The Online Teaching Certificate Class is two semesters
long, and starts every Fall. Each
semester begins about a week into the teaching
semester and ends well before final exams.
Weekly blogging on assigned topics,
including viewing workshop videos and reading
online articles about online teaching as a
discipline -- posts should include reflections,
links, embedded elements.
Commenting on other participants' posts as part of the online teaching
community.
Consistent and reliable internet access.
About 4-5 hours per week.
An open mind and a sense of adventure.
Fall Semester: Begins September
1
The first semester is an exploration of your
own pedagogy and web resources. Reflections
and responses to each week's assignments need
to be posted on your blog. Also, you should
respond to the posts of others each week.
Week begins Thursday, September 1
Week 1: Introduction
Buy your textbook.
Create
your own blog (we recommend Edublogs.org or Wordpress.com),
and add both the URL for the blog
and the feed to Pedagogy
First! so your blog appears
for the class. (If you already have
a blog, you can tag class-related posts "potcert11" and
add the feed for that tag instead.)
Read: Ko and Rossen, Chapter 1: Teaching Online: An Overview , pp.1-15 (to heading "What about Support Personnel and Training?"). Points: applying your in-class instructional strategies to online, teacher as facilitator and moderator, technology is second after teaching.
Create a Diigo account for yourself, and join the group "mccpot"
Post: create your first blog post
at your blog. Introduce yourself, and
mention any problems or issues you had
with Diigo.
Comment on the blogs of others.
Week begins Thursday, September 8
RSS symbol
Week 2: Teaching and Learning Online
Read: Ko and Rossen, Chapter 1: Teaching Online: An Overview, pp.15-end. Points: reflecting on practice
Learn about RSS feeds (try RSS
the Oprah Way) and setup your
own newsreader account (Google Reader,
for example). Add the Pedagogy
First! blog feed to your reader, or
create a Bundle for Google Reader.
Post: Create your Week 2 post, with a brief reflection on your activities this week.
Note: we are not reading Chapter 2, though of course you may if you wish!
Week begins Thursday, September 15
Week 3: Pedagogy and Course Design (revised)
Read: Ko and Rossen, Chapter 3: Course Design and Development, to p. 63 (to heading "Course Development"). Points: converting a course means adapting it to available technologies, syllabus and assignments as raw material, goals versus demonstrable objectives.
Post about your pedagogical goals and objectives for a possible or current class: share two or three objectives you have (such as getting students to converse intelligently on the subject, helping them understand the readings or a particular concept, or having them do web-based research), and how the Questionnaire, Getting Started Chart, and Seven Principles might help you achieve them.
Week begins Thursday, September 22
Week 4: Materials for Online
ReadKo and Rossen, Chapter 3: Course Design and Development, pp. 63-end. Points: sequence of activities, presentation, discussion, groups and research, assessment.
Take a look at Prezi, a more visual presentation application.
Post your thoughts on planning one of your classes. What elements of design from Chapter 3 will you be considering as you build a class? How might a little knowledge of HTML be useful?
Note: we are not reading Chapter 4
Week begins Thursday, September 29
Week 5: The Online Syllabus
Read: Ko and Rossen, Chapter 5: Creating an Effective Online Syllabus, to p. 125 (to heading "Sample Syllabi: Online and Blended Course Versions"). Points: include lots of detail, due dates by time zone, define participation, be clear on task sequence, schedule by weeks in 2-3 day spreads of activity, supply information several times in different places.
Post: The reading includes a number of recommendations you might find questionable or interesting. Which would you be most and least likely to implement in your class? How does what you read contrast with the method presented in the workshop?
Simulearn Elluminate session
Week begins Thursday, October 6
Slideshare
Week 6: Creating Presentations
Read: Ko and Rossen, Chapter 5: Creating an Effective Online Syllabus, pp. 126-end (this is just a sample syllabus).
Create: Choose one of these:
# Create a short Jing introducing your class (or introduce your Google site if you don't have a class to show yet).
# Take any PowerPoint you use for a class, upload it to Slideshare and add some audio of your voice to make a Slidecast.
Post your Slideshare or your Jing
on your blog by
using the embed feature for either program.
Week begins Thursday, October 13
Week 7: The Online Classroom (revised)
Read: Ko and Rossen, Chapter 6: Building an Online Classroom, to p. 159 (to heading "Group Activity Areas"). Points: adapting favorite teaching strategies to the online environment, units or weeks, determine how much to show, pacing and class size, course areas, make a downloadable syllabus.
