Technology & Instruction for UNEX

We have two free classes for instructors, potential instructors, or anyone curious about online teaching available for registration for the Summer quarter. Instructors who will be teaching online or hybrid classes for UCR Extension during the Fall or Winter quarters are required to complete  Teaching Online with Moodle (online or hybrid format) or demonstrate equivalent experience prior to teaching their first class.  Please note that the hybrid class has two meetings in one week, which is a change from the past, and the remaining two weeks are online, so this is a change from previous classes. Both classes cover the same material but offer different experiences. You are welcome to sign up for both if you like, but it seems unnecessary. 141MSCC02  - Teaching Online with Moodle - starts  June 10th , 2014  – Hybrid, 3 weeks; Meetings at UCR Extension on June 10th and 12th 4:30 – 6 PM This class covers the basics of te...

This past Friday, March 23rd, UCR Extension hosted an exhibition of student work from "All the World's a Stage: Introduction to Street Photography," a class taught by Eric Kim . Some of Eric's photos were also on display. Eric Kim and students from his class, "All the World's a Stage: Introduction to Street Photography" Student work on display Eric Kim and  Ibarionex Perello , host of The Candid Frame podcast *photos by Jacqueline Rodriguez Eric is teaching the class again during the Spring quarter . It is taught using a hybrid format, with some face-to-face meetings and some online work. Back in August, I was listening to The Candid Frame episode where Ibarionex Perello interviewed Eric Kim. Eric mentioned that he had recently been laid off from his job and was going to devote his time to street photography. I emailed Eric and told him about our free class for potential online instructors and asked if he might be interested in tea...

We are offering our free course for instructors and potential instructors one more time this quarter. The class starts tomorrow and details about how to register are below. 113MSCC13 Teaching Online with Moodle : online, 4 weeks, starts February 15 – 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. Emphasis is on the unique features of online teaching and learning, and the transition from face-to-face to online. Register by contacting Student Services: Tel: (951) 827-4105 or (800) 442-4990 toll-free Email: register@ucx.ucr.edu (include your name, address, phone number and the course ID). Questions: contact Brian Reilly - breilly at ucx.ucr.edu

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 class. Eric's videos and writings will give you an idea of how passionate he is about street photography, but he's also thought quite a bit about the sociological implications of taking pictures of strangers in the street, so you'll learn more than just photographic techniques. Check out Eric's website for more information about him and his photography.

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. Emphasis is on the unique features of online teaching and learning, and the transition from face-to-face to online. Open to anyone who might be interested in teaching online, not just UCR Extension instructors; no previous experience required. Optional project is to produce a proposal for an online course at UCR Extension. 113MSCC10 Teaching Online with Moodle : face-to-face, 3 meetings, starts January 11th; 6-8 PM, Wednesdays at UCR Extension – same as online version listed above. 113MSCC12 Producing Media for Your Online Course: online, 3 weeks, starts February 7th . Instructors learn ...

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.

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...

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...

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/