Growing the CSU's Online Learning Community

So...what to do now? The options are immediately tantalizing and historically unprecedented. You've got the basic tools and skills to create a website almost instantly. Yet establishing and maintaining your presence on the web is likely to be an iterative and evolutionary process. We'd like to take the measure of your general interest in various options for future use of online technologies and we'd like to get some basic information about your plans for mentoring others.

We leave you with pointers to other web resources, and with tools and templates that you can use to project your professional and academic persona into cyberspace.

Rating Your Interest in Future Use
of Online Learning Technologies

What kinds of opportunities do you want to pursue over the next two years? Complete our simple rating form and we'll forward the results to the CSU Chancellor's Office.

Ideas for Mentoring, Coaching, & Collegial Support

We think you'll agree that teaching others is a pretty good way to learn more about the educational possiblities of online technologies. We also suspect that your T3 fellow participants will quickly generate a wealth of issues and questions for collegial discussion.

But we also worry: that the Temporary Travails of Technological Tasks (that's T4) will overshadow faculty wisdom about educational purpose and value.

So we'd like to offer several suggestions about organizing your campus T3 team.

• Get together with your opposite numbers. Contact other T3 faculty/staff leads on your campus for an informal discussion about how to work with the groups that you will each mentor. Select a facillitator to call and coordinate meetings.
  
  
• If possible, plan a coffee klatch, luncheon, or online discussion where you can update eachother about your on-going work with those who you will mentor. Plan an informal seminar where other T3 participants can discuss their ideas. Be prepared to lead a conversation about realistic goals and strategies. But also think about how to help faculty to break out of conventional ways of thinking bound up in a world of lectures, pencils, and paper.
  
  
• Ponder your prospects for continued collaboration with fellow T3 faculty and staff at your campus. If things go as planned, there could be a couple of dozen T3 participants in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd waves on your campus. You may find in this group many colleagues who will be valuable allies as you start to articulate your goals and lobby for resources.
  
  
• Schedule a follow-up meeting in a couple of months so that you can review your general progress. Invite everyone from the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd waves. Set up a local listserv or web-forum to address campus-specific issues. And don't forget the statewide T3 listserv.
  

Now that you know the notes, what do you want to play? Keep in mind that online learning technologies are merely enablers. The real issue to explore with your fellow T3 participants is educational value:

• What are your purposes?
  
  
• Who's interests will you serve?
  
  
• What are your teaching goals?
  
  
• How will you measure your progress towards these goals?
  

And...

How will you re-evaluate your educational methods in the light of unprecedented technical innovation and opportunity?

Mentoring Plans

Please tell us now, or as soon as possible, who you will be mentoring and what approaches you'll be using.

To update this mentoring information, simply return to this link.

Web Portfolio Producer

Developed by SDSU educational technology graduate students Evan Jessen and Keely Kelman, WP Producer opens the door a little wider on web-based opportunities. WP Producer includes examples of portfolios for various professionals and a primer on graphic design for web pages. There templates for building resumes, biographies, vitae, and image galleries. The templates are yours to keep and modify.

WP Producer will open in a separate browser window.

Pathways

Educational Technology 544, Instructional Design (old version)
http://edweb.sdsu.edu/courses/EDTEC544/Resources/Course_Resources

Music 345, World Music in Contemporary Life
http://apple.sdsu.edu/logan/M345/logan_M345.html
User name:  student     Password:  trumpet

Learning on the Web: An Instructor's Manual
http://cnet.unb.ca/lotw/intro.html

Distance Education and the WWW
http://www.uidaho.edu/evo/dist12.html

The Ability Utility (examples of simple lessons on everyday topics)
http://Learn2.com 

POSIT Database of Usability Principles
http://clipt.sdsu.edu

Sun Microcomputer's Guide to Web Style
http://www.sun.com/styleguide/

Yale Web Style Guide
http://info.med.yale.edu/caim/index.html

Finally, please help us improve this module by taking a moment or two to complete a brief evaluation form. Thank you!