We are the Program for Online Teaching, a group of volunteer faculty helping other faculty teach better online.

Our focus is on pedagogy as the guiding force for using technologies for teaching.

Many of us are from MiraCosta College in Oceanside, California. MiraCostans may access the Teaching/Technology Innovations Center for technical help, resources, news and more.

The POT Network

  • POT Diigo group
    (see tutorial on how to save bookmarks)
  • POT Facebook group
  • POT Vimeo Channel (workshops)
  • POT YouTube Channel
  • Twittter (please use hashtag #potcomm)

WordPress: Using Tags

WordPress: Using Categories

Laura demonstrates the setting up of categories as a good way of organizing posts.

POT Newsletter #43 (August 2012)


Program for Online Teaching Newsletter #43

August 2012

 


Online Class Tours Available

Ever wish you could take a peek inside other people’s online classes? You can with the class tours we’ve been posting at the POT site:

Elsewhere

From POT Certificate Grads:


POT Online Teaching Certificate Class starts this weekend

POT offers a very special opportunity to learn how to teach online in our free, year-long, open online class that starts this week.

There is a textbook (we have copies in the PDP office!), and activities for 12 weeks in fall and 12 weeks in spring. Participants learn about teaching online by putting their pedagogical goals first, and learning to use various technologies to fulfill their objectives, whether teaching online, hybrid, or in a classroom. The class is free and open and led by POT participants, moderators from around the globe, and graduates of the certificate program.

See the website for the class at http://pedagogyfirst.org/wppf12. If you would like to join us, just email Lisa.


POT Facebook group conversation this week

In preface to the Certificate Class, we are currently engaged in conversation about online teaching at the POT Facebook group this week. Come join us! (Remember, you can join a Facebook Group without friending anyone.)

We are currently holding a pre-class workshop in the POT Facebook group beginning August 19 – all are welcome.


POT First Fridays start September 7 at Oceanside

Laura Paciorek hosts our successful First Friday workshop series again this fall in OC4804.

Come and discuss your online teaching adventures with fellow faculty members.  Individuals with no, little, some, and a lot of online teaching experience are all welcome.  Each First Friday will focus on what the group wants to discuss; however, prompts will also be provided to start the discussion.  Questions are welcome, too!

September 7 – 3:00-3:50 p.m.: Engagement – What do you do to engage your students in online classes?

October 5 – 3:00-3:50 p.m.: Time/energy management – How do you manage your time/energy as an instructor and how do you help your students manage their time/energy?

November 2– 3:00-3:50 p.m.: Evaluation – How do you have students evaluate your classes and how do you evaluate your students’ work?

December 7 – 3:00-3:50 p.m.: Renewal – What are your plans for your future classes?  What did you learn or what do you want to try next?

Sign up at the flex website.


Featured tutorials

Excellent tutorials abound at the POT website. For example:

Getting Started with WordPress

Laura Paciorek has put together some short tutorials on how to get blogging on MiraCosta’s new WordPress system.

Learning Blackboard for flex credit

Lisa M Lane and Karen Korstad have put together tutorials on how to get flex credit for working your way through Karen’s Blackboard training modules.

Getting Started Teaching Online

On sabbatical, Lisa created a step-by-step tutorial for those learning to teach in the online environment. It’s called Where the Hell Do I Start?

 

Happy online, hybrid and technology-enhanced teaching,

Lisa

 

POT Cert Class and First Fridays coming up!

POT Online Teaching Certificate Class at Pedagogy First!

Class begins September 1 for a free, open, online experience in learning to teach online.  Contact Lisa during the summer if you’d like to join – you will be starting your own blog and following a syllabus that runs 12 weeks in fall and 12 weeks and spring. Those who complete the tasks may earn a POT Online Teaching certificate and badge.

See the 2011-12 class for the kind of experience to expect. The new class website will open this summer.

POT First Fridays at Oceanside 4804

Come and discuss your online teaching adventures with fellow faculty members.  Individuals with no, little, some, and a lot of online teaching experience are all welcome.  Each First Friday will focus on what the group wants to discuss, however, prompts will also be provided to start the discussion.  Questions are welcome, too!
This workshop benefits faculty by giving them ideas that may improve instruction.

September 7 – 3:00-3:50 p.m.: Engagement – What do you do to engage your students in online classes?

October 5 – 3:00-3:50 p.m.: Time/energy management – How do you manage your time/energy as an instructor and how do you help your students manage their time/energy?

November 2– 3:00-3:50 p.m.: Evaluation – How do you have students evaluate your classes and how do you evaluate your students’ work?

December 7 – 3:00-3:50 p.m.: Renewal – What are your plans for your future classes?  What did you learn or what do you want to try next?

