Although I am a relative novice in the teaching arena, I appreciated the chance to revive my teaching mojo. I was forced to be creative about how to present course material and ensure that my students had a solid understanding of the information. I also realized I needed to revise my opinion of online teaching and those who participate in it. I now know that online courses are not a pale and lifeless version of traditional courses or worse, a “pay for an A” scam in which everyone teaches him/herself and everyone gets a good grade. Online courses can be distinctive and worthwhile ways of teaching in their own right.
Amy Overman is assistant professor of psychology at Elon University.
Pamela Stevens on 29 Oct 10"In a nutshell, it works like this: You create presentations in PowerPoint, and \nInteractive Classroom helps you insert real time knowledge checks (called polls) \nalong the way. Polls can include multiple choice, yes/no, or true/false \nquestions, and they seamlessly integrate with the lesson you're teaching. \n\nStudents can connect to your presentation by joining an Interactive \nClassroom session that you create (note that your students will need a network \nconnection). After students join-and it's easy to do, so don't worry about \nspending half your class time setting it up-they see your presentation and the \npoll question(s) you've included in their own OneNote notebook. Students can \nanswer poll questions in OneNote, and you get real-time feedback in the charting \nformat you choose. You can add text or draw on your slides during the session, \nand your students will see the changes you've made in OneNote. They can also add \ntheir own comments and notes on the presentation."
