Performance at Ocean County College I learned about the wonders of using Hands-On Labs’ LabPaqs to allow us to teach laboratory-based science courses totally online using “wet labs” that could be shipped almost anywhere in the world. Additionally, SoftChalk LLC, allowed us to produce online courses far beyond anything we had produced before by adding interactivity to nearly every page of content. This changed our boring “death by outline and PowerPoint” approach into one in which we provided highly interactive content pages that were a work of art filled with learning exercises and games. We needed to produce both nursing courses and science courses to fulfill a $458,000 grant from the venerable Robert Wood Johnson Foundation which allowed us to produce a One Day per Week Nursing Program (now called the One Site/One Line Nursing Program). This program allowed students to attend clinical training one day per week while the didactic portion was delivered online. This opened up nursing to a whole new group of students who were limited by time, family commitments, work, or distance. It was an instant success and students from a much wider geographical area began coming to OCC to get their associate degree RN. This online education model addressed the hospital RN shortage crisis and has become a national model.

A Lab in a Box

The LabPaq from Hands-On Labs, includes all equipment needed to provide a “wet lab” experience to students around the world

Right away we recognized a major problem. The value of a One Day per Week Nursing Program was still limited if students were required to spendup to three days per week on campus taking science prerequisites. We needed to place our nursing prerequisite science courses totally online. We discovered LabPaqs by Hands-On Labs, from Englewood, Colorado which provided the missing piece of the puzzle. They produced a “lab in a box” called LabPaqs with everything we needed to fulfill the laboratory portion of the 4 credit science course in which 1 credit was the laboratory. The science courses needed for the nursing program were Anatomy and Physiology I and II, Microbiology, and an Introductory Chemistry course.

There were some virtual laboratories available, but when we inquired about transferability of our science courses to other institutions of higher learning, the vast majority said they would not accept a science course with a virtual laboratory. However, they would accept one that included hands-on wet labs. We began using the LabPaqs which were very student-friendly. Shipped to the student’s location, they included everything needed to set up the laboratory in their home or even in military installations across the world for those deployed. Not only did it include a complete lab manual, but all necessary equipment and specimens needed to complete the rigorous science experiments. In the end, 14 science courses became available online and the demand for them continued to grow. Ocean County College became a Northeast powerhouse for producing and teaching online science courses.

Student looking through a microscope with an oil immersion lens provided by Hands-on Labs, so they can see bacteria for a microbiology course

Microbiology totally online using LabPaqs

This course is an excellent overview of microbiology … the laboratory is not  a virtual laboratory but one that offers a complete hands-on laboratory experience the covers the fundamental microbiology laboratory skills. The course became so popular that OCC filled seven sections during the summer months more than any other school teaching a complete online microbiology course. Using Skype, I can now teach microbiology for soldiers deployed in Afghanistan, helping them use an oil immersion lens to see bacteria on their microscope almost as if they were sitting right next to me.

The Magic of SoftChalk

SoftChalk added an entirely new dimension to our online courses. Dr. Felix Rizvonov, a visionary director of learning technologies for Ocean County College, introduced us to SoftChalk, which any faculty member could master in a few hours. I instantly fell in love with it. It allowed us to add interactive content directly into the online course which engaged the students with lessons that included pop-up text annotations, self-assessment quizzes, and interactive learning games with fun tools such as crossword puzzles, and drag and drop. Both the faculty and students loved these features which made instruction much more interesting.

Games are both educational and fun in an online course. Here I inserted a Drag and Drop into the first module of a microbiology course which focused on the history of microbiology

I designed the course so that a learning activity is inserted at the bottom of every page. It reinforces the major concepts I wanted the students to learn in a fun and exciting way. I shot my own videos that would introduce various topics and placed them into a YouTube video and easily insert them into my online course. It was so easy to provide closed captions for the hearing impaired and insert them right into the SoftChalk page. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provides timely videos that can be inserted instantly into the new SoftChalk Cloud which can link content items to multiple courses into multiple learning management systems (LMS).

Video entitled Strengthening Labs for a Healthier World and Safer World by CDCStreamingHealth can be easily inserted in your online content by using SoftChalk Cloud.

