Blended Learning - Students Do Better with Mix of f2f and online instruction

eSchool News reports on results of a U.S. Department of Education study on Blended Learning. Bottom line: study reveals that students who took all or part of their class online performed better, on average, than those taking the same course through traditional face-to-face instruction.

Given the finding that students do better with a mix of f2f and online instruction, it follows that teacher librarians should work with their classroom teachers and district curriculum leaders to identify or develop curriculum-supporting tutorials or mini-courses. The CSLA web 2.0 tutorial for middle school students, Learning 2.0, is an example of a library-generated online course that addresses information literacy issues as it teaches 21st century learning skills. Another CSLA tutorial, Discovering Assistive Technology, is suitable for high school students as well as adults. CSLA members are encouraged to offer both to their students and classroom teachers, and to include on the school library website.

Tips for Teaching Online + a fun video

Here are my notes from Friday's 3/20/2009 presentation by Dr. Patricia James on
"Putting You in your Online Course". Dr. James is Dean of Instruction, Library and Technology, and Distance Learning, Mt. San Jacinto College

INTRO: It takes about 3 semesters to get used to teaching online.
1st Semester- gulp!
2nd Semester- get rhythm and fix things that didn't work
3rd Semester- OK!

TIPS:
1- Set aside time to do research each week.
2- Consider setting up a ning.com outside your course management system as a "backup" to meeting space.
3- Make students responsible for backing up all their own work.
4- Set up your e-mail that automatically sends a "receipt" for student work.

See fun video "Can't Help Teaching Online.wmv" see
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUhTuv2VgB0

5- Add your voice. Use audacity.com or camptasia (allows screen capture and voice over at the same time)
6- Note that MOST students do not print out info from online. Often they read from a smartphone.. So, when putting information online, use 60 characters across, background buff (not white). Also fonts for online should be san serif, verdana, or helvetica.
7- Add your own photo and other, somewhat related photos.
8- Each new week, make announcements. Provide regular, effective contact.
9- Welcome each student the first week
10- Read and Grade as you go. (don't spend time going back and re-reading)
11- Use CCCConfer (uses Elluminate webconferencing platform). Now you can save what you do as a webcast as mpeg file. This is ideal for tutoring or Office hours. If you use it during the week, CCCConfer will caption it for you.
12- More tools. Jing.com is a free screen capture tool and can capture video too! Download JINGPROJECT.com. You can annotate images and do voice-overs.
Episelen.com. Create an ePortfolio if you have an .edu address it is free.

RESOURCES: www.msjc.edu -> online learning -> faculty resources -> general Distance learning resources. See also www.merlot.org