Join Facebook (we
have a POT
group) or, if you're already in Facebook or don't like Facebook,
join Twitter.
Post: This week we begin a two-week
community-style discussion on your blogs, built with comments.
Create a post that initiates a discussion
of anything we've explored so far, and
encourage interaction by commenting on at least six different blogs run by your colleagues,returning to their blog in a few days to continue to conversation (a tool like co.comments might be helpful too). You
may feel free to teach a concept from
your own discipline of you wish. We'll
continue this through next week, so
stop by every couple of days.
Pilar Hernández
Week begins Thursday, October 20
Week 8: Creating Community (revised)
Read: Ko and Rossen, Chapter 6:
Building an Online Classroom, p.
160-end. Points: set up communications, quizmakers and gradbeooks, student tracking, student lounge.
Join the Collaborate (Elluminate) session on October 20 (see the Distributed Activities page) OR
Play with Elluminate (there's an installation inside Blackboard or a free trial at Elluminate) or another synchronous program (such as Vyew) or
view the recording of the Collaborate session, any recent
First Friday Elluminate sessions from the POT
recordings page or
set up a Google + hangout and host or attend a discussion with some of your colleagues from the class.
Post: continue our two-week discussion
by replying to others and encouraging
conversation through your blogs. This week is self-referencing -- we are posting and commenting about communication, community, and tools for conversation.
Read: Ko and Rossen, Chapter 7: Student Activities in the Online Environment, to p. 196 (to heading "Reflective Activities"). Points: multiple learning opportunities needed, teach collaboration, rubrics, projects, role-playing, simulations, groupwork, lab.
Find helpful animations or units for one of your classes at MERLOT or a favorite website for your discipline.
Bookmark at least five of these websites to Diigo, shared to the mccpot group and tagged with your own tag ("chem class" or "history 111", for example).
Try Second Life by attending the synchronous meeting there(see the Distributed Activities page) or arrange to meet someone from the class or your mentor there to try it out.
Post about your experiences trying Second Life. Why has this become a popular application for education? What are the pitfalls?
Week begins Thursday, November 3
Google Sites
Week 10: Open Platforms for Teaching and Learning
Read: Ko and Rossen, Chapter 7: Student Activities in the Online Environment, p. 196-end. Points: reflective activities (blogging), discussion, case studies, peer review, guest speakers, cultural issues, using the whole web.
Create: your own mini-website at Google
Sites. Put basic course information
plus anything else you want on the
main page. See Pilar's
tutorial.
Post about
this week's topics. What might be the advantages
and disadvantages of using a class blog
or student blogs for your class? Could a Google Site or web page make a good welcome for students?
Week begins Thursday, November 10
Week 11: Class Resources and Intellectual Property
Read: Ko and Rossen, Chapter 8: Copyright, Intellectual Property, and Open Educational Resources, to p. 241 (to heading "Open Educational Resources"). (note: this chapter is particular to the United States only!) Points: fair use, TEACH Act, linking and embedding, institutional policies, password protection.
We are almost at the half-way point! If there are any posts you have not done and you are trying to earn a certificate, they must be completed before next week's mid-year assessment post.Contact your mentor if you need more time.
Read: Ko and Rossen, Chapter 8: Copyright, Intellectual Property, and Open Educational Resources, pp. 241-end. Points: Open Educational Resources (OER), Creative Commons, academic integrity and plagiarism.
Important! Create a
post containing a list of links to all your posts so far, labeled
by Week number. Make a brief statement about the quality of each
post and what it showed about your learning, keeping in mind the
results of the Self-Assessment Check (the results themselves don't
need to be public!).
Winter Break
Spring semester:
begins February 1
Week begins Wednesday, February 1
Week 13: Creating Class Elements Part 1: Images and screenshots
Read: Ko & Rossen, Chapter 9: Creating Courseware and Using Web 2.0 Tools, to p. 252 (to heading "Finding Images"). Points: Text and web pages, images, screenshots.
Learn to take a quick screenshot (Mac has Grab available in the Utilities folder, Windows 7 has Menu/All Programs/Accessories/Snipping Tool).
Explore Flickr and learn about this popular image hosting site.
Upload any photo or image into Flickr and annotate it.
Post: Use Mbedr to embed your image with its annotations to embed your image in your blog post.