In New Jersey I created a course entitled “Introduction to Public Health” which can be taught at all 19 community colleges in New Jersey at no cost to the institution. It doesn’t matter which LMS they use; if a link outdates, I can instantly change it and update it with all participating schools at once. I am just updating it now to track student score results directly into our BlackBoard grade book. On December 11, 2012, I received a President’s Award from the New Jersey Public Health Association for placing “Introduction to Public Health” online and teaching it from SoftChalk Cloud providing new groups of students with the opportunity to consider a career in public health.

If I teach multiple sections of microbiology, I can make a change once in SoftChalk Cloud and all three sections are updated at once. I can make the changes from any computer connected to the Internet.

LabPaqs and SoftChalk Cloud: Perfect Together

I have used the LabPaqs from Hands-On Labs with the SoftChalk Cloud to teach laboratory-based science courses on the other side of the world. It is a winning combination that makes science teaching and learning fun. It is making a huge impact on the ability of colleges and universities to extend their reach beyond their typical boarders and bring science to whole new communities. The students truly love these courses and love learning in a fun way with both of these extraordinary and beautiful tools from Hands-On Labs and SoftChalk.  I now teach science and public health for a number of colleges and universities and hope to move to teaching entirely online, which will allow more time to spend with my children. I truly enjoy this brave new world of bringing science online to students around the world.

Biography

Dr. Jim Brown giving a Webinar on Ten Tips to Teaching Science Totally Online for the Instructional Technology Council

Dr. James W. Brown, Associate Professor at Ocean County College and award-winning pioneer in online course delivery, especially in science and public health. He is affectionately called “The Godfather of Online Science” and was the Dean of Science, Engineering, Health Science, and Human Performance at Ocean County College where he helped place 14 science courses fully online. He currently teaches both science and public health online for a number of colleges and universities including Burlington County College, Mercer County Community College, Kean University, and the American Military University. He is a former vice president of a biotech corporation, Assistant Dean of New Jersey City University, Director of Microbiology at Roche, and New Jersey Assistant Commissioner of Health. He has won numerous awards for his teaching, especially online, including citations from the United States Senate and House of Representatives and both Houses of the New Jersey Legislature.

English 101 is a compulsory subject at Queenborough Community College (QCC), and one that many students would rather not take. This makes engaging students in the course content challenging. However, technology provides myriad opportunities to engage this population. QCC’s emphasis on technology pedagogy provided me with the opportunity to create a learning module using SoftChalk. QCC’s general education objective, “Use information management and technology skills effectively for academic research and lifelong learning” provided the institutional support for adding a technology component to my EN101.

In my case, the goal of this addition was not only to meet General Education Objectives, but also to enrich student experience. The current generation of college students’ Web prowess is legendary, with terms such as “digital native” already sounding clichéd. Faculty often complain that these students won’t read tradition hard copy texts. In my classrooms I routinely observe students transfixed by their phones and other devises. It doesn’t seem to me that young people are reading and writing less, it seems that they’re reading and writing different.

According to Education Development Executive for Apple Computer for the Northeast United States, Jon Landis, speaking at the University of Delaware’s Summer Faculty institute in 2011, the current generation of college students is the most prolific writing generation ever. However, as Dutch academic, Dick Swart, pointed out at Mix: Merging into Media, the UK’s Bath Spa University 2012 summer conference on multimedia, “The Internet has created a new reading style. Today we are changing from a concentrated sustained and linear reading style into a more fragmented reading style.”

Given these developments, the challenge in the classroom then becomes: How does one engage students in the literature one wants them to read and write about?
There is no denying the resistance to reading traditional text books and literary text on the part of this generation of students. This made me question whether it was the medium itself that put them off. What if I gave my students the opportunity to read the material I wanted them to read using their preferred medium – browsing on the internet?

In trying to mimic this experience, I had to think through how information is uncovered on the internet. But the Internet is wide and deep and I wanted to keep my students within a certain universe of knowledge. Coincidently, around this time I took a QCC Academic Computing Center workshop on SoftChalk and realized immediately that this software had the capacity to recreate the experience of surfing the Internet, incorporating multimedia links, while containing users inside a knowledge set of my creation.

