2. CONNECTING THE DOTS: TEACHING TECHNOLOGY WITH TECHNOLOGY
Kathleen D. Borbee
Monroe Community College
Rochester, NY
April 3, 2017
#CCE2017

3. AGENDA Background Managing Expectations Organizing the Course
Engagement Tools
Elevating Thinking
Final Thoughts
Q&A
AGENDA
#CCE2017

4. SMALL BIZ
IBM
PROFESSIONA L
BACKGROUND
#CCE2017

5. ONLINE TEACHING BACKGROUND
Skeptical
Hopeful
Confused
Stressed
Disgusted
Exhausted
…but in the end, hopefully

6. MANAGING EXPECTATIONS

7. MANAGING EXPECTATIONS
Before I talk about how I try to manage student expectations, let me tell you that I am teaching within an LMS (Learning Management System) – our college uses Blackboard for all online courses. When our students first sign onto Blackboard they are greeted with this page. It has information on how students can obtain technical assistance with Blackboard, it also has links for them to watch a Student Orientation Video to learn what to expect from an online course, and it has a link for them to be able to get online tutoring for CORE courses – not all courses are represented - so my technology courses are not included.
This type of structure for students has been greatly enhanced since I first starting teaching online - having institutional support such as this helps a great deal. From this screen a student clicks on a “My Courses” tab and can then access my course.

8. MANAGING EXPECTATIONS
Once the student clicks on my course for the first time, this is the first screen they see. My Course Menu, with my major links, is listed on the left of the screen and when they access the course they are taken immediately into the first link that is listed under the COURSE MENU - WELCOME – START HERE. If they click the arrow, they will watch a video of me talking about the course, the course outline, what will be expected of them, etc. I believe that this sets the tone for the course – right from the beginning I am trying to create the impression that this course is not just about READ – WRITE – SUBMIT. I am trying to create a connection and an interaction from the get go.

9. MANAGING EXPECTATIONS
This slide is simply the bottom half of the screen the students see when they first click into the course – you can see the bottom of the video I just referred to. So, once students watch the video, they simply go down the steps that I have outlined here in order to get ready for the course. By the way, I have directed them to do just this in my video. I try to create a step by step clear outline of what they need to do. This type of step by step approach will be repeated throughout the individual WEEKLY MODULES. If they have issues following these steps, they will most likely have issues following other instructions.
Trust me, there are students who do not even read this clear outline, and then wonder why they are having issues. For example, if you can see under #6 I specifically state that you cannot use an Apple computer for this course. I had students coming back to me in the third week of this course complaining that they were getting things marked wrong in the assignments because WORD on their Apple computer did things a little differently. I redirected them to this screen and asked them why they ignored the statement YOU CANNOT USE AN APPLE COMPUTER. I suggested that perhaps this course was not for them. This may seem like a harsh thing to do, but online courses are not necessarily for every student - especially if they ignore directions. I do try to tell them that they can use an Apple if they install an application, such as Parallels, that will allow them to run Windows under Parallels and then Office 2016 under that. My own personal laptop is configured this way so I can steer them in the right direction, but I do not want to become their Technical Support – and you really need to understand what you are doing to enable such an environment.

10. MANAGING EXPECTATIONS
If the student has followed my instructions from the previous screen they will have come to this screen which gives an overview of my personal background– you can see the MY INSTRUCTOR link on the left side of the screen. I direct the students to read this in in my video and it is #2 on my Getting Started list of things to do on the previous slide. Again, what I am trying to do is to create connections – I hope that the more I do this up front, the more invested students will become and the less afraid they will be of asking a question. The worst things in the world to me is to realize a student is failing yet they have never reached out to me.
So once I have tried to create this atmosphere of learning, students then begin the actual work of the course. This leads me to the next section on how I actually organize this work.

11. ORGANIZING
THE COURSE

12. ORGANIZING THE COURSE
The main work of my course starts on the COURSE CONTENT link that you see on the left side of the screen and this slide shows the top half of what a student sees when they click on that link. Again, I outline clearly how the course will be organized – in MODULES – and what each MODULE will contain. I also list the other things they will find on this COURSE CONTENT link such as a LIBGUIDE and ASK A QUESTION. Just so you know a LIBGUIDE is a link that has been specifically created for this course by our librarians that takes the students directly into all types of resources that may help the student in the course. The students do not have to search the library or internet for anything – everything is there for them such as extra technical guides or internet videos on how use various components of Microsoft Office.

13. ORGANIZING THE COURSE
This shows the bottom half of the COURSE CONTENT screen where you actually see the LIBGUIDE link and the links into the Course Modules as well as the tools I use. As you can see it is very prescriptive and sequential. I have all the back-up and support information for the students listed – whether or not they ever use it. Now lets take a look inside one of the Course Modules.

14. ORGANIZING THE COURSE
When students click on the COURSE MODULES link they see a folder for each week of the course. They can easily see the sequence of topics and what will be expected of them. When they click on the weekly folder, they then see the detail of the week’s work.

15. ORGANIZING THE COURSE
The week’s works is laid out for them from top to bottom. The order of the assignments is also very prescriptive – the assignments go from low stakes to high stakes and are repetitive in nature. For example, this is a view of Week 4 in the semester– it is the first Module in the text for Access. I include the link from the LIBGUIDE for the videos on Access (even though I have provided the LIBGUIDE link on the COURSE CONTENT page, I repeat it here) and I suggest that this might be a good place to start. Whether or not they watch these I don’t know, but I can usually tell who does and who does not take advantage of them.
After that, they are instructed to respond to a VOICETHREAD which asks them to comment and what they learned in the previous Modules – the WORD Modules – in terms of what was new to them – what surprised them about Word, etc. It is usually very eye opening since most people think they know Word very well until they really delve into it. Also I believe it is important that an online course consists of more than just assignments – I want it to be engaging. I have also found that by doing this, the students will be more likely to reach out to each other for help through the ASK A QUESTION link I provide.
Finally, they go into the Access projects – remember low stakes to high stakes – so the first thing they do is an exercise that consists of a Pre-Exam, Training on what they got wrong on the Pre-Exam, and a Post-Exam on what they were trained on. They then are prepared to do the projects which begin with the Textbook Project which gets 3 attempts, the next Project 1a gets 2 attempts, and the last Project 1b (which you cannot see on the screen shot) gets 1 attempt. Between each attempt, students can read their grading reports, make the appropriate changes to the project and resubmit it. The key to remember here is that each week’s setup is identical in terms of the sequence of tasks – so once the student gets the formula down for how to do the weekly modules, they should be all set.
So what are some of the tools I use…

16. ENGAGEMENT TOOLS

17. ENGAGEMENT TOOLS
VoiceThrea d

18. ENGAGEMENT TOOLS
Zoom

19. ENGAGEMENT TOOLS Other Tools Private Facebook Groups PollEverywhere
PadLet
What else?

20. ELEVATING THINKING

21. ELEVATING THINKING

22. ELEVATING
THINKING

23. FINAL THOUGHTS

24. FINAL THOUGHTS Teaching online is a learning experience
Leverage technology
Automation
Connecting with students
Managing Expectations
Over-communicate, be prescriptive
Organization: Follow a formula!
Computing IRL