tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-359194792012-01-06T09:10:32.848-08:00Tools and tips related to online and distance learning and using technology in instructionBReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.comBlogger1481100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-74160727281231923412012-01-05T15:35:00.000-08:002012-01-05T15:35:20.321-08:00

Eric Kim is teaching a new course at UCR Extension starting this month, All the World's a Stage: Introduction to Street Photography. The course starts January 16th, 2012 and is being offered online, with two photography-related field trips. If you can't make it to the Riverside area for the field trips, I think Eric can accommodate you with alternative assignments. It should be an exciting

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-81865246896671727342012-01-05T14:19:00.000-08:002012-01-05T14:19:48.228-08:00

One of the biggest challenges in moving a class online from a face-to-face format is figuring out what to do with the portion of the class that was spent in a classroom/lecture hall. Since our workload formula is 2 hours of work outside of class for each hour in class, the classroom portion, in theory, accounts for 1/3 of the learning time. The remaining 2/3 could conceivably remain the same --

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-33495059153718275142012-01-03T14:29:00.000-08:002012-01-03T14:29:15.498-08:00

We have three courses for instructors which are still available for registration. 113MSCC11 Teaching Online with Moodle: online, 4 weeks, starts January 10 – this class covers the basics of teaching online and using Moodle. Participants learn about the online environment as they participate in the class and complete assignments. Development of a detailed course syllabus is the final project.

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-29956111693217963842011-12-16T11:54:00.000-08:002011-12-16T11:54:03.195-08:00

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

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-33620980488550773552011-12-05T17:15:00.000-08:002011-12-05T17:21:26.128-08:00

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

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-56509949770913858082011-11-29T17:11:00.000-08:002011-11-29T17:11:17.740-08:00

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

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-80310922906020163362011-11-09T17:03:00.000-08:002011-11-09T17:03:21.392-08:00

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

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-80853221129650941682011-11-07T11:19:00.000-08:002011-11-07T11:19:37.007-08:00

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

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-75291647408969584602011-10-24T13:16:00.000-07:002011-10-24T13:16:06.742-07:00

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

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-198704945331228832011-09-29T14:15:00.000-07:002011-09-29T14:19:01.578-07:00

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

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-15969321758743459662011-09-28T11:38:00.000-07:002011-09-28T11:38:07.281-07:00

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,

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-17450841071002977962011-09-19T10:09:00.001-07:002011-09-19T10:09:32.625-07:00

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 by 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

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-211413740002167652011-09-19T09:43:00.000-07:002011-09-19T09:43:25.397-07:00

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

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-55561133181461098452011-09-01T13:16:00.000-07:002011-09-01T13:16:08.126-07:00

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

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-57400263049606310292011-08-12T10:20:00.000-07:002011-08-12T10:20:21.084-07:00

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

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-48621400173690374512011-07-06T14:43:00.000-07:002011-07-06T14:43:20.618-07:00

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

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-40684873810014551882011-07-06T10:45:00.000-07:002011-07-06T10:45:01.737-07:00

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

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-71402772971555050882011-06-01T16:59:00.000-07:002011-06-01T16:59:00.759-07:00

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

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-23953303577100475482011-04-18T12:58:00.000-07:002011-04-18T12:58:31.381-07:00

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

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-68379418981445220212011-04-14T11:09:00.000-07:002011-04-14T11:12:29.642-07:00

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

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-61828944290615132432011-04-13T13:41:00.000-07:002011-04-13T13:47:39.857-07:00

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

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-26949559151992001372011-04-13T12:16:00.000-07:002011-04-13T13:48:11.859-07:00

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

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-43615068037028552572011-01-26T17:00:00.000-08:002011-01-26T17:02:10.452-08:00

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.