I explore the outcome of this foray into creating a lesson in SoftChalk in an article in the Hispanic Education Technology Service (HETS) peer reviewed online journal. To learn more about how I created this learning module, my SoftChalk lesson entitled “Eminem Holds the Torch,” click on the link below, which will take you to the article.

http://www.hets.org/journal/articles/83-best-practices-using-popular-media-for-active-learning-engaging-students-outside-of-the-classroom

How often do you use your counselor?  Our guest post is by Stephen Holland telling us how important it is to utilize the school counselors and what success they can bring to you and your students.

When online students fall behind in your course, who do you call? My answer is to call the student’s college counselor. Calling in the counselor to help make that important connection has saved many a student enrolled in my online courses. I recommend putting counselors on the team as active participants. Counselors are crucial in putting action into the student’s success plan.

Of course, counselors are teammates who are involved in a student’s success long before the day of enrollment. We long have recognized them as valuable agents of success for students. They have many, many duties. Many of these duties are addressed in the 2011 report that Dr. Mac Adkins of SmarterServices and Julie Bryant of Noel-Levitz authored. The authors make four recommendations to help colleges build an online experience of quality for the students. Writing in “Online Student Readiness as a Predictor of Online Student Satisfaction,” they suggest:

• “Online learning should provide a measurement of a student’s level of readiness for studying online as a beneficial student service.

• “Appropriate individuals should have a dialogue with online learning students about their levels of readiness to inform decisions regarding instructional delivery systems and/or provide students with appropriate resources for remediation and support.

• “Literature in online learning programs should communicate to students that their level of readiness will likely impact their level of satisfaction with the online learning experience …

• “Institutions should monitor student satisfaction regularly to determine how they are meeting their students’ expectations and which areas require improvement.”

I have highlighted in bold a few key concepts in those recommendations, in order to highlight phrases where counselors may take action. Now let us focus upon how counselors put these concepts into action, illustrating how the suggestions help students. A case in point, not long ago I had a student who for several weeks was making very good progress from the start of the semester in one of my online courses. Just after midterm, however, her name showed up on our student-at-risk dashboard as she had not entered the course for several days and missed a deadline for a major assignment. Here our monitoring system provided data calling us into action. What did I as an instructor do? I wrote the student, and I called her counselor. By the way, I also consider the student to be a teammate.

Prior to the start of the semester, the counselor had worked with the student to create an academic plan, so he was more aware than I of her academic needs. He was also aware of personal issues in her life, which gave him insight I did not have. Plus, he quite often saw the student on campus. As an online instructor, I rarely bump into students on campus unless I specifically go to the college. Even so, I do not have photographs of students and would most likely walk right past those in my online classes unless they recognized me first and then introduced themselves. My photo is included in the course design, but I only have a slim chance of this possibility happening. However, the counselor often knows the students face-to-face, often sees them on campus, and already is connecting with them via phone, text, email, or, most importantly, in person. While the student mentioned in my case study did not respond to my attempts to communicate with me, there was no escaping the counselor. The counselor very quickly made the personal connection for me, and with this nudge addressing my concern the student again became an active member of the class. I credit her successfully finishing the course to the counselor’s timely intervention. The lesson learned is that even though I now teach only online I often do have an on-campus appearance through the efforts of the counselor, my teammate.

As Adkins and Bryant suggest, placing the counselors on the success team starts long before the student finds himself or herself in trouble. With that being said, I request counselors welcome my students immediately after enrollment in my courses. It is common practice that students enroll in courses several weeks ahead of their start. For example, spring semester courses may start in the middle of January but the roster may be completed by the middle of November. This is a shorter wait time than the one for fall courses, which tend to start in late August. Enrollment for fall courses at my college starts in the middle of April. In either case, this is too long to go without a personal contact.

Given that the wait is so long, I want to address this. As early as I can after students enroll, usually within 48 hours, I send an email welcoming them to the class. I immediately send students a syllabus, schedule, and invitation to explore the course. Here is where the counselors show up as teammates for a particular course. I also provide the students the name of their counselors. Many students do not know who is assigned to them as a counselor. Some students, for example, are transfer students and may not immediately have been assigned a counselor. If I see this, I ask one of the transition-to-college counselors to stand in and make a connection until an academic counselor has been assigned. I then ask the counselors to send a brief email to welcome the students to my class and to provide contact information. Instantly, a counselor is activated as a team member for the student’s success within the course. When I spot a potential issue for the student’s success after an exploration of student records, I confer with the counselor who then helps me to devise a strategy to address the concern. Thus, long before the student has officially begun the class, attention is being given to the student to enhance the opportunity for success.

