If you took notice of Mary Lou Araneo's email to all faculty earlier this week, you may have observed that we have a thriving distance learning program here at SCCC -- and that it's about to undergo some major changes.
Some of you may be coming from other institutions where you
taught online using a course management system (or CMS) like Blackboard or
Moodle. Here at SCCC we've used Desire2Learn, or D2L, for several years. Faculty have been free to use other
technologies or course management systems for their courses, but the
college doesn't provide technical or other support for those systems – so all in
all, you’re better off using the system that's supported by the Office of Information Technology.
Currently, you may use D2L to teach fully online courses, or as part of
a hybrid course (part face-to-face, part online), or to web enhance your
traditional classroom. Currently, I use D2L to web enhance all of my
traditional, face-to-face classes. I maintain my grade book with D2L (while
printing paper copies, because I’m paranoid like that), and I use the course
sites to keep electronic versions of my course outline and course handouts
readily available to students. It’s convenient also for distributing relevant
web links or posting announcements about class cancellations or changes to the
course schedule.
If you’re interested in web-enhancing your traditional
classroom, or if you’d like to become a member of our online faculty, visit the
Suffolk Online tab under your MYSCCC menu. When you click on that tab, you’ll see a
link near the top of the page that says “Join SuffolkOnline Files Group.” It looks like this:
Join the group,
and you’ll have access to the Distance Education Guidebook, which outlines all
the procedures for becoming trained to teach an online course, and subsequently requesting a DE course.
Also, speak to your academic chair about your department’s
approach to online education and about what specific teaching opportunities
might be available to you (since the DE courses are, of course, assigned
according to seniority just like our face-to-face courses).
Lastly, keep in mind Mary Lou Araneo's email. SCCC is beginning a conversion from D2L to Blackboard Learn (Bb Learn) for its course management system. If you're considering teaching online courses -- and even if you're currently teaching online and/or if you're currently web-enhancing using D2L -- you should consider attending one of the overview sessions to see how and when Bb Learn is going to be implemented at this school. So far, the schedule of overview sessions looks like this:
Week of 2/17/14 – Ammerman
Campus
Tuesday Wednesday
Friday
L 14A 10:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
11:15 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. 10:30
a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
Week of 2/24/14 – Michael J. Grant Campus
Tuesday Wednesday
Friday
Location - TBD 10:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
11:15 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. 10:30
a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
Week of 3/3/14 - Eastern Campus
Tuesday Wednesday
Friday
Location - TBD 10:30 a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
11:15 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. 10:30
a.m. – 11:30 a.m.
Great post, Sarah!
ReplyDeleteOne note, however: I have spoken with Dean Hahn about the scheduling of a Blackboard workshop at Eastern on Tuesday, 3/4, which is Professional Development Day.
He is going to reschedule that particular workshop.
Cynthia