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-65042065223702655402010-11-15T09:26:00.000-08:002010-11-15T09:26:05.145-08:00

Moodle.org says that the release of Moodle 2.0 should happen this week. Once it's available, we will install it on our test site and determine how soon we can put it on our production site. Once we move over to Moodle 2.0, we will be making some changes to our site, most notably the use of a custom theme. We will use that theme for all of our online courses and we will eliminate the use of other

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-24445117483348556912010-11-15T09:18:00.000-08:002010-11-15T09:18:32.721-08:00

Cheating is commonplace in education at all levels. Face-to-face or online, it makes little difference although it can be more difficult to catch online. A recent article on chronicle.com by a guy who writes student papers anonymously gives a pretty good picture of how easy it is for someone with the money to get any kind of paper, report, proposal, or thesis written. He even impersonates the

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-64373022897570589802010-11-10T14:45:00.000-08:002010-11-10T15:38:09.100-08:00

Scrivener 2.0 was recently released. It's a writing tool for the Mac with a Windows version coming next year. I've used Scrivener to organize online courses as well as to develop instructional manuals and I like the way it works. Since it accepts many file formats, you can easily drag in PDFs and other files to keep all of your course materials/writing resources together.  To get everything out

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-3866090569014067332010-10-28T16:25:00.000-07:002010-10-28T16:25:12.660-07:00

This is an interesting talk about schooling and all the negatives that go along with it. While I've heard the same ideas many times for many years, Ken Robinson puts them together in a coherent narrative that comes to life with the incredible RSAnimate cartoon annotation technique. Should be required viewing for all current and future school administrators and teachers, as well as parents who've

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-58447592020315605762010-10-27T14:35:00.000-07:002010-10-27T14:35:59.888-07:00

I have been watching some of the videos in the Learning to Teach Online series from the University of New South Wales. The series covers various topics related to online teaching and they are divided into episodes which include a short video plus a PDF. I had some trouble getting the PDFs to download, but the videos played fine for me. I think the Managing your Time video is a good one for new

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-22529357432937055262010-09-14T14:55:00.000-07:002010-09-14T14:55:48.511-07:00

I've always found the quiz feature in Moodle to be a little complicated, but if you create your quiz in the right format outside of Moodle using a text editor, it's very easy to import it and get everything set up pretty quickly. The key is to use one of the quiz formats that Moodle can read and to save that file in the UTF-8 file format. Many text editors will allow you to save in UTF-8. Once

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-29340712045665210042010-03-10T14:30:00.000-08:002010-03-10T14:30:19.746-08:00

Chronicle.com has an interesting article about the pros and cons of videotaping lectures. It seems like a lot of work and time for a limited payback, although if you videotaped the lectures ahead of time and then devoted class time to something else, it might have more value.

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-26963987284080967202010-02-23T13:57:00.000-08:002010-02-23T13:57:29.320-08:00

I'll need to revise my advice to instructors about using copyrighted videos in online courses after reading this article in the Chronicle of Higher Education. In short, The Association for Information and Media Equipment contacted the university in the fall, alleging that UCLA had violated copyright laws by letting instructors use the videos, which were accessible only to students then enrolled

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-13603461905713664662010-02-09T11:47:00.000-08:002010-02-09T11:47:51.003-08:00

This week's edition of the BBC's Digital Planet podcast has some interesting stories related to distance learning and the use of technology in education. I didn't know that degrees were offered via distance learning as early as the 1800's at the University of London. Technology has changed drastically since then, but teaching methods still have a ways to go.

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-88895046398624360582010-01-15T16:33:00.000-08:002010-01-15T16:33:51.620-08:00

Our face to face class, Teaching Online with Moodle, started on Wednesday. It's free and lasts only 3 weeks, but it's not too late to sign up. Call UCR Extension Student Services at (800) 442-4990 and ask for course #093MSCC04.

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-54508257154547667332009-11-06T14:04:00.000-08:002009-11-06T14:06:37.897-08:00

UCR Extension's Moodle site was scheduled to be unavailable for several days in both November and December while some work was done on the network infrastructure here. The November outage has been cancelled, leaving December 19th - 23rd as the only time in the near future that the system will be unavailable.

