Educational Technology Newsletter | Issue 1 | April  2008

First Edition

Welcome to the first edition of EdTech Connect - a monthly e-newsletter from the Educational Technologies Online Support unit. The e-newsletter's purpose is to provide Carmen users in the Fisher College of Business information, tips and other pertinent items about Carmen and online learning.

As you read the items in Carmen connect and ideas or questions come to mind, please contact us as we would like to address your concerns.

Version 8.2 is Live!

You may have noticed some changes to the way Carmen operates. TELR upgraded to version 8.2 at the end of last quarter. Some of the significant changes were in the areas of Content and Grades while other primarily cosmetic changes were made in other areas.

If you need some assistance with the basics of Carmen operation, we have created a series of online narrated videos that you can access.

These videos cover:

-How to Activate Your Course
-How to Upload and Place Content in your Course
-How to Add Carmen Tools to your Course
-How to Copy Content from an Old Course to a New One

Access these videos at:
Carmen Basics Videos

Online Resources

Food For Thought

The following link will take you to a thought provoking article entitled, "Less is More: Designing an Online Course." This article provides advice on how to approach designing an online course. It rebuts some ideas about distance learning and advises faculty to keep it simple as they develop an online course. It also challenges faculty to think less of transferring their face-to-face course to an online setting, but to transform it to fit this new delivery method. There’s that and plenty more.

We urge you to take a moment to read this insightful article.
Less is More

EdTech Web Site Revised

The Educational Technologies web site has just been revised. We invite you to visit it to see all the new content. You can find the new web site at: http://fisher.osu.edu/services/edtech/

Carmen Support Team

Randy Spears is the Associate Director of Educational Technologies and is the leader of the Online Learning Support unit. He came to Fisher from Ashland University in the Fall of 2006. Randy is a graduate of the Ohio State University (1985) and has a Master’s Degree from Purdue University. He has worked in distance learning and video production since 1985 at 5 institutions of higher education.

Randy's Contact Information:
Phone 8-8468
E-mail: spears_4@fisher.osu.edu

Facilitating Your Carmen Course

If you’re just starting out with Carmen or have been using it for awhile, here are four tips that can help the online experience start out on the right foot for you and your students.

Provide Clear Instructions
When using Carmen you have to be more diligent in being clear in providing clear and concise instructions for online assignments and activities. Since there's no immediate feedback for questions due to the nature of an online course being asynchronous, ambiguity needs to be minimized. A confused student is a frustrated student. Instructions should be easy to locate in your course. A central, unambiguous place like a syllabus should be set-up for students to find instructions.

Be Present
Since you're teaching an online course, you don't have the benefit of body language and other non-verbal cues. You can make up for this by providing prompt feedback and creating a consistent tone in written communications. By posting regularly in discussion forums and replying to email messages you can let students know you're present and engaged in their learning process.

Be Role Model
Facilitating an online course means you should be a role model, leading online student discussions and being the trail blazer on the use of new technologies and pedagogical strategies. Find ways to add comments and guide students in their communications. If you ask students to present online, you need to be willing to model those online presentation skills first. You should also have an affirming influence in the course by maintaining a positive and constructive tone.

Set-up the Ground Rules for Feedback
Many students feel that since a course is online, feedback should be nearly instantaneous. You should communicate upfront your policy for responding to questions and let students know that you have a policy for responding promptly, but that most communication will be provided with 24 to 28 hours.

There are many more details to take care of when delivering an online course than those included here. But providing clear instructions, being present in your course, being a role model and setting quality rules for feedback you can help create a successful and satisfying online learning experience for everyone.