POT Newletter #42 (July 2012)


Program for Online Teaching Newsletter #42

July 2012

POT All-Day Workshop: Strategies and Tools for Online Teaching

Tuesday, August 14

9:30 am – 3:50 pm, lunch included
Flex time: 6.5 hours

Limited enrollment: 40 participants (contact Lisa if it’s full and you want to get in)
Cost: $20/person includes lunch (sign up in flex and send check made out to MCC Academic Senate (put PDP on memo line) to Debby Adler, MS 8C. Deadline to pay is August 13, or you will lose your spot to someone on the wait list.

Instructors of all levels and styles are welcome to join us for an all-day exploration of the strategies and tools that can be effectively used for online, hybrid or on-site classes that use web technologies. Beginning with developing good course design through individual pedagogy, participants will work hands-on with a
selection of proven teaching tools and explore how they can be used to realize instructional goals.  If you have attended an all-day POT workshop in the past, there will be some new additions this year.

Please bring your laptop computer, tablet or smart phone if you have one – that will open up more computers in some of the sessions.

Participants will receive 6.5 flex hours for participating (attendance of less than 6.5 hours may be recorded on the sign-in sheet).


Other fall flex week workshops of interest to online faculty

Monday, August 13

  • 9 am, OC4612 Bb 101: Introduction to Blackboard
  • 10:30 am, OC4612: Creating Exams and Practice Exercises in Blackboard
  • 1:00 pm, OC4611: Internet Basics I: Critical Concepts & Browser Basics
  • 2:00 pm, OC4611: Internet Basics II: Better, Safer, More Effective Web Browsing and Searching
  • 3:00 pm, SAN107: Bb 101: Introduction to Blackboard

Wednesday, August 15

Thursday, August 16


POT Online Teaching Certificate Class starts September 1

POT offers a very special opportunity to learn how to teach online in our free, year-long, open online class!

Our next class begins on September 1. There is a textbook, and activities for 12 weeks in fall and 12 weeks in spring. Participants learn about teaching online by putting their pedagogical goals first, and learning to use various technologies to fulfill their objectives, whether teaching online, hybrid, or in a classroom. The class is free and open and led by POT participants, moderators from around the globe, and graduates of the certificate program.

The draft website is currently being put together at http://pedagogyfirst.org/wppf12. If you would like to join us, just email Lisa.

We will also hold a pre-class workshop in the POT Facebook group beginning August 19 – all are welcome.


POT First Fridays at Oceanside 4804

Laura Paciorek hosts our successful First Friday workshop series again this fall.

Come and discuss your online teaching adventures with fellow faculty members.  Individuals with no, little, some, and a lot of online teaching experience are all welcome.  Each First Friday will focus on what the group wants to discuss; however, prompts will also be provided to start the discussion.  Questions are welcome, too!

September 7 – 3:00-3:50 p.m.: Engagement – What do you do to engage your students in online classes?

October 5 – 3:00-3:50 p.m.: Time/energy management – How do you manage your time/energy as an instructor and how do you help your students manage their time/energy?

November 2– 3:00-3:50 p.m.: Evaluation – How do you have students evaluate your classes and how do you evaluate your students’ work?

December 7 – 3:00-3:50 p.m.: Renewal – What are your plans for your future classes?  What did you learn or what do you want to try next?

Sign up at the flex website.


Online Tool News

No more Talkback Badge

One of the great tools POT recommends has disappeared. Google’s Talkback Badge could be put on any web page to allow students to instantly chat with you, without downloading or having an account. It’s been discontinued.

This summer we’ve been testing plupper.com, and think it provides a good alternative, although it needs a client (such as iChat for Mac or Miranda for PC) to work. Information and other options can be found on Lisa’s blog.

No more Meebo

Pilar reports that Meebo is also gone, so plupper may provide a solution for that also.

Textbook or Wikipedia Book?

We’ve discovered Wikipedia Books, which allows you to put together (and edit) books for students comprised of collected articles from Wikipedia.

Diigo for student annotations

Diigo, the social bookmarking service, can be used to have students annotate documents. Each student needs a free account, and Diigo will give you a URL for saved documents with annotations so students can see each others’ work. You can even use Diigo’s Educator features to create a class account.

Just need a gradebook?

We’ve been testing a free gradebook, and can recommend Engrade for ease of use. It does set its own student passwords, however, which must be given to the students so they can access their grades. Intended for K-12, even with its new features it’s simple to use.

Add a Twitter widget to Blackboard

Blackboard isn’t always good at taking code from elsewhere and displaying it properly. The trick is to switch to HMTL mode and make sure the Text Editor is disabled. To add a Twitter widget to your Bb 9.1 class, see these instructions.

Create a quick and simple web page

Sometimes you just want to make something available to students on the web. Try checkthis.com.

Sharing web images with Pinterest

The latest tool for selecting and displaying collections of images and videos, kind of like an online poster, is Pinterest. You “pin” images from the web on a page, and can talk about them and share.

 Public Domain resource

Public Domain Review is a website dedicated to curating text, images and video available in the public domain.

 A style guide for citing Wikipedia

Wikipedia has a full page on the formats and methods for citing Wikipedia pages in research and student projects.

 

Happy online teaching and learning!

Lisa