Flex workshops for Fall Flex week

POT is collaborating with Jim Julius and AIS to provide a full three-day Online Teaching Workshop Sequence.

DAY 1: Laying the Foundation – Friday 8/8

JJ 9-9:50 Effective Internet Use with Chrome
Jim Julius, OC4804
In this interactive workshop, participants will begin by exploring important concepts and terminology on the workings of the Internet. With this foundation, participants will learn how to more effectively use the Chrome web browser to efficiently and securely search for, access, and organize web-based resources.

KK 10-10:50 Blackboard basics
Karen Korstad, OC4804
Get the key information needed to get up and running in Blackboard. With Blackboard, instructors create and manage course content, use publisher content, evaluate performance, and communicate with students. This workshop will introduce you to the fundamental course building and communications tools in Blackboard.

JJ 11-11:50 AP 4105: Requirements for MiraCosta distance ed
Jim Julius, OC4802
MiraCosta AP 4105 was adopted in 2013 and provides significant institutional expectations of all MiraCosta faculty teaching online and hybrid classes. This workshop will briefly provide background on federal, state, and accreditor requirements that AP 4105 addresses. More importantly, the workshop will explore the key elements of AP 4105 – regular effective contact, academic integrity, monitoring student progress, frequent and timely feedback, and student authentication. Participants will consider practical examples of how these requirements are fulfilled in various ways that MiraCosta faculty design and teach online classes.

JJ 1-1:50 Foundational Principles for online course design
Jim Julius, OC4802
The online environment has advantages and challenges for teaching and learning compared to a traditional classroom. Developing and teaching online and hybrid classes provides an opportunity to revisit, broaden, and deepen our pedagogies. Participants in this workshop will explore, in a very practical way, some of the most highly regarded, widely used, research-based principles and tools for effective online teaching.

KK 2-3:20 Blackboard gradebook
Karen Korstad, OC4804
The Grade Center in Blackboard Learn is more than just a way to record student grades. It is a dynamic and interactive tool, allowing you to record data, calculate grades, monitor student progress, and provide feedback. Come learn why the Grade Center is consistently rated as one of the most important Blackboard tools by both students and faculty.

DAY 2: Building the Online Class – Monday 8/11

 9:30-10:20 am POT workshop: Options for organizing your online class
Lisa M Lane, OC4802
Organizing your class is the first step in creating a good online experience for yourself and your students. Discover how the strengths of your own pedagogy, and the learning objectives you have for your students, can translate into a course structure that works. A Program for Online Teaching workshop.
Web page

JJ 10:30 -11:20  Options for your online class materials 
Jim Julius and Jennifer Paris, OC4802
One of the many opportunities of online teaching is to reconsider your course materials. This workshop will help you better understand the options available to you, which go far beyond publisher resources. Learn more about high-quality digital resources available through the MiraCosta library, as well as the best sources for free open educational resources (OER). Explore low cost digital and print-on-demand alternatives to traditional textbooks as well. This workshop will also provide guidelines for creating your own digital course materials in the most typical formats – text documents, PowerPoints, and screencasts. This workshop will also consider how these various resources can be integrated into your online class.

JJ 11:30-12:20 Hot topics in online education: Copyright & Fair Use, intellectual property, privacy, and accessibility
Jim Julius, Pamela Perry and Robert Erichsen, OC4802
When teaching online, questions often arise about rules, rights, and responsibilities of the instructor. While MiraCosta’s AP 4105 speaks to some of these areas, a number of others are also important and can be tricky. This workshop will explore the black, white, and gray areas of copyright and fair use; intellectual property of faculty and students; student privacy and FERPA; and ensuring accessibility of course materials and activities (also known as “508 compliance”). Participants will learn not only what these topics mean and why they are important for all online teachers to consider, but also practical ways to approach them and do the right thing.

 1:30-2:50 POT workshop: Screencasting for Educators
Robert Kelley and Laura Paciorek, OC4804 Don’t just tell your online students – show them! You can record and share with your students whatever you wish to display on your computer screen, while you are talking about it (e.g. using a microphone). Screencasting is a great way to share mini-lecturettes, make quick replies to students, demonstrate a method, or provide students with feedback on their assignments/quizzes. Importantly, you’ll get hands on experience with how to do this easily and for free! We’ll focus on learning the basics of Screencast-O-Matic. You’ll learn how to share your screencasts either as a URL link or how to embed the video directly within your course (e.g. using Bb or Moodle). Other screencasting tools will also be shown. We’ll also cover options for closed captioning your course materials. A Program for Online Teaching workshop, presented by Robert Kelley and Laura Paciorek.

