September, 2006

Online Classroom - September, 2006 - Full Issue PDF
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6 Recommendations for the Physicality of Virtual Classrooms
By Aimee J. Luebben, EdD, OTR, FAOTA
Engrossed in a flow of online teaching, I was suddenly aware of insistent knocking. Because teaching is interrupted only for emergencies, I paused in midsentence to open the door. A student worker handed me a document that I had already accessed online. When asked, the student worker said she was told to distribute the document to faculty. Rather than place the document in either of my mailboxes, she had brought the paper directly to me. That interruption caused me to wonder anew about the physicality of teaching in the virtual world.

Tips from the Pros
How Not to Do Student Self-Review

Web-based Video Lecture Courses Meet High Demand, Allow More Learner Control
In an effort to accommodate increasing student enrollment without having to expand its physical campus, the University of Ontario at Scarborough has begun offering some of its high-enrollment, lecture-based courses via Web-delivered video lectures.

Adaptive Hypermedia for Individualized Learning
The online learning environment offers great potential for individualized learning. One way to achieve this is through adaptive hypermedia—using learner use patterns to adapt course presentation, navigation, and content to suit individual students’ needs and preferences.

Activities 101: Considering Collaboration
By Patti Shank, PhD, CPT
You may not have considered collaborative activities for the courses you teach. Even if you understand the benefits of collaborative activities, redesigning your courses to include them may seem daunting. You may also have questions about how to monitor and grade such activities. And you may have heard complaints from other instructors about the problems they have faced with collaborative activities. Easier to just stay with the same ole, same ole, right?

10 Ways to Get Reluctant and Downright Scared Student Enthusiastic About Taking Online Courses
By Errol Craig Sull
Many students are returning to the classroom after years away—and to an online course, to boot. There are also the students who know little—and sometimes nothing—about using a computer, freely admitting their high stress level at now having to do a course online. And there are students who strongly maintain that the only way to learn is with an instructor they can see, hear, and talk with right in front of them. All of this translates into additional work on the instructor’s part—something necessary and noble, to be sure, but also something that can be minimized with a few teaching strategies.