I’m finding the readings and examples very motivating. In fact, I have already started redesigning my on-ground Blackboard site using some of the suggestions from chapters 3 & 5. I especially liked some of the techniques that Pilar used in her Spanish class, although I think her design is so comprehensive for class management that it is well beyond what most people think of as the “syllabus.”
My department has a standard syllabus format that I will continue to follow and provide to students as a separate document (with numerous hyperlinks) so certain essential information for the class, beginning to end, is always readily available in one location, a single click away. However, I also want to improve the flow of my Blackboard site to incorporate many of the concepts discussed. I want to keep it simple but interesting, making it even more interactive and easy to navigate, and hopefully making it what the authors refer to as a true “online classroom,” complementing the activities of the physical classroom for my f2f and hybrid classes.
I found it helpful to think about going “back to the basics” in course design, starting with formally drafting the course goals and objectives and SLOs before even starting on the syllabus. Doing this can certainly keep an instructor focused, when teaching a new course for the first time as well in a course that has been taught repeatedly (I have a couple of each this semester).
