Changes and Updates

This week is midterm exam week and also quickly approaching on the deadline to select books for next fall so I must admit my attention has been focused on other things than blended learning. I did discover this week that the course I was going to teach in a blended format conflicts with another course I am scheduled to teach (for the very first time). That means where I had been expecting to meet with the class once a week for 75 minutes on Thursdays (half the normal minutes for a three credit class), now I am meeting with them for 50 minutes on Mondays (one third the normal minutes). Because I am meeting with the class for only 50 minutes a week I will be putting even more videos out for them to watch since I will not have as much in-class time. One of the first things I did when I learned about the change was go back to Visio (part of the Microsoft Office suite – although it has to be purchased separately) and rebuild my planning calendar. I like Visio for planning calendars because it allows a lot of color-coding and notes for the users. I have updated the planning calendar, and will be posting it in WebCT for the entire class to view whenever they want. In addition to the entire semester calendar, I have also created both large snapshots and small snapshots of each week's activities. I will put the small version right on the page that starts each week so the students can see what I expect to have happen that week, and link that image to a larger view that might be easier to read for some of us more veteran viewers. The color coding on the calendar is pink for the classroom activity, green for group activities, and ivory for individual activities (which is noted on the bottom of each calendar page). I'm hoping this will help emphasize to the students the importance of keeping up with individual activities since a typical week has at least three things they must do before coming to the next class.

I went to a Learning Technologies Committee meeting yesterday and got an update on the new learning management system that will be replacing WebCT. It seems that Blackboard will be the new LMS, and that IT will get a copy of it for their purposes in the fall of 2010. They will have a semester to get it working on our equipment and training for the new system is scheduled for spring and summer of 2011. The new system will be available to deliver courses in fall 2011, but WebCT will also be available (at least that semester – maybe for the entire year, I'm not sure about that part) for faculty who want to use the old system. This means we will be using WebCT for at least another year, so all of our WebCT training is not for naught.

That's the news for this week; I hope everyone has an enjoyable spring break.

John