otl201 – Post 6

Herein, I would like share with you an updated version of my Learning Activities Portfolio:

It is essential to set the climate from the beginning of a course. In online courses, I would like to provide engaging opportunities for students to introduce themselves to me and their classmates. My suggestions include:

  1. A discussion forum where each student makes an introductory post and reply.
  2. A collaborative Google slide presentation where each student takes a slide to introduce themselves with text, images and/or video.

I believe maintaining regular communication with learners is key. Emailing my students on a weekly-basis provides connections, offers tips/suggestions, point to exemplary student work, and encourage students to interact. Communication is a two-way street. Thus, as a teacher, I should also encourage students to maintain a conversation that supports learning process. Students will find that increasing their participation level also increases their motivation, which is likely to contribute to success in the course. My other suggestions in the content of learning activities which promote engagement and motivation include:

  1. Providing opportunities for collaboration, such as group projects and team discussions that ask students to explore the world around them.
  2. Encouraging students to use the course discussion forums and/or blogs to communicate with classmates and teacher.
  3. Asking students to read all course communication thoroughly so they don’t miss out on important announcements/information.
  4. Another interesting option, in my opinion, is providing an opportunity for students to find out if any of their classmates live in their area. This way students can voluntarily meet up in certain occasions. This opportunity would support effective student-student interactions if students are properly guided and encouraged to do certain group projects.

otl201 – Post 3

After reading the content of this lesson, it seems to me that social presence is the most important concept in distance education. Here are some ways that I apply in promoting social presence in my online courses:

  1. I always write a personalized welcome letter rather than sending a typical email using the suggested template. I think it is helpful to send a special welcome letter to each and every one of my students. This will make students in my online courses feel welcome and sense the faculty’s virtual presence from the very beginning of the course.
  1. In my personalized letter, I try to send them a short bio about myself. As teachers, we all know that it is important to raise students’ interests and engagement in the course. I believe I can increase students’ interests in the course with a short story displaying my professional career, fun aspect of my job and humorous personality. With the insights I obtained during this lesson, I am now determined to take this practice to the next level by adding a picture, an audio clip, or a video clip to add a human touch to my online courses.
  1. I always make good use of email. I attach images to my emails for many situations such as answering individual questions, providing feedback on assignments, motivating students to learn, and following up with students for special situations. I encourage students to do the same. They can write down their thoughts or questions on a piece of paper, take a picture of that and send that picture to me. This way both avoid writing lengthy messages and text-based communication.
  1. Using discussion board can be an effective technique for promoting social presence and increasing student-teacher and student-student interactions. Many educators in online courses use the discussion board. It is important to encourage students to get involved in the discussion and engaged in the conversation and guiding their learning. The challenge is that not all of us are active in participation. I hope that I have the chance to write more about this challenge in my next posts.