Minutes for  January 2 7 , 200 5 -  4 P.M. - 5: 3 0 P.M.  AS 192

In attendance at the DLMG meeting :     Marcia Graber, Julia West, Keri Sanders, Lorna Peralta, Bob Klassen , Sandra Woien, and Peg gy Johnson .

Faculty shared the online courses they had investigated. It appears that distance education faculty are becoming more reluctant to allow guest access to their courses. DLMG members had more difficulty in this task than we've seen in previous semesters.

Sandra

Sandra was able to get guest access to a WebCT course in bioethics offered at Iowa State University. It is a four-week long course. The homepage had a nice clean, simple look to it and was easy to navigate.

The instructor uses bulletin board discussions extensively. They constitute 60% of the course grade. Good use is also made of the student homepages for introduction purposes.

Some clip art was added to some of the web pages which adds a bit of interest to plain text. However, most of the course was very text-based - not much variety. The instructor did include a lot of links to other websites. 

ADA Compliant Discussion

We discussed the issue of trying to make your online course ADA (Americans with Disability Act) compliant without spending an inordinate amount of time on the issue. The course Sandra showed had white background with dark text in most places. This is a good choice as some of your students may have impaired sight. The high contrast of dark type on a white background makes your text more visible to them.

There is a free website that will examine your course and give you feedback on what areas should be changed to make it more visible to all. To get more information about whether or not the course materials you design are "Bobby Approved", go to this URL http://bobby.watchfire.com/bobby/html/en/index.jsp

Keri

Keri was not able to find an online marketing principles course she could visit. But she found an example of a well-designed online Eastern Religions page. The instructor had an extremely personable writing style that made you feel he was a person you would like to know.

The homepage was easy to navigate. A course overview was provided. The units were well-outlined, with a list of titles/objectives.  Small, simple graphics were utilized. 

Repetition was used well (same information placed in multiple locations within the course). This is a good strategy for your online course.

Powerpoint slides were included in the course; There was text with audio (sound). This approach addresses several different learning styles. Keri might want to also incorporate some short videos.

Lorna

Lorna found her fellow librarians to be unwilling to grant guest access to their online courses. She did like the layout ofMCC's  CTL website though. (It's going to be much better though. Look for the release of the incredible, new CTL website - anticipated this week! You'll be receiving an email announcing it when it's up and running. We've spent months working on it.)

Lorna shared the extensive online electronic resources the MCC library has. Check it out at http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/library/eresources.html

Full text articles of many journals are available.  You can email copies of these articles to yourself.

Some textbooks are also available online through the library. Students can log on to them for two hours at a time. However, some of these sites are limited to one user at a time (Netlibrary) while others (Ebrary) allow simultaneous logins from many users.

If you want your students to have an orientation on the services the library provides, the library staff offers this option. Contact the library to set up a meeting time for your class. http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/library/begin.html

Bob

Bob has an extensive set of online resources already developed. Check out the links on the navigation bar (left side of screen window) on his MCC homepage at http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/~klassen/  Bob likes using a blog with his students. Melanie Kroening and Donna Gaudet (of the CTL) helped him get it set up. All the instructors in Bob's department can post to it.

Bob recommends Merlot http://www.merlot.org/Home.po  as the best site for distance ed courses. MERLOT is a free and open resource designed primarily for faculty and students of higher education. Links to online learning materials are collected there along with annotations such as peer reviews and assignments. Bob has found some good Quicktime movies for his courses at the Merlot site.

Bob did examine a physiology course he found listed at the University of Texas Worldwide Lecture Hall http://web.austin.utexas.edu/wlh/  He liked the fact that students could listen to the online lectures (audio files were included). Some of the course materials were provided to students on a CD-ROM, which Bob did not have.

Fixing your MCC homepage

A question arose about how to personalize your MCC homepage. Each faculty member has an MCC homepage automatically created for them. It has a photo of the MCC clock tower and lists the courses that faculty member teaches for the current semester. If you wish to customize it and/or link it to another homepage you have created, you can easily do so.

To put your photo in place of the MCC Clock Tower, follow the directions in the attachment.  If you need help adding a link to another page, make an appointment to work with me, Melanie Kroening, or Donna Gaudet in the CTL.

Copyright Question

Faculty wanted some clarification on copyright laws. According to Ko and Rossen's book Teaching Online, A Practical Guide , copyright laws permit you to use

a. Motion Media (such as videos and animations): up to 10 percent of the original work or 3 minutes, whichever is less

b. Text : up to 10 percent of the original work or 1000 words, whichever is less

c. Poems : up to 250 words

d. Music : up to 10 percent of the original work or 30 seconds, whichever is less

e. Photos and images : up to five works from one artist or photographer; up to 10 percent or fifteen works, whichever is less, from a collection

Rec Rec ent court decisions make MCC liable for making sure this educational fair use content is pas pas sword-protected and can't be accessed and saved by the general public. Streaming material be hbehind We bCT covers these restrictions.

You can also find out more about copyright for educators by going to the Maricopa Community College District site. Legal representative s from the district have developed comprehensive information for you at http://www.dist.maricopa.edu/legal/ip/index.htm

Danene

Music websites:

1. www. musicttheory.halifax.ns.ca/

offers a 2 CD set-not interactive

site provides quizzes and workbook sheets—answers provided. Probably best as exercise/drill option.

2. www.dcs.wisc.edu/lsa/online/music/music_topic.htm

An online course to help you design a music theory course.

Must sign up for course to see context. “Have a mentor guide

You through your self-designed course!”

3. www.berkleemusic.com/school/course_item_id

An online course in Introduction to Music Theory. Shows

complete course outline, syllabus, materials needed and offers

a sample of typical exercises. VERY GOOD REFERENCE for me

to see a course already designed.

4. www-music-theory.com/index.html

An online course designed as a college-prep theory course. Some of it is too basic for our needs, some matches up.

Provides Syllabus, sample lessons and exercises. To see more,

need to sign up for class.

5. www.teoria.com/

great interactive site. Music exercises and drills for student practice.

6.www.pldi.net/~murrows/tpsoft.html

Resource for music theory software . At this time, lists 32 software title

MCC Distance Learning Site

If you aren't aware of the MCC Distance Learning Site, you should be. Here's the link: http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/other/distance/index.html

Coming Attractions

Next week Julia and Marcia will share what they found. Then Peggy will share her online biology course.