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-27564105071757724822009-10-20T15:05:00.000-07:002009-10-20T15:37:36.458-07:00

The Chronicle of Higher Ed has a short article discussing a recent report on online learning done by Eduventures. Despite all the excitement about new technologies, most classes lag behind in terms of innovation. That should surprise no one, especially not anyone who has used Blackboard, Moodle or any other CMS.But when it came to technology, the Eduventures survey found that the widely used

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-74902813425817125052009-10-16T10:19:00.000-07:002009-10-16T10:46:13.331-07:00

Creating PDFs is easy if you are using a Mac since it's part of the operating system, but on Windows you have a few more options. Robin Good's Master New Media site has a summary of free PDF conversion tools -- Convert To PDF: Guide To The Best Free Online PDF Conversion Tools.

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-4879949903888088152009-10-14T15:26:00.000-07:002009-10-14T15:35:26.794-07:00

We recently added the Elluminate plugin to our Moodle installation at UCR Extension. This makes it easy to schedule a live session in Elluminate inside your Moodle course with the benefit that your students don't have to login again once they click the link to go to Elluminate. Step by step instructions on using the Elluminate plugin (PDF).

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-7898975771105751632009-10-13T12:02:00.000-07:002009-10-13T12:13:20.170-07:00

This week's Chronicle of Higher Education has a series of articles about Open Courseware and online learning. They point out that while free access to quality learning materials is a great idea, few people are going to go through these materials just for the joy of learning. Most people need some kind of credentials. The bigger issue is cost -- open courses cost money to develop and put online,

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-20897394373280296822009-09-28T10:32:00.000-07:002009-09-28T10:37:23.554-07:00

Online schools in K-12 are growing fast and they raise new issues for college admission counselors. Chronicle.com has an interesting article about some of the challenges involved in determining quality in online programs, although not much in the way of answers. The comments about the article are equally interesting. The issues of cheating and rigor are mentioned and these are two of the same

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-46417736440976457502009-09-23T12:38:00.000-07:002009-09-23T12:47:54.874-07:00

We did a little testing with the Moodle plugin for Elluminate this week. The plugin doesn't do too much, but the two things it does should make it much more convenient to use Elluminate as part of a Moodle course. We currently use Elluminate for a small number of live online/webcast courses, but the plugin won't be used for those since they typically meet once a week for 10 weeks and are best

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-50738407118764943472009-05-06T14:34:00.000-07:002009-05-06T14:40:43.583-07:00

Moodle's blocks are a great feature. They allow you to customize the look and functionality of your course home page. There are also times when you may not want blocks on your course page. These step by step instructions (PDF) explain how to add, delete and move blocks in Moodle.

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-44191932637442902182009-05-06T12:08:00.000-07:002009-05-06T13:36:24.141-07:00

PDF file showing the layout of part of a typical Moodle course with various items labeled.

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-18033352358023846292009-04-30T16:22:00.000-07:002009-05-06T14:02:44.582-07:00

I've been using ScreenSteps 2.5 for all of my step by step instructions. It has a few more editing tools which make it even more useful. Now that I can add text to the screenshots, there is rarely a need to go outside of the program. I was really surprised to learn that ScreenSteps is developed with Runtime Revolution, the HyperCard-like scripting language. It just shows how much you can do with

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-58550950648180293172009-04-17T11:36:00.000-07:002009-05-06T13:53:03.253-07:00

This PDF file covers the steps involved in setting up a basic Moodle course.

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-40350659311421722022009-03-12T12:21:00.000-07:002009-05-06T14:28:17.562-07:00

Tracking is a feature in Moodle forums which will highlight unread forum messages so you can easily see what is new to you. You can turn tracking on and off for individual forums, but in order to use it, you must first turn it on in your profile. Instructors have the option of turning tracking on or off or making it optional for each forum they create in a course. This means if your instructor

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-25135236221785616822009-02-06T14:16:00.000-08:002009-05-06T14:06:20.631-07:00

We have moved all of our Moodle instructional materials onto our Moodle site in a course accessible to any instructor or student with access to our site. The materials include short videos and PDF files. I'm making the PDF files available here to anyone who would like to use them. Some of the instructions may be specific to Moodle at UCR Extension, but most are general and will apply to any

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-8556844494662800842008-10-29T15:44:00.000-07:002008-10-29T15:50:43.342-07:00

