Course Goal
This course will provide K-12 educators and community college instructors with a basic introduction to online teaching and learning techniques and technologies; explore applications of e-learning in the traditional classroom; and understand how constructivist learning theories apply in online environments. You will gain practical, hands on experience with a wide variety of online communication tools. Course Objectives

Each module is structured around an Introduction, Readings, Lecture, Activities, an Activity Checklist, and Discussion.

You will work individually and as part of a community to discover a variety of online classroom strategies and tools and share your experiences.

While online education is highly flexible and designed to meet your schedule, you will need to set and meet deadlines as part of your weekly assignments and collaborative work. Additionally, your colleagues will depend on you for timely feedback as you work together to deepen and clarify essential concepts.

Modules

Module 1: Advantages of Online Education, Current Research, Myths and Constraints of Online Teaching and Learning, Methods and Measures to Retain Students Enrolled in Online Education, Learning Theory in the Online Classroom, Trends in E-learning, Introduction to Asynchronous Discussion, Hands on Social Networking, Critical Reflection

Module 2: Building Learning Communities: Adapting Classroom Based Activities to Cyberspace, Choosing an Effective Communication Tool, Collaborating with Wikis, Introduction to Moodle (Open Source CMS), Exploration of Blogs and Blogging, Critical Reflection

Module 3: Activities to Engage Online Learners: Icebreakers, Creating and Facilitating a Discussion Forum, Questioning Strategies, Cooperative Learning, Sharing Web 2.0 Technologies, Critical Reflection

Module 4: Measuring Online Learning: Student Performance, Course Evaluation, Program Evaluation, Survey and Quiz Technology, Creating Assignments and Assessments, Ethical Use of Digital Resources, Understanding Copyright and Fair Use, Exploration of Podcasting

Module 5: Information Fluency: Evaluation of Websites, Power Searching Techniques, Critical Reflection

Module 6: Power Searching: Theory into Practice; Research Project, Self-Paced and Self-Directed Learning, Creating a Personal Search Engine, Peer Feedback Exercise, Critical Reflection

Module 7: Your E-Portfolio, Alternate Assessment and Electronic Portfolios, Publishing with Wikis or Webpages, Critical Reflection

Module 8: Creating Your Online Learning Environment, Publishing Your Portfolio, Peer Review, Accessibility Awareness, Final Reflections

Participation
Participants will:

• Exchange posts with their colleagues and participate in discussions using discussion board conferencing;
• Review and discuss online and text based reading materials;

You will be able to customize activities to your specific teaching or training responsibilities and needs.

During each activity, you are encouraged to share your discoveries and successes with other participants and collaborate during team problem solving. Participants may share drafts of works-in-progress for peer feedback and discuss ideas and suggestions before submitting the final project.

This may be your favorite part of the course. You will find creative ways to develop lively and fun group process skills as well as outstanding teaching projects.

Course Discussion Board
Many of the course instructional concepts are developed through discussion using our discussion board, and it is important that you check into the discussion board regularly.

The discussion board's most vital use is to exchange ideas with other class participants. You will be asked to complete a minimum of three meaningful posting per week during the course; this will include reacting to readings, discussing the topic/issue of the week, sharing information and resources with classmates, or responding to a problem posted by peers or your facilitator.

You may also participate in wiki and forum based communication with learning partners when developing your technology projects.

• What was most useful to me in my learning process? What was least useful?
• Did I achieve my learning objectives in this week? If yes, what did I achieve?
• If no, what got in the way of achieving those objectives?
• What did I learn about my own learning process during this module?
• How did my thinking about teaching change this week?
• Do I feel that what I learned in and through this course will have applications in other areas of my life? If so where will I apply this knowledge?
• How well did I participate in this week's discussion? Am I satisfied with my level and quality of participation?
• Did I see myself as an active member of the group?
• How would I evaluate my performance in class this week overall?

Evaluation of your discussion board participation is cumulative and subjective based on notes that the facilitator records each week. Always feel free to e-mail your facilitator for help in upgrading your participation in the discussion.

Reflections will be evaluated for clarity and your understanding of the readings and activities.

The culminating project will be to create an e-portfolio of reflections and technology products created during the class, including:

• Professional biography
• Evaluation and analysis of current e-learning research via weekly reading assignments and threaded discussions
• Reflective Journal
• Independent discussion forums
• Analysis and management of collaborative writing and editing using Team Wikis
• Design of survey, quiz, and rubric assessment tools using a variety of online resources
• Evaluation of digital materials
• Online quiz about copyright and fair use
• Hoax website evaluation
• Personalized search engine
• A web published electronic portfolio of artifacts created during the class

Your final grade will be based on:

• 60% - Online Discussion and Reflections
• 40% - Technology Projects

Grade Scale

• A - Exemplary (90 - 100 %)
• B - Proficient   (80 - 89 %)
• C - Partial       (70 - 79%)
• Incomplete      (01 - 69 %)
• Missing           (0 %)

Exemplary

• Questions
  Discussion postings include thought-provoking questions designed to elicit responses from other participants.

• Postings
  Discussion postings clearly indicate understanding of course readings and are completed before the deadline, meet or exceed the minimum number required, and are straight to the point, clearly worded, and respond constructively to others' ideas. Responses are posted to postings/questions of other participants and enhance the class discussion.

Proficient

• Questions
  Discussion postings include questions that move beyond yes or no answers, and elicit responses from other participants.

• Postings
  Discussion postings are timely, relevant and include some feedback about the readings and include responses to others' comments in the discussions. Meets the minimum number of postings per week.

Partially Proficient

• Questions
  Discussion postings include questions that do not move beyond yes or no answers, and fail to elicit responses from other participants.

• Postings
  Discussion postings do not fully speak to the prompts. Posting's may address one element of a prompt, but fail to completely deal with the topic.

Incomplete

• Questions
  Discussion postings include unclear questions that do not move beyond yes or no answers and/or fail to respond to classmates' postings.

• Postings
  Discussion postings are merely perfunctory. For example, many of the postings are "I think so too" or "I disagree" without elaboration of thinking, or there is excessive quoting from the readings without any significant supporting evidence of the topic.

Missing

• Postings
  Primary response to the prompt is missing.

Any time that you want to ask about your progress, send an email directly to your facilitator.

Questionnaire
Complete a short questionnaire and describe your professional goals in taking this course.