Technology & Instruction for UNEX

The Huffington Post started their Best of TED 2011  countdown recently. It's a top 18 list because TED talks have to be 18 minutes or less. There are a wide range of topics included so far, with six more talks currently waiting to be revealed. Of all the online resources I include in our courses for instructors, the TED talks always get the most use and generate the most interest, particularly among those who are not familiar with them. This happens even though most of the TED talks are not directly related to the topics that people are covering in their classes. I think there are three things that make the talks appealing as learning resources. First is the length -- long enough to get into some depth about an issue, but not so long that people will tune out or choose not to watch. Many of the resources on sites which are targeted at higher education include presentations/lectures which are an hour long or more. My experience is that finding the valuable section in a long video ...

When students are working in our installation of Moodle, there are some common ways that their work can be lost. Because Moodle doesn't save what you've written until you click Save (assignments) or Post to Forum in Forums, anything that interrupts your connection to Moodle can lead to lost work and frustration. Interruptions include computer problems or network outages or disconnections. If you are writing anything longer than a paragraph,  it's a good idea to use a text editor to do your writing and then copy and paste into Moodle so no matter what happens, you won't lose any of your work. If you combine your use of a text editor with an online backup plan, you'll have a secure backup of all of your work even after the class ends and you can no longer access it (see below). You could use a word processor like Microsoft Word, but you may need to save your work as plain text first to avoid seeing formatting errors when you copy and paste from Word into Moodle. A...

I first came across the idea of learning styles when I was teaching online courses for CSU Hayward (now East Bay) about 12 years ago. Someone teaching one of the other courses in the program must have emphasized learning styles because many students brought it up in online discussions. I was not familiar with the idea, but I looked into it, found very little other than learning preference surveys and thought that was the end of it for me. However,  since then, learning styles seem to follow anywhere you find discussions of online teaching and learning. This is true despite the absence of academic research supporting any benefits related to designing for learning styles. Guy Wallace's article from the November, 2011 issue of eLearn magazine, Why Is the Research on Learning Styles Still Being Dismissed by Some Learning Leaders and Practitioners? is a nice summary of the learning styles issue along with a discussion of why people sometimes believe things despite evidence to the co...

Moodle 2.x has a cleaner look compared with version 1.9, but it also allows you to move blocks off the course page and into the left side of your browser window -- the dock. This removes even more of the visual clutter. Since the activities and resources in the course usually occupy more of your time than the information in the blocks, it makes sense to minimize their impact on the display. Here is a before and after look at the same course in Moodle 1.9 and then in version 2.1 where the blocks have been moved into the dock. Subtle differences but I prefer the 2.1 appearance, although I don't like the presence of the horizontal scrollbar at the top. I wasn't able to remove it even though the table with the text and graphic is not as wide as the available area for the course materials.

If all goes as planned, we should be upgrading to Moodle 2.x at the end of December. Currently, the most recent version of Moodle is 2.1, but 2.2 should be released in time for our upgrade. Over the next few weeks, I will be highlighting some of the changes as we move from version 1.9 to 2.2. I'm optimistic that the transition will be a smooth one. There are a variety of changes, but I think most instructors and students will find the next version of Moodle a little easier to use. Visually, the appearance is less cluttered and with the new dock option, all of the information currently displayed in blocks can be moved to the dock on the side of the browser window. When we make the move to Moodle 2.2, we will also introduce a single custom theme for our site and all of our Moodle courses. This should simplify things for everyone and although there may be some who prefer to choose the theme for their course, I think sticking with one theme will be best for our students.

Last week, I virtually attended the  Jossey-Bass Online Teaching and Learning conference . Everything happens online through Adobe Connect, so there is no travel involved. That makes it easier and less expensive to attend but also eliminates the possibility of running up big bills in restaurants paid for by your employer. The pre-conference had 4 presentations and then there were 6 on each of the two days of the conference. I learned something from each presentation, and many valuable links and other information was shared by participants in the chat that went on during each presentation. I experienced few technical issues -- some audio dropouts and in the  middle of day 2 I had to switch computers because I could no longer connect using my laptop, but overall it was a very smooth experience. Everything happened on time and the pacing was good throughout. This was the second time I attended this conference and I think it was even better this year. Although you do miss out on...