Christine Borgman's presentation from this week's EduCause conference is available online as a combination video and presentation recorded with Mediasite. The quality is impressive -- I can get just as much out of the presentation at my desk as I would have sitting in the auditorium. The title is the Future of Cyberlearning and it is based on the recent NSF report with the same name. Professor

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-10560309885461938332008-10-27T16:04:00.000-07:002008-10-27T16:23:59.404-07:00

I was listening to the BBC's Digital Planet podcast this morning and they had an interesting segment about how a university in Brazil was making use of the resources from the OpenLearn project at the Open University in England. The project is similar to the Open CourseWare effort at MIT and elsewhere. In both cases, university courses are made available online and many include audio and video

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-35795738246261632262008-09-15T13:45:00.000-07:002008-10-27T16:51:15.429-07:00

I really like the books in the Jossey-Bass series on Online Teaching and Learning. There are two books coming out this fall/winter -- Using Wikis for Online Collaboration: The Power of the Read-Write Web by James A. West and Margaret L. West, and Assessing the Online Learner: Resources and Strategies for Faculty by Rena M. Palloff and Keith Pratt. Both sound good to me and you can download a

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-35224493308875917522008-06-18T15:02:00.000-07:002008-06-18T15:06:07.490-07:00

I always recommend using shorter lectures for online classes, and that seems to be the trend. The Chronicle of Higher Education says that many online instructors who record their lectures have found that 20 minute segments work well. It's a different situation in the face to face classroom, but even so, I know that I am not usually spellbound by long presentations unless the speaker is

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-35309637689982391802008-05-14T11:50:00.001-07:002008-05-14T11:55:29.257-07:00

If you are looking for a different way to add a presentation to your blog or online class, SketchCast might be worth a look. It is a browser-based tool which allows you to record your drawings or text and record audio along with what you are putting in SketchCast window. The videos are hosted on the SketchCast site, so you can easily embed them into your site. Here's the demo:

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-24913781829885545792008-04-23T13:36:00.000-07:002008-04-23T13:48:11.275-07:00

We have had a large number of calls recently from UCR Extension students related to login problems at ilearn.ucr.edu. Almost all students and instructors should be using the CAS login button and not the iLearn Community Users login (which was used in the past). Some accounts (like mine) will continue to work with the iLearn Community Users button, but this is a temporary situation. Eventually,

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-67925792490256254202008-04-18T16:44:00.000-07:002008-04-18T16:49:27.978-07:00

Issuu is similar to iPaper in functionality and ease of use, at least for creating documents. Here's what it looks like. You only get to see the small version here. To read the full size document you have to go to the Issuu site. I'm not sure I like that:

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-16232031326344787502008-04-18T15:50:00.000-07:002008-04-18T16:17:18.043-07:00

iPaper looks like a nice way to add documents to your site. Here is an example using the document I wrote up on Blogging with Blackboard. The quality is similar to PDF and the reader doesn't have to download anything. The viewing options are pretty nice, with a page view and fullscreen mode. The slowest part is converting your documents since that is happening on their server. I'd like a local

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-76721591330912522972008-04-16T13:40:00.000-07:002008-04-16T13:43:40.812-07:00

The PBS resources made available through iTunesU this week look pretty good. You can find them through iTunes > iTunesU > PBS and then browse through the various areas. KQED has some nice materials, including a digital storytelling toolkit.

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-54644451835599424202008-04-11T13:10:00.000-07:002008-04-11T13:15:32.996-07:00

I have not been keeping up with much posting on this blog, but here is a nice resource I found this week. Alltop is an aggregator-type site which shows the last 5 items on a variety of websites and blogs in various subject areas. Education is one area, although there isn't a subcategory for educational or instructional technology. You can find the Alltop Education page here. You may find other

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-12487439455964172042008-03-19T12:20:00.000-07:002008-03-19T12:24:26.054-07:00

The UCR Extension Blackboard tutorials have a new home on the UCR Extension server. You can find them here:Student tutorial: http://www.extension.ucr.edu/online/tutorials/student_blackboard/Instructor tutorial: http://www.extension.ucr.edu/online/tutorials/instructor_blackboard/