In addition, I find that the more I talk with counselors about my classes the more they help me to succeed as a teacher through student placement. To explain, I find that sometimes counselors recommend a student for my courses, doing so with increasing clarity as to my objectives. That is, counselors become more and more familiar themselves with my assignments as well as my teaching efforts on the behalf of the students. Sometimes the recommended student is a high-achiever and sometimes the student needs developmental help. The point is that the counselor sees something in the student’s profile that appears to be a good match to my approach. I have grown to rely upon counselors to review student profiles that make for better matches in my courses.

Many institutions now post online syllabi and even the complete course. There are orientation units, study plans, notes on financial aid, and more instantly available to students. Early intervention strategies such as these take the mystery out of the course. The personal touch, though, helps the students to be ready for success not only on day one of the course but also while the course is underway. Putting counselors on the team works for students.

Steve Holland teaches English and Education classes online through the Iowa Community College Online Consortium (ICCOC). In 2012, the ICCOC honored him as Teacher of the Year. He recently retired after 25 years of teaching with Eastern Iowa Community College, but he continues to teach and serve as an education consultant. He holds a B.A. in journalism, an M.A. in English, an Ed.S. in Education, and an Ph.D. in Education, all through The University of Iowa. He has also served as a judge for Softchalk’s annual Lesson Challenge.

Our guest post this week is from Stephen Holland  sharing how important certificates are to students and teachers.

While watching college football one Saturday, I took note of the teams that recognize players’ game accomplishments with stickers on their helmets. Some of the players really have quite a collection proudly displayed on their helmets. By the way, if I were an opposing quarterback I think I would want to stay away from the most highly decorated players. It just seems a warning to me that a play I want to execute would have more chance of working if it went toward a less decorated player.

As I was watching the football games, I began to think about how to recognize the accomplishments of my students beyond the points for grades factor. I was already in this frame of mind as my online education class recently had discussed the merits of providing stickers, or more recess time, or certificates to students they will be teaching in the future. Many of the students in my education classes already have classroom experience and they observe that recognizing the students in such ways helps to optimize performance.  My students added that recognizing their own students in similar ways helps to motivate them, leads to better academic performance, improves discipline, and develops pride.

I will share that I too like having certificates sent to me. Whenever I attend an online webinar, such as those offered through the Softchalk Innovator’s series, I always say yes to the offer to send a certificate of attendance as an email attachment. Beyond the positive feeling of printing out a sheet of paper with my name on it that I receive, I also do have a practical reason for holding the certificates. They can be shared as tangible proof when administrators ask me to demonstrate that I am actively updating my skills.

Extending this to my online students, following the discussion assignment focused on the merits of awards, I attached a certificate of achievement to the comments I gave them. Several of the students wrote to thank me for taking the time to do so. I thought that nice, but it also showed me students also enjoyed the recognition. I had made my point. Now I plan to award them all a certificate following the completion of the course. I will also expand this to other courses I teach.

Will the concept of including certificates of achievement become more common in the future? I think it is quite possible, as a way to signal quality of coursework.

With the ever-expanding world of online learning, I think a signal of quality of coursework will become a factor. I submit that certificates could become more and more important as indicators of achievement. For example, perhaps a group of instructors working independently or through an institution will more and more offer certificates to students who complete their courses. A group of instructors will need to discuss the standards that the students will achieve, and together they will be designing courses that meet those qualities. In so doing, the certificates awarded will gain more and more value over time as the merits of the courses become better known. As an instructor, I would like to see certificates and other indicators of success in a student’s portfolio. The more I know about the student’s path to my courses the more I know about what to do to help the student.

I have already mentioned Softchalk and this is a good source for implementation of certificates into a lesson. Certificates can be automatically delivered to students upon completion of a lesson and the inclusion of a percentage earned on a test can be included. In addition, Microsoft offers free template downloads for certificates. All that is needed is for a teacher to add his or her own creativity.

With that being said, I must end now and find that old shoebox full of old track medals and school awards I have buried somewhere in a closet.

