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Great storage area for many videos and materials in the CAST domain.

Georgia Tech Research on Accessible Distance Education (GRADE) is a research project at the Georgia Tech Center for Assistive Technology and Environmental Access (CATEA). Provides actual modules showing how courses that present challenges due to their nature (engineering, mathematics) or inclusion of rich media can be designed to increase accessibility.

This page is actually a brief (but helpful and concise) overview of the use of rubrics. The main reason I am posting it here is because the entire site (Cornell University Center for Teaching Excellence) has a wealth of information on design, assessment, student engagement and using technology in the classroom.

In designing my syllabus, I'm trying to decide whether to include testing like I do in the conventional version of the course, which has a midterm and a final. This resource from Iowa State is helping me think about whether a midterm will be useful in the same way for an online course as it is for a conventional one-and how I might format it if I decide to have one.

Great resource, I could have used this many times. I will keep handy going forward. Thanks

The article discusses the online virtual library, Pop Culture Universe: Icons, Idols, Ideas that provides unique historical perspective of culture and events over the last century in the U.S. As stated, high school students, teachers, and school librarians can access content which is taken from over 400 print reference titles published by the Greenwood Publishing Group. Reportedly, the content presents a comprehensive look at American entertainment through movies, TV shows, music, and awards.

This report offers some observations on the use of multimedia resources in online courses. The focus is more on course development (both time investment and quality of materials produced) than on student experience or learning outcomes, but this can still be a valuable tool for instructors thinking about whether (and how) to use multimedia in their online course designs.

Features a selection of multimedia tools to help students integrate music and visual arts in order to put up a show at an online gallery.

Graphics-based exampled of questions to answer in the syllabus. Ignoring the ugly UT brown color, this is a bulleted document that offers good points in simple fashion.

This lays a lot of information out nicely and is especially helpful in thinking about what the students need to get oriented to the class. Hideous brown, though, it's true.

I agree with all the above, including the poor color choice, however ... am I the only once feeling daunted and this point? I am beginning to wonder if it takes a certain "type" of faculty member to create an appropriate online course - someone who can think and manage in multiple platforms, constantly, both synchronously and asynchronously!! What about all the rest of our work engagements? how do they fit in?

Winona State University - Winona Minnesota has made it their mission to collect rubrics and make them available to all.

Thank you, Judy. I'm considering using rubrics for the first time and this is going to be a great resource.

This study focuses on the presence of the teacher in the virtual classroom and how the instructor interacts with the students. Can an instructor's behavior encourage more student activity? Certainly, but it has to be more than the occasional "well done," the authors say. Students want more teacher presence, specifically more frequent responses, more acknowledgement of individuals' contribution, and more suggestions and guidance related to a specific response. So the bottom line is try to respond to individual students rather than a group and customize your comments as much as possible. You will have more engaged students.

This article discusses "the importance of structuring activities for balancing electronic communication during e-collaboration (i.e., videoconference, email, chat session, distributed use of group support system) to bridge cultural and stereotypical gaps, to increase profitable role repartition between the participants, and to prevent and solve conflicts." This is especially useful as we work to design our courses for diverse learners

An oldish but still useful Edutopia article on online video in the classroom, with some notes on fair use and on video editing software

Researchers use the CoI framework to examine teacher presence and the use of introductory videos.

Researchers say that some online students don't like group work. How to deal with dissonance? One idea is to have students list their reasons and then discuss. Another is to show them a video on collaboration and team-building. There are a lot of lousy team-building videos on YouTube. But here's a fun and engaging Ted Talk presentation. Why are kindergarteners better at collaboration than business school students? Tune in.

Following up on Brent's post on Justine Sacco, here is a feature story one of my students wrote last semester on public shaming at Emory. You also can go to her podcast which you might find interesting despite its length and annoying undertone of typing.

This is about more than than her specific issue. It shows the many dangers of thoughtless texting and the potential repercussions.

I watched this unfold as it happened-such a cautionary tale, not to mention an exercise in slow-motion cringing. I like what this article has to say about the online "shaming" culture, which sometimes seems to be operating under its own inertia at this point.

What happens when well-known universities offer online courses, assessments, and certificates of completion for free? This is a report on the second year of the experiences of Harvard and MIT.