Welcome to Holly's informal tour of
the Etudes NG online course interface. [This is
no substitute for the "official" training course offered by Foothill College.]
On the left is the first main course screen students will see upon logging in and entering. This area allows them to choose from:
All students new to the Etudes online interface must complete an online orientation that prepares them for navigating among these choices.
In My Workspace, students can keep track of all their online classes, see a schedule of pending due dates, and manage their tasks and assignments in general.
Schedule is the area that corresponds to the Course Schedule professors give students the first day of on-campus classes.
Announcements is self explanatory, but sometimes students need to be reminded (in a private message or in a classroom module) to check them!
Syllabus also corresponds to the written policies professors give on-campus students day one. It is even more important to make use of this function in the online environment in order to protect yourself from issues as they crop up. First time instructors might want to ask to see a sample online syllabus from a seasoned online colleague who has likely already created policy addressing any possible online issue. I like to include a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) area as well to address possible student concerns.
Modules was called "Classroom" in the classic Etudes platform and I find that a more apt description. This is the place where students access your classroom lectures. Each lecture is referred to as a module. NG allows for multiple pages for each lecture, as well as uploaded images, sounds, attachments, and links. Imagine the possibilities here! (Although you won't have to simply imagine, because I'm going to show you!)
Assignments is also self-explanatory. Each Assignment module looks much like the Assignment description worksheet you hand out to students in an on-campus classroom. However, unlike in an on-campus classroom, here you can link Assignments directly to classroom modules and set prerequisites so they cannot be accessed until students have completed the appropriate lecture. Assignments may also be managed so that they must be completed in order. You may also create Solution pages, although faculty of objective-content disciplines such as Math and the Sciences should be careful of using this function.
Discussion and Private Messages provides an entrance to what classic Etudes called "The Forums." This Discussion area is essentially a non-live chat where discussion topics can be pursued in threads. Many online professors require participation in the Discussion forum as a percentage of a student's grade; in this way it substitutes for in-class discussion. Private Messages is a platform-local email exchange, and delivers messages that cannot be read by anyone but the sender and recipient. Students and faculty must be logged in to retrieve these messages. Many online professors encourage students to post general questions in the Discussion forum so that everyone can benefit from the answers. This helps to manage the professor's online time.
Finally, Chat is a live-chat area. In NG live chats can be scheduled and required by professors in order to create a class discussion in real time, or in order to conduct an office hour.
At right you can see an approximation of the classroom or "Modules" area in classic Etudes. The NG Modules screen is quite similar. For my Spring 2006 Creative Writing Course, I created 15 modules to recreate the 15 lectures I would give in the course of a semester. You will see that I had to list Course Schedule and Syllabus (called "Start Here") as Lecture modules because the classic Etudes did not provide separate areas.
Modules are scheduled according to the professor's specifications, one per week, one biweekly, etc. Modules can also be set to expire at a certain time in order to keep students moving forward in the course.
Professors manage students in a specified administration area (left.) Students can be manually added, dropped, graded, etc. and faculty can also allow students to resubmit assignments or limit them from certain areas (ex: limit a troublemaker from logging back into the Discussion area.) Professors can see who logged in, when, where they went, and how much time they spent.
The construction of individual classroom/lecture modules allows the most possibilities for faculty. Lectures can become visually and aurally stimulating for students and enable them to better concentrate on your content. If you've ever felt limited in your abilities to reach visual and kinesthetic learners with oral lectures in the physical classroom, the online classroom is the place where such learners can truly thrive.
Perhaps your strengths are visual/written and you have often felt shy or uncomfortable in front of a class. Then constructing your online class will be exciting for you, since you can control it down to the most minute detail. In the online lecture module, no one can interrupt you or derail your concentration--all the content is prepared in advance. While you can continually edit and upgrade your materials, once you've created a module, you never need to make it again! It can be saved both online and offline and transferred from semester to semester, with minimal changes to keep things interesting and current. Although it does require significant construction time the first time, imagine the freedom that will allow you in future semesters, either to focus more on interaction with students in Discussion area, or in your own offline pursuits! (Often first-time online faculty stay a few weeks ahead of students in the construction of the modules, rather than creating the whole course in advance. But at the end of the semester, it's done!)
In terms of what you can accomplish visually, aurally, etc. within a classroom module, the sky is really the limit. In your Foothill Etudes training course you will have the chance to practice all applications and try lots of different things. English professor Bob Sprague likes to show students Shakespearean images throughout his lecture on the text. A music professor could "play" the melody he/she is discussing! Perhaps you've seen things done online that you would like to try; keep a record of those web addresses so that you can get help creating the same features in your own modules.
You may be thinking: I like all this, but I don't know web design! I can't write code! The good news is, you don't need to! Etudes has built-in editors that you can learn to use in order to modify the color, size, and placement of text and images to create the kinds of things you've seen in this tutorial. No matter how incapable you feel when it comes to computers and online applications, you are still the same professional who earned your teaching and research credentials! That means you have already proven yourself capable of success, and you can do it again!
Take a look at some of the following images and then stop in to get started!
To the left is a portion of one of my classroom screens,
showing the insertion of an image.
(Scroll down for more.)
Another Lecture module example below...
(Scroll down for more.)
Charts can be created in the Etudes editors
to vary the delivery of content.
(Scroll down for more.)
Images can be imported from any location.
Your years of slides or overhead transparency
images can be converted to image files and
embedded in your online lectures!
At right, you can see the use of hyperlinks to the web.
Hope you have enjoyed this brief tour of online teaching. Why not make an appointment with me right now to discuss the possibilities for your discipline?
It's fun and free and it beats grading exams!