One of the biggest barriers for people who would like to teach online is the complexity of the hardware and software they need to deal with to do things like upload files, record audio or install software. Software companies should know by know that creating error messages in language that people can understand is more helpful than using cryptic, information technology-speak. Here's the feedback I got after trying to run the Adobe Bridge 6.5 update: What does "Another instance of deployment is already running" mean? That I've already updated the software? I haven't. That the application is running and needs to be quit before I can run the update? Definitely not running. When terms like "deployment" and "payloads" (the files that are supposed to be installed as part of the update) are used, I think of the military, not updating software. I'm sure Adobe can do a better job than this of making their error messages understandable and t...

Today's LA Times has an op-ed by John Villasenor of UCLA about online vs. face-to-face teaching. I think he offers a pretty standard view of instruction, and this paragraph illustrates his key point that the in-person, classroom experience is what is special about teaching: A course is also made effective by the unscripted interactions that occur as students gather before and after the class, and by the simple fact that the physical act of getting to class requires at least some investment of time and energy. In short, attending a well-run class in person is immersive and engaging in a way that far exceeds anything that consumer technology can possibly hope to deliver now or in the foreseeable future. Oddly enough, the article is accompanied by a photo of students in a chemistry lecture at UCLA in what appears to be a very large auditorium. To me, this instructional format is not one that offers the type of engaging and interactive learning experience that I enjoyed as a stude...

I enjoy the free white papers and other materials available from the Faculty Focus site. Today's entry is  Tips and Tricks for Teaching in the Online Classroom   b y Jim Harrison and J. Diane Martonis. They offer a number of helpful suggestions. Here's one: Use a Text Expander –  Text Expander is a typing application that saves time and keystrokes by letting you assign short abbreviations to frequently used snippets of text. Reminders, phrases, or words that are commonly used in classes can be reduced to a short abbreviation that you can use whenever you need to. These can save you hours of time and frustration. Some popular Text Expanders include Breevy (PC) and Text Expander (Mac). 

The Khan Academy math videos are very popular and the Los Altos, CA school district is using them in an interesting way. Students watch the videos at home at their own pace and use classroom time for problem solving. Gareth Cook of the Boston Globe has more details on this approach. Assuming similar content is available, this method is a good model to consider for hybrid classes. Put the lectures online and use classroom time for other tasks that may require the teacher's expertise.

Earlier this week, American tennis player Serena Williams won her first round match at the U.S. Open. Not much of a surprise, really, despite her inactivity over the past year. After the match, she was interviewed live on television. The interviewer made a comment about students going back to school soon and Serena said that she, too, was going back to school as an online student. The interviewer asked how she had time for that and Serena jokingly said that maybe she would have her sister, Venus, do the work in her online class because she is smarter. It was a joke, but it's not too far off a perception many people have about online learning –– that because students are not physically in a classroom, it's easy to have someone else do the work. It's a variation on  Peter Steiner's "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog" cartoon. 

We started our most recent classes for online instructors this week. We have 5 people in the face-to-face class and 47 in the online class. The online class has been pretty active so far and I hope we'll avoid the typical dropoff after the 2nd week this time. Our next class will be online -- Producing media for your online course , 3 weeks, Course ID: 111MSCC90, starts September 13th. You can register using any of the methods below. Instructors can register online using the course ID or by contacting Student Services: Tel: (951) 827-4105 or (800) 442-4990 toll-free E-mail: register@ucx.ucr.edu (include your name, email address, phone number and the course ID)

We have two free courses for instructors set up for the summer. An additional online course, Producing Media for your Online Course, will be added later and will start in early September. I'll post the details once that is set up. 111MSCC80  Teaching Online with Moodle , online, 4 weeks, starts August 9th (was previously starting July 27th) – this class is open to anyone who might be interested in teaching online, not just UCR Extension instructors; no previous experience required and they don't need to be scheduled to teach. If you have had inquiries from people interested in teaching online, this would be a good option for them. The goal for this class is to attract more potential online instructors as well as to prepare current instructors. Final project is to produce a proposal for an online course. We had 36 people enroll in this class during the Spring although most did not complete it.  111MSCC81  Creating and Teaching Your Moodle Course , face-to-face, 3 m...

