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[antiphon1]

I think I might cry for the future of the professoriate if there are people adapting lessons from third grade into the college classroom. 

<Hands glowdart the box of tissues>

Welcome to the brave new world of online learning.  Articulated curriculum is the up and coming new big deal.

[infopri]

Notaprof, I'm glad your daughter is off to a good start.  I missed the original discussion back in November, but I do want to warn you (and her) that the biggest challenge for a student new to online learning is the temptation to put things off (because you don't have to face the teacher in class, and the materials will continue to be available on the CMS, waiting for you to access them), while you attend to face-to-face classes, a job, family demands, etc.  It's very easy to fall behind in an online class, and not always easy to catch up.  Please make sure your daughter knows that it's in her own best interests not to fall into this trap. 

Good luck to her.  I hope it all goes well!

[polly_mer]

I do want to comment, however, on this tidbit from one of polly mer's posts:

This situation is hit and miss.  Many times online classes don't have lectures akin to classroom lectures. 

Given the course I teach (accounting, highly computational), I can't imagine not having lectures available online for an online course. Furthermore, given the math problem nature of my field, I can't imagine not having problems demonstrated online for an online course. I have spent and am still spending huge amounts of time creating these lectures (voice over powerpoint in my case) and demonstrations (mostly using a tablet PC with voice over OneNote, more or less, but a few using Excel (because the tablet died)).

I just finished a semester of hybrid teaching without online lectures (readings, activities, quizzes, movie clips, and other things, but no lectures) and looking at examples of online/hybrid classes from colleagues, examples from my how-to-teach-online class, and other examples from open-university places. 

I refused to teach a completely online class this semester because I couldn't see a way around doing all the lectures in some sort of taped format for this particular class and I would not be getting paid enough to do that for the time required.  However, yes, I have seen lots of examples of classes I would love to take or teach where lectures akin to classroom lectures were not present.  Instead, the classes were much more like traditional correspondence courses: do this reading, try these activities, check yourself, and then send a test/quiz/lab report to the professor for grading.  Repeat through the entire course pack.

[oldfullprof]

Probably my best ever online class was a 100 percent online graduate seminar in managed care.  The students and I rotated presentation (weekly) of various chapters and readings.  The average presentation was about two single-spaced pages.  No tests: only papers.  Great discussions.

[notaprof]

Reporting back in to update - my daughter just completed her on-line biology course this quarter with her exam this week which she is scheduling at her convenience.  She has done well so far but the experience has been blah overall - not very engaging, just crossing things off the list as she did what was required to get through.  It makes me sad for her because I found my college biology class fascinating and I had been a total science-phobe up until that point.  Wish her luck on her final, but she feels confident that she will get a good grade at the end so she acquired the knowledge she needed to move on.

However, I mainly came to post this invitation I just received because it cracked me up and reminded me of the conversations about red pens being outlawed in favor of purple for grading because it seemed less harsh.  So those of you doing on-line courses be sure to choose the right font size and color for your classes.

In an online learning environment, what you say is not as important as how you say it. When your "online voice" positively affects the relationship between faculty and learners, student retention in online education is greatly enhanced.

Join us on March 31st for a free webinar that will help you identify your online persona and ways to improve it. You'll learn how to apply an active listening model that strengthens relationships between all members of the online learning community and improves the learning experience, overall.

Talking points include:

-   Is your language positive or punitive?
-   What color and font size should you use to communicate?
-   How does your persona come through in teaching?

Make plans now to attend this important event.

By the way, the email message font size and color was Tahoma 10 in black.  The persona - meh.

[octoprof]

In an online learning environment, what you say is not as important as how you say it. When your "online voice" positively affects the relationship between faculty and learners, student retention in online education is greatly enhanced.

Join us on March 31st for a free webinar that will help you identify your online persona and ways to improve it. You'll learn how to apply an active listening model that strengthens relationships between all members of the online learning community and improves the learning experience, overall.

Talking points include:

-   Is your language positive or punitive?
-   What color and font size should you use to communicate?
-   How does your persona come through in teaching?

Make plans now to attend this important event.

By the way, the email message font size and color was Tahoma 10 in black.  The persona - meh.

This made me laugh. I just finished grading assignments for my online course. Some are handwritten and some are done in Excel (I had no preference on this one). They send me PDFs. One of them is in calibri font size 6. Why would you turn in something like that to a middle-aged professor?  <slowing going blind>

I'm pretty sure my personal is Bernard MT Condensed in a very large font. At least no one will go blind!

[melba_frilkins]

In an online learning environment, what you say is not as important as how you say it. When your "online voice" positively affects the relationship between faculty and learners, student retention in online education is greatly enhanced.

Join us on March 31st for a free webinar that will help you identify your online persona and ways to improve it. You'll learn how to apply an active listening model that strengthens relationships between all members of the online learning community and improves the learning experience, overall.

Talking points include:

-   Is your language positive or punitive?
-   What color and font size should you use to communicate?
-   How does your persona come through in teaching?

Make plans now to attend this important event.

By the way, the email message font size and color was Tahoma 10 in black.  The persona - meh.

This made me laugh. I just finished grading assignments for my online course. Some are handwritten and some are done in Excel (I had no preference on this one). They send me PDFs. One of them is in calibri font size 6. Why would you turn in something like that to a middle-aged professor?  <slowing going blind>

I'm pretty sure my personal is Bernard MT Condensed in a very large font. At least no one will go blind!

If tiny PDF font continues to plague you, you can usually copy/paste the text from the PDF into Word and then change the font size to whatever you like for easier reading. Or use the magnifying thing to view the PDF larger, though that can mean you have to scroll side to side.