This summer, one of our new student employees with ODEE enrolled in his first online course at The Ohio State University. Having never been an online student, he was not sure exactly what to expect going in to the course.

Ross reflected on the pieces of the online course that made the transition to online easy in certain respects. “Today, online and in-person courses are going to carry a great deal of similarities. In both cases, most of the course content lives online. In my online course, assignments were still found and submitted online, the syllabus was accessed online and most of the course files, help resources and other course components lived online, just like an in-person class. I knew these things weren’t going to be a problem for me.”

Ross had one apprehension going in to the course, though. “What I was unsure about was how the information was going to be delivered. Obviously, most in-person courses have information delivered through live lectures.” Ross wasn’t sure how he would be asked to learn class material in the online course, but was happy to discover that it was pretty similar how Ross had received lecture information in his on-ground classes yet a bit different. His professor had recorded topic-based voice-over PowerPoint presentations to post in the class. “This helped me learn in the best way that I knew how, and if anything, these online lectures were a little better because they could be accessed at any time.”

“If I had one complaint about my online course, it would be the lack of collaboration present in the course. One of the best parts of an in-person course is the ability to easily work with and communicate with classmates.” Ross explained that when they had to work in small groups, they relied on email with each other to collaborate. He would have preferred having a space within the Carmen Canvas course for his group to meet and collaborate such as using the group discussion board feature. “I felt as though there should have been an easier and more effective way to communicate with other students and the professor within the online course itself. For me, this is what really separated the online course from my previous in-person classes.”

Ross reflected on his first online course. “Overall, my first experience with an online course went better than expected. Some of the collaboration and communication abilities were lost online, but it didn’t end up being too much of an issue. With the online course feeling much like an in-person class, there wasn’t too much of an initial adjustment that needed to be made.”

As we read about Ross’s inaugural online learning experience, we can reflect upon our own course designs and how we deliver content and engage with our online students. Are there opportunities for us to set up spaces in our Carmen Canvas course for students to collaborate with each other? How is our lecture content being presented online and are we following best practices for video and PowerPoint presentations? Some of these questions may be opening up unfamiliar territory of study for instructors new to teaching online. For online instructors, ODEE provides on-demand resources along with face-to-face and online trainings throughout each semester. Feel free to peruse these resources and register for the workshops and webinars most important to your needs.

Those of you who attended our last Kickstart Week in January had a chance to tour the Denney Hall Digital Union and try out the new lightboard in the video recording studio.  Lecturing with a lightboard is a growing trend that many online faculty love.  Take a look at examples and check out instructor insights from early adopters of lightboard lecturing by clicking here.  If you are interested in trying out the lightboard yourself, you can contact the Denney DU or join us for our May 2016 Kickstart Week, May 16-20, when we will have a hands on tour of the space.  Registration will be open the end of March through the DELTA site at delta.osu.edu.

If you’ve ever found yourself repeating answers in a class or wondering how to manage large classes, using Outlook to streamline your teaching is one way of giving one-time, personalized responses freeing up valuable time. Likely one of the most overlooked resources, Outlook allows you to effectively communicate with your students through several unique features. Please see below for a number of options available for users of Outlook for Windows.  Mac users may not yet have the full functionality of these resources, and after running updates on Office for Mac should keep check to see if functionality has been updated.

Continue reading Using Outlook to Streamline Your Teaching →

Often I am asked by online instructors how they can implement simulations in their classes. For instance, they may do role plays between students within a given simulated scenario such as a mock interview or emergency scenario. Other instructors are searching for ways students can role play working in teams to build or create a product. As instructors who have taught face to face before, we can easily figure out how to implement such activities in the onground classroom. How to accomplish this online is a different story. To address this we will start with basic, easy to implement types of strategies and build up from there, ending with some “far-out” rarely seen, unique strategies for those wishing to push the envelop. We know you’re out there.

It can be very tough to take what is done face to face and mimic it exactly online. That being said, one recommendation is to set aside how the activity is done face to face and consider what you want students to get out of the activity in a general sense. Think about why the activity is important to do and then, once you know the answer to that question, draft a storyboard for what students will do in the activity.

So what will students do? Will they be role playing within a scenario? If yes, then look into tools that specifically allow for such interactions between students. A few such tools include CarmenConnect (OSU’s branded version of Adobe Connect) which is an OSU supported tool. Students simulating an interview through CarmenConnect can record the interview for classmates and instructors to review and provide feedback. Students can apply their feedback during the next simulated interview they do in CarmenConnect. Similarly, students can use Google Hangouts or Skype. Another tool that can be used for role plays is Rehearsal VRP although one thing to keep in mind is that this tool is not free. Each of the last three options are not supported by OSU’s help desk so you will want to be sure to include information on where students can get technical help with those applications if needed.

What if the activity is for student groups to create a product together? How can that be done online? The easiest and most basic way to do this is using CarmenConnect or other virtual meeting space with audio and video. Students can share planning documents and each work on a piece of the build project, showing each other what they have created through their web cams and uploading video/photos/design documents.

If we want to get more immersive in the process then what we are needing has been referred to as a multiuser virtual environment (MUVE). This is where gaming and education mashup together. One such application is Minecraft. MinecraftEdu, created by an independent developer, has been used in classrooms around the world and will be bought by Microsoft, the developer of Minecraft, soon. A new version of Minecraft by Microsoft is due to be released for schools and education purposes this summer. Click here for more information on Minecraft. Although the environment looks very much like Legos, as you investigate this game, you may start to see ways in which it can be used by students to collaborate, discuss and create unique products together. Here is an article about a professor in Queensland at Bond University who used Minecraft with his students.

There are many other MUVEs that have been used and created for educational purposes. Some are open and allow students creative freedom as they work together such as Minecraft and SecondLife (has a higher learning curve than Minecraft), while others have been created for specific purposes such as teacher training. Below are links to further readings on the topic of MUVEs in education.

• Multi User Environments for Teaching and Learning
• Multi User Environments for Education
• Learning in a Multi User Virtual Environment