Lisa's Medieval Manor, Flickr
Week begins Wednesday, February 8
David Geller, Eyejot founder
Week 14: Creating Class Elements Part 2: Audio and video
Read: Ko & Rossen, Chapter 9: Creating Courseware and Using Web 2.0 Tools, pp. 252-269 (to heading "Screen-Capture/Screen-Casting Video Software"). Points: audio formats, podcasting, narrated slideshows, video.
Explore: YouTube and a few sites that allow users to upload and share videos, such as blip.tv or Vimeo.
Create - Select one of these to do for this week:
- Take a PowerPoint you've used in class or make a new one, upload to Slideshare and add an audio file to make it into a Slidecast.
- Create an audio file using Audacity and upload it somewhere where we can hear it, or create an audio file in Audioboo and let us know where it is in your post.
Post: Create a short video of your reflections with Eyejot and embed it as your blog post.
Week begins Wednesday, February 15
Week 15: Creating Class Elements Part 3: Screencasting and multimedia
Read: Ko & Rossen, Chapter 9: Creating Courseware and Using Web 2.0 Tools, pp. 269-end. Points: Screencasting, student-generated content, polls and surveys, avatars, mindmapping, multimedia.
Create: Map out a concept or unit from one of your classes using a mind-mapping program like PersonalBrain or MindMeister.
Create a short poll or survey using SurveyMonkey or Google Forms (part of Google Doc).
Post: Create a short Jing taking us through your mind map, and embed it as your blog post.
Jim Sullivan
Week begins Wednesday, February 22
c NY Times
Week 16: Our Students Online
Read: Ko & Rossen, Chapter 10: Preparing Students for Online Learning Points: terminology and navigation, helping with distance, student readiness, creating orientations, FAQs, anticipating problems.
Post: create a short (5-10 item) FAQ for one of your courses as your blog post.
Week begins Wednesday, February 29
Week 17: Classroom Management
Read: Ko & Rossen, Chapter 11: Classroom Managementand Facilitation, to p. 318 (to heading "Finding a Balance between Student-Centered and Instructor-Centered Activities"). Points: record keeping, always store files and content on your own machine, announcements, Twitter, protocol for questions, using groups to decrease workload, adjusting for class size.
Seven Things I'd Want to Know (Lisa blog post, January 2011)
Post: use any format for this week's comment on class facilitation (audio, video clip, quick slideshow) and embed it in your blog post. Feel free to use alternative methods from now on.
Read: Ko & Rossen, Chapter 11: Classroom Managementand Facilitation, pp.318-end and Chapter 12: Special Issues if you wish. Points: Student activities and participation, tips for synchronous and asynchronous discussions, team teaching / privacy, identity, noisy/quiet./disruptive student behaviors.
Learn a bit about one CMS with which you are not familiar.
Post, in the format of your choice, about your views on using a CMS, or any CMS in particular.
Week begins Wednesday, March 14
Week 19: Web-Enhanced, Hybrid and Open Classes
Read: Ko & Rossen, Chapter 13: Teaching Web Enhanced and Blended Classes, to p. 371 (to heading "Tips for Teaching Blended Courses). Points: concerns about blending, f2f time for complex issues, online discussion for an on-site class, using the web for class discussion, quizmaking, office hours, group projects, student presentations, don't make it optional, calculate total student time on task, interact with class online weekly.
Post: in any format you wish, any subject related to this week's readings. Start considering ideas for your presentation (see Week 23), and help others with their ideas.
Read Gardner Campbell, A Personal Cyberstructure (2009) - can also see video if you wish (about 35 minutes) Faculty should lead by example, "students must be effective architects, narrators, curators, and inhabitants of their own digital lives" .
This week is dedicated to sharing a 5-10 minute presentation (or equivalent) showcasing your learning as part of the Certificate Program or from your activities here at Pedagogy First! All presentations should be viewed and commented on by everyone!
Week begins Wednesday, April 18
Week 24: Summarize, assess and contribute
Review the POT Certificate Class
Rubric and create a
post containing a list of links to all your posts for the year, labeled
by Week number*. Make a brief statement about the quality of each
post and what it showed about your learning.
Create and post a short (Jing?) tour through one of your online courses, class websites, or instructional units, to be used as an example to other faculty.
* It is this post that is assessed for earning the certificate
MiraCosta
Online Teaching Certificate
Winter Break 
