DL Newsletter
 Distance Learning E-NewsMonthly Newsletter from CNM's Distance Learning Department
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| In this issue: Student Spotlight, Drop-In Labs for Students, DL Department Video, Building Online Communities, Outage Calendar, How to Backup your Course, New Office Locations. We welcome your comments, email the editor at: martiner@cnm.edu | |||||
| Distance Learning Orientation Drop-In Labs for Students
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| What's Happening DL Department Video
Gee, I could swear the 1st customer looks like our own workstudy Ambrosha. The 2nd customer looks like our own Patricia Vigil and the last customer looks like Elsie's workstudy Crystal. I must be seeing double. Announcements Maintenance Outage: August 13 - August 16, 2008 Our customary end of term Blackboard Maintenance Outage will occur starting from 9:00 PM on August 13, 2008 until 12:00 Midnight on August 16, 2008. We require this maintenance window to install upgrades and conduct our system-wide Summer course backups. Please complete you own backups and other activities before this maintenance period. Keep in mind that if you are able to log in during this period, the system will not be stable for you to conduct business. Let us know if you have questions. We appreciate you understanding. End of Term Backup Instructions We are getting to the end of the term. It is always a good idea to make a backup of your course(s). Here are the steps to properly backup your course shell. 1. As soon as your class is over, back up your Blackboard courses. Make sure you download the backups to your computer. For Blackboard - you are only allowed one backup to reside in the queue, but you can download one, delete the one present in the queue and make another if you desire. From the Build Tab, Go to Manage Course - Backup - Back Up Course. For your convenience, the detailed instructions are being posted in PDF format: Backup your course. Let us know if you have any questions. We have Moved! Distance Learning Department now has two official locations: Montoya Campus:
New! Telephone Numbers: Main Campus:
Telephone Numbers: | Student Spotlight Celina is a student employee with Enrollment Services at the Montoya Campus. Here are a couple of answers Celina provided us in her interview. Make sure you click on the link below to read the rest of the interview. Question: How did you first learn about Distance Learning at CNM? Answer: Through my employment at CNM I was constantly informing students about DL options, as well as who to contact if they had any questions or problems. I knew that if I had more experience with online courses then I would be able to answer these questions more accurately. Question: What have been the most valuable aspects of your Distance Learning experience? Answer: I would have to say the overall convenience and flexibility that DL courses provide.
Tips for Building Online Communities Patricia Vigil, Distance Learning Specialist recently attended an online seminar focusing on Building Learning Communities in Cyberspace. The seminar was offered through Learning Resource Network (LERN), and the text used for this seminar is Building Online Learning Communities, Effective Strategies for the Virtual Classroom by Rena M. Palloff, and Keith Pratt. The following information provides some of the key points presented during the seminar discussions and course readings. Elements of Online Communities In order for an online community to exist and be effective there are certain elements that have to be present. According to Palloff, and Pratt these elements are: • People-Interaction/Communication, Presence • Purpose- Mutually negotiated guidelines, Practical consideration • Process- Reflection/Transformative Learning, Social/Constructivist Learning (2007) Effective online discussions and other collaborative activities within an online course are contingent upon these elements. Some strategies to increase student participation in online activities that Palloff and Pratt describe include the following: • Establish clear participation guidelines that the participants discuss and agree too. • Be clear about how participation will be assessed and how it figures into the grading scheme for the class. • Be willing to step in and set limits if participation is waning or heading in the wrong direction. • Strive to create community. (2007) As an online instructor it is important to promote collaborative learning within your online courses. Through collaborative activities both the instructor and students will begin to connect with each other share different ideas, gain different perspectives and critically look at the subject matter. One main point made throughout this seminar and the text is that one of the main roles of an instructor in an online course is a facilitative role. With students taking on different responsibilities in online courses some of the traditional methods in a face-to-face setting such as lecture are may not be as effective online. Palloff and Pratt offer some guiding questions that can assist you when developing collaborative activities for online courses; the following are some that they present: • What is the content of this course? What aspects of the content lend themselves to collaborative group activities? • What are the goals of group activities? • What size of groups or teams should be formed in order to achieve those goals? • How should these groups be formed? • How will activities be structured to ensure participation by all members of the group? • How will accountability be built into the process? (2007) For more information on other seminars offered through Learning Resource Network (LERN) visit their website http://lern.org/products_services.cfm Text Information: Palloff, P., & Pratt, P. (2007). Building online learning communities; effective strategies for the virtual classroom (2nd Ed) Jossey-Bass a Wiley Imprint. | |||||