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-42213986113826299312008-03-04T13:30:00.000-08:002008-03-04T13:36:56.220-08:00

I've posted version 1 of the Blackboard tutorials for instructors. It covers most of the key points of Blackboard using short screencasts. It also includes links to PDF handouts that I've created for UCR Extension instructors as well as to the Blackboard 2 page handouts for instructors. There are a few missing pieces, but I hope to have those filled in by the end of this week. You can find the

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-70585341392917047952008-02-27T15:25:00.000-08:002008-02-27T15:45:25.402-08:00

Teaching online often involves creating good questions for online discussions. Questionating, by Corinne Miller, might be helpful. She explains the "art and science of Questionating" as a way to create a Question Bank. It might be useful for spurring some online discussion. If not, the Change This site is a great source of other ideas you might find helpful.

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-33305138947224758922008-02-27T15:01:00.000-08:002008-02-27T16:21:46.091-08:00

Our Digital Storytelling course only had 3 students signed up, so it was cancelled. Too bad. I was really looking forward to the course and had high hopes for it. Maybe we can try to offer it again, but this was the second try, so it may not happen. Alternatives (Our course was a bargain at $125!):Visual Storytelling with Audio, taught by Bob Sacha, at the Santa Fe Workshops, July 6-12. It sounds

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-66030142357984446482008-02-21T12:07:00.000-08:002008-02-21T13:06:38.818-08:00

Our Digital Storytelling class has 5 students enrolled. We need a couple more in order for the class to be held. Here is a digital story one of my sons created for a school project to give prospective students an idea of the kind of project you could work on.

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-57495863647080471092008-02-20T15:22:00.001-08:002008-02-20T15:31:36.139-08:00

If we have enough students, our Digital Storytelling class will begin next Tuesday.  Here's the course description from the UNEX catalog:In this class, students combine digital photographs with music and narration to produce a three- to five-minute digital story using Photo Story 3, a free application from Microsoft. Participants write a short script, arrange the photos, add narration and music,

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-80542260054391685112008-01-08T14:51:00.000-08:002008-01-08T14:54:02.155-08:00

I am running the Blackboard tutorial for UNEX students from a server that's not operated by UCR, something I hope will change soon. The Blackboard tutorial is now located here. I will relocate the handouts listed on this blog later this week.

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-3075749920212998032007-11-28T16:00:00.000-08:002007-11-28T16:03:52.219-08:00

If you want to manage the backup and reloading of your Blackboard course yourself, you should use the Export Course or Archive Course options, along with Import Course when you are ready to reload. Export gives you a choice of which course areas you want to save while Archive makes a copy of everything, including student records. Student records are not available with Export. Here's a short step

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-85951146893941161922007-11-06T14:08:00.000-08:002007-11-06T14:10:37.785-08:00

Our first couse for online instructors, Introduction to Online Instruction, has 20 students enrolled, and we may still get a few more. It may be the catchy title, or the fact that the course is free, but it might also be a sign that there is some interest in teaching online for UC Riverside Extension. We should have 2 or 3 additional online courses available in January and February.

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-32988951360672546082007-10-30T12:02:00.000-07:002007-10-30T12:10:37.757-07:00

It's probably the biggest event between Halloween and Thanksgiving in the US -- National Distance Learning Week is coming up from November 12-16th! You could celebrate by enrolling in an online course, or by listening to Rod Jefferson's interview with the NDLW National Chair, Dr. Ken Hartman on Rod's Pulse Podcast from Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia.

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-1121317404734565382007-10-30T11:56:00.000-07:002007-10-30T12:02:07.229-07:00

from the Educational CyberPlayGround NetHappenings Mailing List Speak Up SurveyThrough December 15, K-12 students, teachers, administrators, and parents from across the nation have the opportunity to share their ideas and opinions on how technology should be used in the education process through Project Tomorrow's fifth annual Speak Up survey. This year's survey features new questions, addressing

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-26825676223014238622007-10-30T11:33:00.001-07:002007-10-30T11:34:23.319-07:00

Our free four week course, Introduction to Online Instruction, starts in less than a week. We could use a few more students, so contact your department programmer if you are interested.

