Monday, October 19, 2009

dealing with crazy schedules

I know that startup jobs are pretty crazy. There is some flexibility in a distance learning class to accommodate  your needs, but you still need to participate regularly.

Do the current work first - discussions, assignments - everything that is due this week. The discussions are most interesting to you and others in the class during the week.

Then do all the past due assignments and quizzes.

Participating in discussions is an important part of the class. However, there isn't much point in the past due discussions - everyone else has moved on. Nobody will see your posts or respond. This only happens in the current week.
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catching up

You need to do all the activities described in the Assignment each week. The specific requirements for posting in each topic are stated in the instructions. These will vary - there is no set rule. However the instructions are very specific.

Remember, as there are no class meetings, the course work is set up to cover the same work that you would get in 4 hours of lectures plus textbook reading, assignments, discussions and preparations quizzes each week. Yes that is a lot of work.

However, the assignments are listed and can be completed in any order to provide the flexibility distance learning students need. The instructions are specific and should contain most, if not all the information to complete each activity.

If you have any questions, please ask. Asking in the Questions forum is good - then everyone in the class finds out what the answer is. If you would prefer to send a message or an email to me with your questions, please do.

Learning to learn online is not easy. However, distance learning does provide flexibility and some other options that are not available in an on-campus class.
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Community Service Learning - update

There was some confusion about the Community Service Learning assignment but thanks to all the questions, most of you are starting do work for the community partner organizations.

Not sure where to find the details? Look in Module 3 for the Community Service Learning discussion forum. There is a discussion topic for each community partner project. These are not group projects, but there are several students in the class working on each community project.

Yes, the proposal was due in week 3. However, there was some confusion, so there will be no late deduction.

If you have questions about the community service learning assignment, please ask.
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copyright

Copyright law is complex and really difficult to enforce. This is a good introduction, but any more depth is beyond the scope of this course.

There seems to be some confusion about "open" software (which may be free but that is not the same thing). There are very specific types of copyright for open, sharable, reuseable work.
Creative Commons http://creativecommons.org/

There were a lot of specific questions. There are many resources that address these concerns. For example, if you want to know about the legal issues associated with uploading concert video to YouTube, consult the YouTube web site. There is a lot of information there if you are interested.

Pictures may be copyright as well. There are lots of sites that offer pictures that you are permitted to copy.
WikiEducator Image Hub
http://www.wikieducator.org/Images#Image_libraries_and_repositories

It is important that everyone understand how copyright infringement has long-term wide-spread consequences.
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sample books

Tar Heel Reader http://tarheelreader.org/

This is a very ambitious list of books. I'm sure they will be greatly appreciated.

Did you check to see if there are any books on these subjects already in the Tar Heel Reader collection?

I suggest that you do one or two complete books first. That way you see the whole process start to finish.

A couple of things to watch out for when you do your sample books:
  • words per page - there isn't room for many words before they fall off the page.
  • finding pictures to match words - allow some flexibility on pictures. It can be really time consuming to find a specific picture that you need to accompany pre-written text.
  • start with pictures - it may be easier to find a series of pictures on a theme, then write or arrange the text to go with the pictures.
If your sample books work out like you plan, then you know how many you can complete.
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Friday, October 9, 2009

written assignments

Q: For writing assignments, how long should it be? Please help me to understand what I should do.

A: Most of the written submitted assignments should be a couple of
paragraphs - long enough to demonstrate good writing and thoughtful
ideas and comments.

The projects require additional work, but requirements are described
in detail for each.
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Thursday, October 8, 2009

discussion grading

I posted this in the Introductions forum, but here it is again...

Your discussion grade is the sum of the points you receive for your participation in all the topics within the week's discussion forum.

There is a maximum total for the discussion forum each week. There are multiple topics each week. In some cases your total of the topic ratings may be greater than the discussion total. Your grade will be the discussion maximum.

For example - if there are 4 topics in the forum and the total for the forum is 10, the topic maximum may be 2,3 or 4 depending on the amount of work. If you contribute to all the topics you might have 3/10, 2/10, 4/10, and 3/10 but your total for the forum will be 10/10.

If you have any other questions about discussion participation and grading, please ask.
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