Ideas from Online Rubric

As I read the rubric I tried to identify three important activities or elements from different areas that I could incorporate into an online course. I have just identified the activity or element and explained why it important.

Instructional Design and Delivery
Use texting for student-instructor contact.
Someone suggested this to me and I hesitated, but the more I thought about it, if I don’t have to pay for it, it makes sense, so I added this to my syllabus. Most texts are so short you can’t get into log discussions, but it gives students nearly immediate feedback and interaction with the instructor. This reduces that time lag of communication. And texts are short so it isn’t time consuming.

Faculty Use of Student Feedback
Provide for regular feedback from students that can be used on demand to make course adjustments.
I learned quite a bit from doing the mini-analysis for my teaching and realized how this could be integrated as an ongoing element of the course. In my syllabus I included it as part of the communication but each module was conceived to have a final survey that students would complete. Since there are multiple pathways through the modules the feedback from one group of students can be used to modify the module before the next group of students proceed through that module. This would ensure students provide feedback and also that it gets into the hands of instructors before the traditional end of the semester evaluation when it is too late to help modify the current course.

Innovative Teaching with Technology
Use virtual reality for allowing students to enter into physical objects, settings, time periods, or other visual elements related to the instruction.
This is one of my stretch ideas. This goes beyond using Second Life or computer generated realities, but some really advanced virtual environments (wth the helmets and such). For doing Venn diagrams, students could enter the diagram and as they move from one defined class (red things) and into a second related/unrelate class (lobster) they would experience the changes of being that object. So entering the red part of the object they become red. As they enter the overlap of the red and lobster areas they would get the experience of becoming a cooked lobster and feel like they are really a lobster. This would be innovative, but more importantly connect with the ways students use of multimedia outside of the learning environment.