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-48606297305327779422007-10-17T16:02:00.000-07:002007-10-17T16:23:09.517-07:00

Check out the debate on the Economist site. Sir John Daniel and Dr. Bob Kozma go toe to toe on the topic of "Effectiveness of Technology in Education - Does new technology add to the quality of education?". As far as I know, both guys (can you refer to a "sir" as guy?) are technology proponents, but in this debate Kozma has the positive perspective and Daniel has the thumbs down position. A poll

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-2717619464954394302007-10-10T16:33:00.000-07:002007-10-10T16:38:34.967-07:00

You can add a YouTube video to your Blackboard course by including the URL of the video in a link, but a slightly more elegant way is to add the Embed code from YouTube to any course content. That way, you can include a video in an assignment or other item and it will stream from the YouTube (or other) website. The same technique works with TeacherTube also. Here are the step by step

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-18673974863742071512007-10-09T10:47:00.000-07:002007-10-09T10:55:08.257-07:00

There is an interesting article in today's NY Times about the use of iPods and music as tools to help students learn English more quickly. Most schools ban mp3 players, but the schools mentioned in the article make them into learning devices. Making learning relevant is a tough job sometimes, but new technologies can be a part of it."Grace Poli, a media specialist at José Martí, said that she

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-57967966849732749912007-10-02T14:31:00.000-07:002007-10-02T14:46:58.266-07:00

Zotero is a Firefox plugin which helps with online research. You can save PDFs and websites and it integrates with Word and OpenOffice and WordPress. Scott McLemee has a nice review of Zotero on Inside Higher Ed. Zotero is free and open source, developed at George Mason University.

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-35779964904268028432007-09-26T12:34:00.000-07:002007-11-27T22:43:14.100-08:00

The new podcast features in Blackboard 7.3 are actually part of the Podcast Learning Object from LearningObjects.com. This learning object makes it possible to easily add podcasts to your course and syndicate them to your students using an RSS feed. In English, this means your students can subscribe to the podcasts you make available, whether you create them yourself or download them from someone

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-40615573690035613572007-09-25T17:04:00.000-07:002007-09-25T17:11:05.397-07:00

An early warning system sounds like a great thing for earthquakes, hurricanes and tsunamis, but it's also useful for instructors in online courses. When students don't set aside time to do their online work, they can quickly fall behind and may end up dropping a course. Blackboard 7.3 has a new feature, the Early Warning System, which can be used to keep tabs on student performance which may be a

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-28453681372579763742007-09-25T15:42:00.000-07:002007-09-25T15:45:09.480-07:00

With the recent update to Blackboard, it's a good idea to test your computer system for compatibility with Blackboard. Saginaw State University has a nice page which will run through a number of tests and give you an easy to read report on your setup. Check it out at their Blackboard Browser Test page.

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-28055958289951530062007-09-25T14:34:00.000-07:002007-09-25T14:39:45.895-07:00

The Discussion Board is one of the areas that changed quite a bit with the update to Blackboard 7.3, although many of the changes are just restoring functionality that was available in previous version of Blackboard. Here's a 2 page summary of some of the changes [PDF].

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-69907873442264444672007-09-24T13:43:00.001-07:002007-09-24T13:48:31.368-07:00

One of the add-ons that showed up with the update to Blackboard 7.3 over the weekend is a podcasting learning object. It doesn't help you create a podcast from what I could see, but it does allow you to upload one and distribute it. The uploading part takes place in a course content area using the learning unit menu. In the Control Panel under Course Tools you will find the Manage Podcast

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-74070783312530687482007-09-24T13:38:00.000-07:002007-09-24T13:42:56.618-07:00

Today's Washington Post has an article about using clickers and PowerPoint in large class lectures. There's no agreement on whether either of these is an improvement, but there are some interesting points in the article. I'm not a fan of the huge lectures myself, but they do exist at most big universities and they might be considered a labor-saving device. I don't think they do much for learning

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-66192467117223093462007-09-21T16:04:00.000-07:002007-09-21T16:07:01.596-07:00

