Section 2 of EL105 establishes the two main ingredients in establishing effective communication in the classroom -Clarity and Consistency. The online instructor is task with the responsibility of getting everyone involve. Sometimes students are reluctant to share thoughts and ideas because of a perceived or lack in their communication ability. If I noticed such a situation I usually will call the student and talk to the student and become more of a coach in order to help the student learn. On other situation they are encouraged as they received comments on mandatory discussion postings. If their postings are very flawed with spellings and grammatical errors (or inappropriateness) I will send them and email relating to the errors. Some course structure demands that students post a substantive post on the Discussion Board by Wednesday of the week and are expected to respond to at least two posts by the week's end on Sunday 11:59 P.M. This forum encourages student to participate and also to be cognizant of the tone of their response.

I have been teaching in the classroom as an adjunct for 14 years and my one year anniversary for online teaching is in August. Almost on a daily basis I cannot help but compare and contrast the two method of teaching. One of my observation is that there are many educational institution targeting the baby boomers and push them to grasp the use of technology faster than they are equip to. Many of these students are are older and in most cases they are grandparents. In addition, many of these students have never used a computer, and have no idea about the various technologies that are available to assist them in the learning process. They are also fearful of the technology and are having a difficult time getting use to them. So in my instruction, in chats, and in office hours, I often have to explain and encourage them on how the technology can help them. With students that are in their 20's and 30's, I have little instruction to give to them about technology. They just need clarification on what they need to do and where to put the information.

Design an assignment that ask the classroom, what will motivate you to become more involved in the weekly classroom discussions?

If a course only last 5 weeks and a student is unable to afford internet access, what are some realistic options to offer for additional assistance?

Should it be a mandatory to have students submit a certain number of respones or replies to their classmates' views on a certain topic.

How to minimize miscommunication while using social networking in the classroom?

If rules and expectations are enfored initially, this should reduce incidence of inappropriate behavior online.

I'm not a fan of tweeting because it is quite distracting and takes the focus away from the lesson to be taught as well as disregards correct writing format.

Who should ultimately be responsible for what's appropriate in media sharing, instructors or administration?

Is there a program that can be downloaded that automatically corrects grammatical and spelling errors during online course assignments especially for students where English is a 2nd language ?

Feedback is a critical type of communication that instructors must manage. The quality of that feedback is very important. For example, I think that it is a good idea to validate correct responses as well as provide reasons why the incorrect responses are incorrect. What do you all think? Please let me know. Thanks, NG

I think that it is very interesting that Facebook was one of the suggested communication methods for instructors to use. How exactly would this be helpful for instructors, and have any of you actually successfully used Facebook to interact with you students? Personally it almost seems a little inappropriate because it seems to be mixing too much of a personal sphere with a professional sphere. Hannah

Students do come to class because they are self motivated. I've found the best way to start out is to ask students to relate their personal work experience and also ask them what they expect to get out of the course at the end. Also each week I post to the announcement board the objectives for that week/module to help students to focus on what they should be getting out of the course.

I've found that one way to motivate students is to include examples at the beginning on how they can be successful in the classroom. Here are some tips I've used- 1) Outline the chapters from the text and take notes as if they were in a regular class room. This reinforces the material. 2) Do more than just the homework problems but attempt to do other problems in the text 3) Start early with the discussions and assignments so that way if they have questions they have time to ask them before they are due. 4) Try and do outside research on the topic. If the same material continues repeating itself, that is a good way of knowing they are on track with learning the material. 5) Reach out to the instructor and others early in case there is any problems so as to have one less thing to worry about. What would be some other things to tell students how they can be successful in the classroom that you've used in the past?

How do we insure that industry experts students follow on twitter blog on topics relevant to the students career growth?

In online classroom, it would be necessary to link names with faces of students and professor. Would you recommend use of google docs or other media sites for uploading personal photos?

How can our students use social networking to make necessary contacts that will help them gain employment?

Most of us are already involved in social media to some degree, and it is likely that our students are too. However, I suspect for some students adding a required social media component to a course may be a burden (social media overload, if you will). Recently, I have started using Twitter in my courses simply as an elective part of the class (class reminders, interesting articles, etc). So, my question is this: how do you go about striking the balance between making use of this great new technology and keeping your students from feeling overwhelmed by all of the social media in our daily lives? Lindsay

Ning is a great, but who will pay for it? Being one of the best user-friendly platforms to date is great, but I’m not going to pay their service fees out of my own pocket to teach. Ning is an online platform for people and organizations to create custom social networks. Ning offers customers the ability to create a community website with a customized appearance and feel; feature sets such as photos, videos, forums and blogs; and integration with Facebook, Twitter, Google and Yahoo.

We use Moodle and I can see participation at a glance for each of the classes. When I see a student go silent, I look and see if they are doing it throughout their courses, or in just one. If just one, it may be a content or instructor issue. However, if they are really MIA there could be a legitimate reason. I have had students dealing with a child being shot, a spouse missing in action, death in the family. Because I know there can always be a reason, I make sure to phrase my inquiry so that it is seen as being concerned, not critical. The students are so appreciative. And yes, I'm sure some have played the tragedy card when it isn't true(grandma deaths and final exams) but for the most part the students are honest and will admit if they have dropped the ball.