Estherville Daily News Article & Editorial

Below are two links from the Estherville Daily News concerning our online learning requirement.

1. News Story
2. Editorial

Meeting #4

Today we are working on updating our course descriptions for our online opportunities. We are also beginning the process of laying out our online classrooms. A couple of questions we are pondering:

1. How will our units be laid out?
2. What resources can we incoporate into our online classroom?

Meeting #3 with Theresa Zeigler

Today we met with Theresa Zeigler from Iowa Lakes Community College. She is the Director of Distance and Global Education. From our questions posted on Meeting #2 post, here are some of the answers:

1. What is the policy for technical issues that may arise and affect students? Through the college they do not have many technical issues and we are hoping we do not either. There is a Help Desk that the students can use if they run into technical difficulties. We will be in a proctor situation the majority of the time when students are working on their class and hopefully will be able to answer the questions as they arise.
2. What policies do you have for online coursework? Theresa emailed us the Ethics Statement that the college uses. We will need to come up with a statement. She suggested that we quiz over this information early in the course to make sure the students read the material and do not just agree to it.
3. Do they cap classes? 28 students per section of a course. Teachers can teach up to 22 credits as a full time instructor. I think we sit good at what we plan to offer.

Theresa brought much more than just answers to our questions. She is very knowledgeable in this area and we will be in constant communication with her over this process.

Some good websites she brought to our attention:

• HippoCampus
• TBR Mobile Apps
• Iowa CC Online Resources
• Students - Is Online Learning for You?  

Other good tips Theresa shared online learning:

• Start with a Meet & Greet Discussion Thread
• Limit videos to 3-5 minute segments otherwise students will tune out
• Set up the class unit by unit
• Student Ethic Statement

It was a powerful day with a lot more thinking and learning ahead of us! I am very excited about the opportunities this will lend to our students!

Meeting #2

We met yesterday morning for 3 hours to discuss our ideas surrounding the topic of online course offerings. The 3 hours were wonderful to be able to talk about our thoughts.

We have lined up a visit with Theresa Z. from Iowa Lakes Community College. She is the Director of Distance & Global Education there and we have some questions for her.

Here is a list we have started, if you have any additions please note below in the comments:

1. What is the policy for technical issues that may arise and affect students?
2. What policies do you have for online coursework? 
3. Do they cap classes?
4. What is considered a load for their teachers?
   
    

Initial Meeting

We had our initial meeting on Wednesday, Oct. 17. It is so exciting to see this coming together as a reality! All 3 of us are very excited and motivated to make the online curriculum the best that it can be with rigor and relevance.

We have decided to go with Moodle as our platform as that seems to be the best fit for our kids. As colleges are moving towards this we believe that the platform will help with the transition to college.

We have many questions that we will need to answer along the way. Some them include:

1. If a student finishes a class earlier than expected, what extension activities do we offer?
2. Which classes do we begin with in our curriculum areas? What best fits our students?
3. What are our technology needs as we venture into this?

As we go along this year, we will be posting our questions and thoughts. Feel free to add your questions, concerns and comments! We will do our best to address them.