Parkland Online Science Teaching Workshop

This past Saturday I attended a one-day workshop at Parkland College entitled “Designing and Improving an Effective Online Science Course”.  Organized by Heidi Leuszler and Dave Wilson (I am sure with help from many others). 

I had a very good time.  I learned a few things, probably not as much as those participants who had never taken an ION course or never taught online, but I felt it was still worth my while.  And it felt great to share some of our experiences and things we are considering to implement in our courses.

Below are a few blog entries on larger topics we discussed at the workshop.  And here are a few points I that do not fit anywhere but that I wanted to share:

• when giving students resource material it turns out that using too many might overwhelm students and they do not look at any of them.  Using just a few of the very best sources will make it more likely that they will read the papers or open the links.
• when answering student questions about how to use or find something on the web it is often easier to use Jing (instant screenshots and screencasts) than actually writing out the instructions via text.
• to avoid virus transmission encourage students not to use attachments.  Maybe they can link to documents in google docs? 
• When asking for proof that students did a laboratory exercise or a fieldtrip ask them to upload pictures to shutterfly or flickr, that way the moodle server will not get overloaded.
• According to Heidi it is actually possible to give an Oral exam in an online course.  She gives students 5 questions at the beginning of the class.  They work on answering those questions and then during the 30 min Oral exam via Skype or phone they will be asked to answer two of them (the two are decided by the instructor).
• Give students "Two Mulligans" during the course.  They may run into a computer problem so they cannot submit an assignment or for some reason their work does not show up in moodle.  This can happen.  Just not more than twice to the same student in one course.

Hope you can join me next year for the workshop.