TETC 2009: Wednesday sessions

Wow! I’m so excited to be in Nashville at the Tennessee Educational Technology Conference.  It’s been a few years since I’ve been back to TETC, but I’m ready to meet and share with some great teachers, administrators, and technology coordinators/coaches from across Tennessee.

I’ll presenting two sessions today: one on managing communications in online courses and one on project-based learning.  All of my resources and links are linked up below to make them easy to get to.  Please let me know if you have any questions.

W63-Tips for Managing Communications in Online Courses (1:30 – 2:30pm, Ballroom C)

Here are the links to the web pages with details for all of the topics we’ll discuss:

1. Tips for Online Course Management
2. Tips for Asynchronous Communications
3. Tips for Synchronous Communications

W84-The Secrets to Project-based Learning (2:45 – 3:45pm, Ballroom C)

Here is the link to web page with the details about PBL all in one place.  I plan to be adding some more pieces here, too, so let me know if you think something is missing.

1. Secrets to Project-based Learning

More fun and learning with Wichita State

What fun I had yesterday with the folks from Wichita State. We had a great discussion about organizing a course for online delivery, and I had some really interesting questions about experiences with thinner syllabi, video conferencing, and approaching new faculty.  I’m a little concerned that I may have scared some folks, so I want to make sure during today’s conference that everyone is okay after they’ve had some time to digest and reflect.  We’re definitely going to take some time to consider the topic from yesterday.

Today, we’re going to be tackling managing communications online.  It can be a real bear sometimes when you teach online.  It can seem like you’re always “on.” So, how do you create reasonable expectations with your students and not not seem unresponsive or distant?  That just one of the topics we’re going to explore.  I have some ideas about how to manage communications to make them more managable for the teacher when you’re teaching online.

I’m also going to share some tips I have for conducting chat sessions, discussion boards, and two-way audio and video.  A couple of years ago, I conducted some research with a former student Dr. Jongpil Cheon (at Texas Tech University now) about two-way audio and video.  So, it’s interesting to see what works and what students value.  I’ll be incorporating some of these finding, as well as some “ah-hah” moments into the presentation.

The wiki pages we’ll be referring to today are:

1. Tips for online course management
2. Tips for asynchronous communications in an online course
3. Tips for synchronous communications in an online course

If we have extra time, then we might can get to some tools that I recommend using:

1. Tools I recommend

And here’s the presentation I’ll be referring to as well.