Steve Holland teaches English and Education classes online through the Iowa Community College Online Consortium (ICCOC). In 2012, the ICCOC honored him as Teacher of the Year. He recently retired after 25 years of teaching with Eastern Iowa Community College, but he continues to teach and serve as an education consultant. He holds a B.A. in journalism, an M.A. in English, an Ed.S. in Education, and an Ph.D. in Education, all through The University of Iowa. He has also served as a judge for Softchalk’s annual Lesson Challenge.

Chances are very good, I think, that organizing children does indeed help anyone to become more self-reliant as a student. I submit as we organize others we ourselves become better organized. If we have any success at all in helping others to succeed, we ourselves must succeed. That is, to teach a lesson one has to first learn the content. To learn how to help children succeed, I think, especially adds to the challenge.

In my Composition I class, college students are now submitting their third essays. Quite often the topic choice to compare life before becoming a parent with life after becoming one is chosen. It is a favorite, for sure, and certainly draws upon personal experiences. Students who are parents often write that they are motivated in college because they find themselves more determined to be a good role model for their children, see the need to acquire more skills for career advancement, and are driven by a new-found sense of responsibility. Each of these is admirable, of course.

Most recently one young mother presented a unique twist to the thesis when she wrote that the self-discipline she demands of her children to succeed in their education she now applies to herself in her own college studies and, therefore, she is a better student for doing so. It is a practice what one preaches as an approach to being a student. It also warms the heart of instructors as we desire to see self-reliance in our students.

To explain, the student wrote that she sees value in limiting the number of hours her children are allowed to watch television. Rather she is determined that her children show her how much homework they have to do, discuss with her the day’s school lessons, and show her their progress. The children are now old enough and have study habits engrained enough that she says she herself has time to go back to school. With that, she admits she too has to limit her own TV viewing, work her own study habits, and even take time to discuss with the children what she is learning in college. In this day of electronic equipment screaming for our attention, these study habits are to be applauded.

Also, my student tells her children that their friends must go home at a certain time so that adequate hours for studying can be applied. Furthermore, the friends may not call for social visits either via phone or computer. I myself think this is very difficult as emails, phones, and text messages constantly ask us for attention. Of course, there are some family members and some friends who will always be immediately answered, but to have the discipline to not be distracted with every message alert is in my view another reason for applause. I wonder if the student also has the inner strength to pass on ice cream and chocolate cake. You know, we are only human. It just seems to be this type of discipline we want to be able to call upon, that when something tempting one loves is in front of him or her the power to resist comes into play.

Finally, my student noted that she has learned better reading habits too because of all the reading she did with her children. Of course, her reading these days are at a more advanced level. However, she learned to be patient with her children’s question, and now with her own. She also learned to answer their questions in depth for herself. She learned that children often bring to the same books new insights, and that repetition is valued, as well as, for her, note-taking. She reads through content at least twice for better comprehension.
So, it seems, my student has not only taught her children quality study habits, but surprised herself that in so doing was actually teaching herself to become a self-reliant student. How wonderful that my student gave me as a teacher insight into this family secret.

Steve Holland teaches English and Education classes online through the Iowa Community College Online Consortium (ICCOC). In 2012, the ICCOC honored him as Teacher of the Year. He recently retired after 25 years of teaching with Eastern Iowa Community College, but he continues to teach and serve as an education consultant. He holds a B.A. in journalism, an M.A. in English, an Ed.S. in Education, and an Ph.D. in Education, all through The University of Iowa. He has also served as a judge for Softchalk’s annual Lesson Challenge.

Last Friday I did a webinar for SoftChalk, “Preparing Faculty of All Technology Levels to Teach Online-Blended-Hybrid.” I have received loads of comments since then and wanted to share four pieces of advice I would give to colleges getting started with online learning.