The Chronicle of Higher Education has summaries of the ways five people in higher education are using Second Life in instruction.Campuses created by many colleges in Second Life mirror their real campuses. But Phillip D. Long, associate director of the Office of Educational Innovation and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, envisions the virtual campus as a student-led

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-15059017421665483432007-09-21T14:56:00.000-07:002007-09-21T15:01:34.031-07:00

Software updates give and software updates take away. I know I heard lots of complaints about lost functionality in the Discussion Board feature with the 7.0/7.1 update. You wonder why some of the features were removed...Well, some are returning with the 7.3 update. Here are some key changes:Restoring the capability in release 7.1, the Instructor can again view the Course Discussions in a Tree

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-37981226972723488922007-09-21T14:29:00.001-07:002007-09-21T14:44:17.499-07:00

There is online help available for UCR Extension students who are using Blackboard, but not all of them may be aware of it. An easy way to make sure students can find the help is to add a button to the course menu which is a link to the Getting Started with Blackboard page. I've put together step by step instructions which go through how to add the button [PDF].

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-77114589859862617682007-09-18T12:07:00.000-07:002007-09-18T12:10:05.528-07:00

Blackboard will be unavailable from about 10 AM Saturday until 10 AM Sunday while UCR upgrades the system. If you are an instructor in an online, hybrid or web-enhanced course, please let your students know about the upgrade.

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-64308158642212066812007-08-27T11:47:00.000-07:002007-08-27T11:54:37.201-07:00

The Sophie project released an alpha version for Mac, Windows and Linux on July 31st. It also comes with documentation, so it should be a good chance to create some interactive multimedia projects for use in online courses and in other contexts. Here's what Sophie is designed to do:"Sophie's raison d'être is to enable people to create robust, elegant rich-media, networked documents without

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-55298761312517536012007-06-20T13:53:00.000-07:002007-06-20T14:08:09.274-07:00

Test-taking in online courses often leads to discussions about cheating and possible ways to minimize cheating. In some cases, proctored exams solve the problem, but that's not always a good solution for everyone and it may require that students pay money for the serverice. Course management systems may allow for randomly generated exams using a bank of questions, something which can minimize the

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-3754978212232639652007-06-07T12:37:00.000-07:002007-06-07T12:44:31.078-07:00

Sophie is an open source project designed "to enable people to create robust, elegant rich-media, networked documents without recourse to programming". This week they released some documentation for the software and you can also download Early Release Candidate 5 for Mac, Windows and Linux and try it out. An update is coming sometime this month. The history of Sophie goes back to Voyager's

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-88690668363836181222007-05-31T15:11:00.000-07:002007-05-31T15:28:48.328-07:00

Comparing face to face with online teaching is often the first thing people think of when they want to know if online teaching and learning is any good (as if there was some uniformity across courses and the medium was somehow more important than the instructor). My feeling is that they are two different things and it's tough to make valid comparisons, but it's still useful to try, in some cases.

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-31317622383728566472007-05-17T11:02:00.000-07:002007-05-17T11:17:37.765-07:00

I had not seen this one before, but the Interdisciplinary Journal of Knowledge and Learning Objects looks pretty good. It is published by the Informing Science Institute which also publishes a number of other journals and books which are freely available. The books are provided through Google. It took me a little while to figure out how to read them online rather than purchasing them.

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-77275526522527532572007-05-16T12:02:00.000-07:002007-05-16T12:15:45.511-07:00

I've always thought that online teaching can force the instructor to rely on things other than classroom presence to get the job done, and this could result in rethinking teaching methods. In my mind, online teaching takes away the option of lecturing for the entire class period, so you've got to find other ways to engage students in learning. Today on chronicle.com there is a very short article

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-82371765425463061472007-05-15T16:50:00.000-07:002007-05-15T16:55:12.573-07:00

Garr Reynolds at Presentation Zen has another of his always interesting entries about presentations. While he talks about two questions, "Why does it matter" and "What's your contribution," the key point is that you've got to know your audience when you are talking to people.

