Last year we surveyed online faculty at the end of the fall and spring semesters, and the feedback we received was both helpful and informative. Many of your questions and concerns were echoed by several other faculty members. With this page we have tried to address those common concerns and let you know where we are and where we are headed with these important issues. These topics are listed below under their respective categories. Click on any topic to see our comments. If you have any specific questions about these responses please contact us and we will be happy to help.
Resources
Yes, this is something we have in place now. ETSU supports two systems, Wimba and Adobe Connect which you can use to conference with one student or a large group. All you need is a computer with a microphone. Call us or sign up for one of our workshops to get started.
Yes and no. eLearning is currently evaluating the feasibility of a fully integrated, campus-wide lecture capture system. This would make it easier for any instructor (not just online) who wanted to use it to capture their lectures, either as audio or video, and provide those resources to their students. Until that gets up and running, synchronous tools such as Adobe Connect can be used to record most of what happens in a classroom.
This can be a head-scratcher, especially the oral piece. Rob Russell, ETSU’s Director of Learning Services, has agreed to teach a workshop as part of our Teaching Online series to address this issue. Furthermore, we will offer a new workshop which discusses audio/video options that are available freely to students and how you can use them to craft oral intensive assignments.
Yes! We have a series of Teaching Online workshops through the semester. These workshops cover a range of subjects and are intended to promote discussion and consideration of best-practices. These aren’t lectures on what button to push, they are discussions on best-practices, common issues online instructors face and hopefully creative solutions. Interaction is encouraged. You can register for upcoming workshops on the calendar (eLearning category) or on our website.
This is a great idea. We are currently designing a brand new support website for the technology we support and this will make a great addition.
Technology
We completely agree and are working to add speed and flexibility to our current media server. If you are using public videos already on the web (such as YouTube,) then D2L has made it much easier to integrate these. By creating a new topic in the D2L content area, you can select the “add stuff” button in the WYSIWYG editor and directly embed an online video. This cuts out many of the annoying additions you get when you send students directly to that video online (such as “other videos you might like”).
While we have two video conferencing systems supported at ETSU (see question 1) there currently is not a tool directly integrated into D2L. Both systems we currently use have D2L integration as an option in future updates and we hope to add these at that time.
Yes! It’s not enabled by default so you have to add it to your nav bar. (See this guide for help.) After you have added it to your course you can build a variety of surveys. The tool is similar to the assessment tool but has a few different options. Give us a call if you need help!
Training
Absolutely, we would be happy to help with your course. Contact Anthony Kiech (Kiech@etsu.edu) for an appointment.
Absolutely, give us a call and we’ll find the best person for your needs.
While this is still in the planning stage, we think it’s a great idea and hope to have more information available soon.
We offer a wide range of training on different software and systems, everything from iPads to D2L to synchronous tools. You can register for upcoming workshops on the calendar (eLearning category) or on our website
While we have many resources on our site we do not currently offer any full workshops online. We are moving in this direction however and have a new video series on D2L ready to go. Online training will be a focus of the new training and resource webpage being developed. D2L Video Series: Intro - http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE2FF36370EF10A4C D2L Video Series: Advanced - http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4F44FAA93BA28AD0
There are a number of options you have, each with its own pros and cons. We will be offering a workshop on this very topic. In the meantime, you can contact Anthony Kiech (Kiech@etsu.edu) and schedule an appointment to talk about your needs.
D2L is managed by a Canadian company which stores the material and all D2L backups off-campus. Provided we all survive the earthquake/flood/etc. then your D2L material would be safe.
Students
Presently no, but this would be a great resource that online faculty could direct students to or insert into their online courses. If anyone knows of any resources like this or would be willing to help us create some, please let us know.
Unfortunately we do not have any control over enrollments or the size of your individual courses.
We completely agree. Yes, yes it should. The non-sarcastic answer is that there is a lot we wish D2L would add or improve. While we have little direct control over what they add, we are happy to pass along suggestions. D2L is constantly updating and refining the software. There are times when we receive an update and hold back a tool for one semester while we test it and build resources for it.