Faculty Focus has a great short article today --   Five Common Pitfalls of Online Course Design by Elizabeth St. Germain. All 5 pitfalls are on target, but I see #1 -- " Upload your course materials, then call it a day" -- all the time. I think this is the most common mistake made by first-time online instructors who don't spend any time understanding the differences between face-to-face and online teaching. The thing that typically goes along with this design mistake is to fail to replace the face-to-face time with anything at all. In the worst case, the course assignments and readings are retained and narrator-less presentations are uploaded to the course, and that's it.  All of these pitfalls can be avoided by participating in our free online courses for online instructors.

Our Spring Moodle courses for instructors ended today. The experiment with Twitter was a partial success and it turned out that LinkedIn was a better resource for finding potential online instructors. We had a huge increase in enrollments -- 36 in our Teaching Online with Moodle and 28 in Producing Media for your Online Course. In the past when these courses were only open to people already teaching at UCR Extension, we had enrollments between 2-5 each quarter and in some quarters we had no students at all.  As might be expected, actual participation in our free courses was not as high as our enrollments. Probably half of those who enrolled actually participated at all, and a smaller number were active throughout the course. We had a small number of people who were already teaching at UCR Extension, and the benefit for them was the vast experience shared by many of our other participants. Several of them have been teaching online for many years and had not used Moodle in the pas...

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been tweeting about our training courses for online instructors. I can't say the response has been overwhelming, but I have gotten a few clicks and at least one student so far. I'm sticking with it, but here's the information about our classes -- all of them are free: Our Spring quarter Moodle classes for instructors are now available: 104MSCC79 - Creating and Teaching Your Moodle Course, face-to-face, 3 meetings, starts April 12; 6-8 PM – covers everything needed by an online instructor to get their course ready for the first time. 104MSCC80 - Creating and Teaching Your Moodle Course, online, 3 weeks, starts April 13 – same as above, but online. 104MSCC77 - Teaching Online with Moodle, online, 4 weeks, starts May 5 – this class is open to anyone who might be interested in teaching online, not just UCR Extension instructors; no previous experience required and you don't need to be scheduled to teach. The goal for this class...

If I had an iPad, I would give mTouch+ a try. It's a Moodle app for students and it looks like it has enough features that you can do pretty much all your work in most courses using an iPad. $2.99

Last week's New York Times Room for Debate - Can Young Students Learn From Online Classes? - had some interesting perspectives on online learning, particularly for middle and high school students.  I think one of the perspectives was not based on any experience with online learning, but the rest added to the conversation. As with many such online articles, the discussion is as interesting as the main articles. Maybe they'll do one on "Can young children learn in overcrowded classes?" which I think might be a more relevant topic than this one. As a parent of a child who completed one semester of 8th grade online through Kaplan, I know there can be challenges with online classes for young students. He suffered through 30 different teachers in 5 weeks for the 6 courses he was in! Imagine starting each week with a new teacher and sitting through a different live presentation about how each class would work every week for 5 weeks. Not a good thing. He also had to deal w...

iSpring free lets you convert a Powerpoint presentation into a Flash video which can be viewed online. Similar to what you can do with authorstream.com but since it's available on your PC (Windows only), you have more control. I can't test it because I don't have a PC, but it sounds like a good deal. I don't know if it retains any audio that has been added to the Powerpoint file. That would be a nice feature. The latest version, 5.7, is free for anyone to use with no licensing restrictions. It looks like iSpring does handle the audio in Powerpoint. Here's a nice explanation of how the software works .

We will probably move to Moodle 2.0 at the start of the summer or fall quarter. We still need to test it with our courses and develop new instructional materials to support the use of the new version of Moodle.