1. Online Faculty Training
   Our core workshop, the Online Course Development Workshop is a 5 week, fully online training program set up to teach faculty how to teach online. It runs five times a year and it has produced one hundred and twenty five graduates since its first launch two and a half years ago. Our faculty are not required to complete any trainings on campus. While it would be nice to have the support to make our workshops mandatory, I wonder sometimes if making training mandatory might backfire. Would faculty be as intrinsically invested in it if they had to take it, if they ‘needed’ a grade?  Thus far we have experienced a lot of success and one byproduct has been the faculty and staff who have become advocates after they completed the training. Perhaps the workshop wouldn’t be as successful if it was mandatory. Since we’ve had so much success not making our training mandatory, I would encourage schools just getting started with online education to try this route first.
2. Creating Policy for Online Learning
   About two years ago, I drafted up an online education quality assurance policy proposal and a proposal for an office of online education. Yes, audacious after only having been employed by the college for a year! I didn’t expect it to get passed; I simply wanted to start the conversation. I interviewed about 50 people- faculty, staff, and students who were involved in online education. My department helped me to firm up the language and it was sent to our Vice President of Academic Affairs and then on to the President. After being reviewed by many sub-committees at the senior level, the President assembled a task force that would tackle many of the issues and questions presented in the proposal, such as quality assurance, intellectual property, and faculty training. The task force worked on it for a year and then it went back to the President. We are still waiting to find out what will happen to it, but I am hopeful that after all this work it will be incorporated into our college vision. This proposal became a manifesto of sorts for me- how wonderful online learning can be and what we need to do to make it happen at our institution. Issues, comments, and questions are still being raised about how online education fits into our mission at the college, but we at least have something to refer to when those questions do get raised, even if it’s not ‘policy’ yet. For schools just getting started with online learning, I would encourage you to have a document that addresses questions and concerns about online learning, even if it isn’t policy, yet.
3. Online Faculty Development Path
   We all have faculty of different technology levels and I think some faculty who aren’t as tech savvy see that as a bad thing, like they can never catch up. It is important to have a ‘baby steps’ motto, coaching faculty one step at the time. As faculty developers, we are here to help them get from where they are, to where they want to be. There is no pressure to leap from one stage to another. For this reason, it’s important to offer a variety of options for training. We offer 3 base online teaching workshops- blended/hybrid, online, and advanced technologies online. None of these are mandatory, nor are they pre-requisites to each other. They are lively, fun, and they teach faculty what they need to know to get the job done with an introduction to the theory. To start out this path, there is a survey for teaching online to help faculty self-assess where they might start. Secondly, there are plenty of resources along the way for them to download and utilize when they need them, such as the online course review tool or the Griff Guide to Teaching Online. Finally, there are plenty of opportunities for development- workshops, conferences, and support groups. For schools just getting started with online learning, having an online faculty development path gives faculty a place to start their development journey.
4. Core Technologies
   Lastly, I’m a big fan of being a master of some (this is a Softchalk blog, right?!). It can be overwhelming for faculty to try and incorporate technology. This is why we decided to train on a few core educational technologies that offer a ton of value. For example, we invest in two signature technologies on campus, GoToMeeting and Softchalk. Both of these products help faculty who teach online bring the ‘human touch’ to their students. While GoToMeeting allows individuals around the world to communicate in real time, Softchalk allows instructor to present to their students asynchronously and with style. Students have noted that these are both pieces that have made their online courses a wonderful experience. For a school new to online learning, investing in core educational technologies helps faculty to help themselves and is therefore worth investing in.

In conclusion, getting colleges started with online learning is not easy. There are logistical hurdles every institution has to jump over, but there is also a ‘public relations’ aspect to getting an entire campus and campus community on board with online offerings. Putting key pieces in place, such as an online faculty development path, trainings, a ‘proposed policy’, and core technologies will give individuals a place to start. Good luck to all those just getting started out there!

Using technology to engage students in marginalized and remote areas has been a rewarding challenge.  My basic premise is that everyone is entitled to an excellent education and where you live should not short circuit your opportunities.  With the onset of the Internet, the growth in infrastructure over the last decade in rural and remote areas has created educational opportunities similar to that of urban cities.

At Sunchild E-learning we have taken the best practices of traditional education and combined them with best practices in online teaching to develop a blended model. In this blended model a new pedagogy emerges that may be more effective and more engaging, and encourages learning and creativity.  We have taken Chickering and Gamson’s Seven Principals of good practice and built what we believe to be effective online learning independent of the medium.  Because technology is in constant change incorporating new technologies needs to be purposeful and assessed against the backdrop of metacognitive ideals and good pedagogical practices for learning and teaching.

Register for our Innovator webinar on November 14 to learn how you can improve your distance education program by applying the best practices used by Sunchild E-learning.