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-26082590980117024112007-05-15T16:03:00.000-07:002007-05-15T16:13:02.895-07:00

EndNote is a nice tool for bibliographies, but it's expensive and for students, it may not be necessary. BibMe is a free alternative -- a website where you can pretty quickly search for and add books and articles to a bibliography. BibMe also has a manual entry mode, so if the journal you are looking for isn't indexed by CiteULike, the service used by BibMe, you can add an article yourself. Of

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-607205323144263142007-05-15T11:06:00.000-07:002007-05-15T11:18:00.875-07:00

The current issue of New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education has a number of articles related to online learning. This journal is accessible via the UCR campus network.

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-26700683995345607452007-05-02T13:59:00.000-07:002007-05-02T14:06:14.215-07:00

There are now a couple of troubleshooting guides for Blackboard in the Online Study area of the UC Riverside Extension web site. You can check out the instructor troubleshooting guide and another one for students. These were originally created for Extension staff who field questions from instructors and students about Blackboard, but now they are online for everyone to use. Maybe these guides

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-58799840531272764022007-05-02T13:51:00.000-07:002007-05-02T13:58:58.965-07:00

Most people have heard about YouTube, the video sharing site which is one of the most popular sites on the web. How about TeacherTube? TeacherTube is a free resource for sharing instructional videos, animations and screencasts. It's been around a couple of months now. It's easy to embed a video from TeacherTube on your site, just copy and paste the embed code into your web page or blog and you'll

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-70944513329013329632007-05-02T13:24:00.000-07:002007-05-02T13:36:12.130-07:00

If you've ever wondered how to present numbers and text in more graphical formats, check out A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods developed by Martin J. Eppler and Ralph Lengler from the University of Lugano in Switzerland. It's an interesting resource -- move your mouse over any of the elements in the table and you'll see a visual example. I like the infomural example, but there are many

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-88261965685228259362007-04-18T15:48:00.000-07:002007-04-18T15:57:55.869-07:00

Looking for teaching ideas or course materials? Connexions is "an environment for collaboratively developing, freely sharing, and rapidly publishing scholarly content on the Web. Our Content Commons contains educational materials for everyone — from children to college students to professionals — organized in small modules that are easily connected into larger courses. All content is free to use

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-17399584375654858182007-04-13T11:46:00.000-07:002007-04-13T11:47:52.390-07:00

Because I participated in a Google usability test for Blogger, this blog didn't get updated to the new version of Blogger right away. In fact, it was unavailable to me for many weeks until today, when it was finally upgraded to the new Blogger. I'll finally be able to resume my work blogging.

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-1170887454369496012007-02-07T14:19:00.000-08:002007-05-02T14:10:45.232-07:00

I have found the Tomorrow's Professor email list from the Stanford Center for Teaching and Learning and MIT to be a good source of information about teaching in higher education. It comes out a couple of times a week and consists of short articles or excerpts relevant to teaching. You can also find the entries at the Tomorrow's Professor blog. A recent entry, Teaching for Transformation: From

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-1170788489093892472007-02-06T10:50:00.000-08:002007-02-06T11:01:29.103-08:00

If you subscribe to the feed for this blog in iTunes, in addition to getting any podcasts, you will also automatically receive any PDF attachments. This could be a handy way to keep people up to date on materials available for instructors. It might not do too much for anyone who doesn't want the PDFs, but the files are not that large. For the most part, these guides are specific to UC Riverside,

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-1170787037759248782007-02-06T09:53:00.000-08:002007-05-02T14:11:05.794-07:00

I interviewed Jon Kindschy of UCR Extension last week about the use of distance learning in the Sciences courses here at Extension. The podcast is a little under 9 minutes long.Click here to play the podcast or subscribe through the button in the sidebar.

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35919479.post-1170190472345746262007-01-30T12:47:00.000-08:002007-01-30T12:54:32.366-08:00

It's a nice marketing idea -- putting previews of courses online so anyone can download them. Of course, anyone has to be able to sign up for the courses to make it worthwhile, and that is also the case here with Harvard Extension's use of iTunes U to offer video previews of selected courses. Not all online courses use video, but these do, so it's a nice use of the technology. Previews for 15 of

BReillyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08540708842545819815noreply@blogger.com0