I am an older instructor and do not like texting. However I find I can get student to respond better when I text them as opposed to calling them.

When I get a low responder to open up, I always say good answer or that was very interesting, but consider... This seems to work as the low responders start to respond more often.

The greatest problem I have with posting is plagiarism. The students copy directly from articles, or WEB pages. I constantly remind them and provide 0 grades where appropriate. There are some students that I just cannot get to list references and quote sources.

I add a code of communication to all my class syllabi. I did this after having a student that wanted to hog the discussion. I have not needed it sense. It is nict to know there is one if I need one.

Our school had an instance where all of the live chats for a night were lost. We now have to find time to re-record them. Recording them is important as our students need the information that was imparted. Finding the time to do this is difficult

Discuss the pros and cons of using various blogging software. What do you prefer and why?

I would love to hear real examples, what has and has not worked for you?

I still see zero use for this if you know how to manage an online discussion and tools within the LMS.

Maybe this is good for the younger generation, but to be honest for graduate students and those not into technology this sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.

With the free avail of tools such as Jing, Magisto, etc.. there are many other options where the content can be controlled within the LMS itself.

I have never been a fan of this in the class as anyone can make a fake account and hard to track the actual real student.

The idea of reward seems intertwined with student participation in discussion. They seems to naturally seek a sure fire format as instructed and hover around the idea of affirmation rather than constructive criticism. The ego of some is demonstrated by trying to outperform the others in total verbiage.

I have noticed that setting a clear example of what specifically is expected of a student in terms of the scope of their discussion responses is key to having them stay on target. A simple shopping list for a given topic listing required resources and format considerations go a long way to setting the right tone.

As the online experience is essentially by default primarily asynchronous it is important to humanize the interaction with a sense of common purpose focused around learning the topic as a common goal. The development of an atmosphere of accessibility where students feel that they can count on the instructor as an involved partner in the process of their achieving success in their career seems a nexus. This provides a context for communication where the student trusts that the observations of the instructor about that world beyond are a sort of initiatory process that brings them a step closer to their ultimate post educational goal.

Adobe Connect can be a vehicle for student teacher conferences where a particular technique needs to be reviewed on a step by step basis.

While utilizing social media in an online learning environment can potentially be fraught with peril; I have found Pintrest to be a wonderful social media tool. As a design teacher, being able to collaborate with students on idea/mood boards for projects is extremely beneficial. I am able to show lots of samples and examples, post visual links to resources, and even encourage students to create their own boards. You can also share boards, which allows everyone to contribute, creating wonderful collaboration in my online classes. While my VC offers discussion boards and course galleries… there are some limitations to that for collaborative visual brainstorming. Pintrest is highly user-friendly, highly visual (which is again great for design students) and allows excellent options for what I can present to my students.

Hello Dr. Crews and class, I am excited to be a part of this class. My Program Chair just started a LinkedIn IT group for our IT professors and students. I was surprised at the level of participation within the group by students. They use it to re-connect with classmates with whom they shared past classes and share ideas both academically and professionally. Our classes are all online. I have garnered many insites from their online conversations in the forum. Dr. Paulette Stephens

I have found that even in an online learning environment students will blame their ability to use or access technological resources as the core of their failures or struggles in a course. It may be avoided if a student is provided hardware and software when enrolled as part of their enrollment package versus allowing students to use their existing resources. Of course this may drive up tuition which some would argue would be a worse outcome.

Does anyone find that the ability to access live chat at anytime will sometimes discourage those that would attend in person from attending? It seems that there are times when the students can attend and have no restraints on schedule and still do not attend merely because they want to be able to fast forward through a recording at another time rather than sitting through class and asking questions? How do you avoid such response?

Many students are prone to negativity towards the subject matter, the instructor and their peers if the topics are difficult when studying online. Furthermore, their ability to 'hide' behind a computer screen so-to-speak makes them more likely to lash out online versus when taught in person. I have found that the way to combat this is to reach out to students that present things negatively and respond to peers negatively via phone and force a conversation with them. Typically it is due to their own frustrations about their perceived inadequacy in understanding the subject matter and when pushed to the conversation will own this more than they would when in the online forum where they can hide behind typed impersonal words.