I am currently enrolled in a MOOC, short for Massive Open Online Course. The instructor, Scott E. Page, recently asked students in an open discussion forum to ponder whether or not universities will be around in 100 years, or if online learning will bring about the end to the lecture model. Predicting trends even five years out is a fool’s errand, but the question does point to the changes in progress for education.

For background, the free course is Models of Thinking and 92,000 people from around the world are enrolled. It is offered through Coursera. Professor Page is an engaging instructor, even despite the limitations of video, and embraces alternative delivery systems. I have earlier seen Professor Page through another course I actually purchased that was offered through The Great Courses, which sells courses that are delivered as audios, DVDs, and Internet downloads.

When pondering, Professor Page’s question, I find the Coursera model limiting in terms of effectively delivering instruction. Having said this, let me be clear that I have discovered a number of new concepts and am very pleased that instructors of Prof. Page’s quality are delivering content that I otherwise would never have access to as a learner. I am also already enrolled in other Coursera courses.

Still, when one thinks about it, the Coursera model is nothing more than an extended delivery system of the lecture model that universities have not otherwise enhanced in hundreds of years. When I was an undergraduate at The University of Iowa I remember sitting in lecture halls with at least 500 other students as we listened to various professors lecture. We took notes. We attended weekly meetings with Teaching Assistants. We took tests. What Coursera does is to present almost the same model, only with a recorded video rather than an instructor who is live and present within the moment. The lecture hall now is the computer screen and speaker, and I sit with 92,000 classmates viewing a video in our home offices and convenient coffee shops that have Wi-Fi access. Plus, there are no Teaching Assistants, no way to clarify concepts with an instructor or tutor.

Having taught community college students for 30 years, it is very easy to see what the Coursera model is not contributing to the educational process, which may be the better question. How is it assuring the individual student is learning? At the community college we offer tutors, campus activities, face-to-face interaction with instructors, career connections, and remedial development. That is just to name a few of the major differences. Each of these advantages is also part of the online instructional design I and my colleagues have included into online courses over the past decade.

What I think is the biggest difference is that my community college students receive strong assessments and individualized learning plans. How can Coursera ever match these advantages, with 92,000 people enrolled? It is not possible, especially since the courses are delivered free of charge. Coursera would have to start charging or tweak its funding model in to match what the community college instructors are doing now for students. To extend the point, I and my 92,000 Coursera classmates have a wonderful set of lectures to view, but the assessments fall short of the mark.

I also find myself wanting to be able to consult a resource. No textbook is required for the course, although there are readings provided. Many can be downloaded. I also find no bibliography, which I think is a must to help me make connections not only to the course topics but also for applying concepts in my own world. Ironically, despite having 92,000 classmates I am still alone in my individual learning process. I am not connected to this community, and one thing I know about online learners is that we want to feel connected. Even in answering this question online I am not able to cope with the possibility that 92,000 students could respond. In comparison, the courses I teach have online discussion groups that are designed so that no more than eight or nine students are in one group. As a teacher, it is so much easier to guide learners when the focus is more on quality than quantity.

Finally, it is possible to receive college credit through these MOOCs. Certificates can be earned and turned into college credits that can be transferred to home colleges. I am not so interested in the certificates myself and not pursuing them. Thus, I am skipping the quizzes and tests. I do see the certificate option as a challenge, though, to the college campus model and the value of the degree awarded. I also wonder how different colleges will address this. Will they accept the certificates as proof of course credit that should be counted toward a degree?

To conclude, I am thankful to have the MOOC option as I am finding through Coursera a diversity of ideas to learn. I see value. However, I think that the MOOCs have limitations when it comes to assessing learning. As an educator, and student, I want a stronger guarantee that the certificate earned has merit, when applied to a degree.

Steve Holland teaches English and Education classes online through the Iowa Community College Online Consortium (ICCOC). In 2012, the ICCOC honored him as Teacher of the Year. He recently retired after 25 years of teaching with Eastern Iowa Community College, but he continues to teach and serve as an education consultant. He holds a B.A. in journalism, an M.A. in English, an Ed.S. in Education, and an Ph.D. in Education, all through The University of Iowa. He has also served as a judge for Softchalk’s annual Lesson Challenge.