KK 7:00-8:20 pm Blackboard Quizzes, Tests, and Surveys
Karen Korstad, online
This workshop is an introduction to creating and deploying tests, quizzes, and surveys in Blackboard. You will learn how to create a test utilizing different question types and make it available for students using deployment options including: date restrictions, number of attempts, time limit, exceptions, feedback options, randomizing question and response order, and pulling questions from pools and existing tests. The Respondus tool to create and manage questions outside of Blackboard will also be introduced.

DAY 3 – Inhabiting the Online Class – Tuesday 8/12

JJ 9:00-9:50 Starting strong in your online class
Jim Julius & Joanne Carrubba, OC4802
Online student success begins even before the semester starts. Prospective and enrolled students want to know the expectations for your online class and how to get started. Providing the critical information about your class and involving students right away is important. Having a useful syllabus in place, creating a personal introduction, setting an engaging tone, and launching an initial activity to get students engaged and connected all are important contributors to a strong start to a great semester. Sharing your insights and expectations for how students can succeed as online learners in your class is also vital. This workshop will provide tips and resources for how to accomplish all of this in your online class.

 10:00-10:50 POT workshop: Effective online assessments Louisa Moon, OC4802
Creating effective assessments online means going beyond quizzes to assessments that can guide progress and provide opportunities for practice and feedback. Come explore ideas for various kinds of assessments that fulfill learning objectives and suit your pedagogy. A Program for Online Teaching workshop.
PowerPoint

 11:00-11:50 POT workshop: Engaging online discussions and student interaction Bethanie Perry, OC4802
Discussion and student-student interaction enhances learning and critical thinking, but can be difficult to structure. Explore the effective formats for discussion boards (including good questions, appropriate guidance and assessment), alternatives such as Skype and Hangouts, and good ways to use social media to enhance learning and interaction. A Program for Online Teaching workshop.
Prezi for session

 12:30-1:20 POT workshop: Establishing instructor presence online Lisa M Lane and Louisa Moon, OC4802
Teaching online means teaching at a distance, not being distant. Explore ways online teachers can make their presence felt in their online class, through introductions, audio/visuals, communications with individual students, and participation with the whole class. In addition to tools for monitoring student progress and intervening early, the instructor’s own online persona and use of original material can create a helpful environment for students. A Program for Online Teaching workshop.
Google page

1:30-2:20 Reflecting on Practice Through Blogging
Lisa M Lane and Laura Paciorek, OC4802
When we reflect on the work we do, we become better teachers. Keeping a blog of these reflections is as easy as keeping a journal, especially since MiraCosta has its own installation of the best open source blogging platform, WordPress. Blogging isn’t about extensive writing (or even writing at all), nor being technologically savvy. It’s about every teacher’s need to reflect upon and share classroom triumphs and disappointments, explore new methods, and encourage others to do the same by interacting in an open environment. Flex will be available for this workshop and for extended hours throughout the semester, as we create a community. Suggestions will be shared for setting up your first blog, deciding topics to post about, and commenting on the work of others.
Google page

KK 2:00-3:20 Blackboard Assignments and TurnItIn.com
Karen Korstad, online
Assignments in Blackboard allow faculty to receive digital submissions and/or file uploads of essays, PowerPoint, or other types of student assignments. In turn, faculty can provide various kinds of rich feedback to students through audio, text, and integrated marking. In this workshop we will explore two of the most popular assignment tools available in Bb – The built in Bb Assignment tool, and the 3rd party integrated Turnitin Assignment tool.

Thursday 8/14

 1:30-2:50 Google Docs 
Robert Kelley and Laura Paciorek, OC4804
Do you share documents and presentations with your students, by posting them online (e.g., syllabi, assignments, study guides, class presentations, etc)? What a great time saver if you could continue to easily edit those same documents from your computer, and they’d automatically update — in every location where they were posted (at all campuses and on all course management systems). Or imagine that you’d like to collaborate with a colleague, but don’t wish to keep sending file attachments back and forth? For your students, perhaps you assign group projects, and you’d like them to have the ability to jointly edit the same online document or presentation together. Google Docs makes all of this easy to achieve, and opens up new pedagogical possibilities. We’ll cover how Google Drive, Docs, and Presentations can benefit you as an educator – and provide you with hands on experience to get comfortable with the applications. A Program for Online Teaching workshop.