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Resources for Instructors

Benefits of E-Teaching

Are you ready?

Try Online Courses

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Success Strategies

Other Resources

Are you ready - Instructors?

The good news is that there is plenty of advice regarding online teaching and it is easily available. Here are some suggestions from the literature to start:

• Don't study it to death ... Have a go! Play with it!
• Be part of a larger team, either within your organization our outside.
• Establish good relations with the folks at technical support.
• Learn something about the technological limitations of the system you are working with.
• Begin small, possibly by way of a hybrid course, which combines face to face sessions and an online component.
• Have the course evaluated before launching it. Test from outside the institution.
• At the beginning of the course, make contact with each learner separately, but invite everyone to contribute publicly.
• Establish realistic expectations for learners and for yourself.
  If you or your learners are new to online learning, realize that more may be learned about the technology and processes of online learning than about the subject matter of the course.
• Organize and file your answers to questions posed by your learners.  You'll want to be able to cut and paste in the future to save time!

4General Computer Literacy Skills

How strong are your computer skills? If you need assistance, visit webteacher.com, a site devoted solely to technology training for teachers. And be sure to visit the General section of elearn.ca for Technology Used in E-Learning.

4Online Instructional Design - Practical Tips

• Principles of Online Design - This comprehensive site provides information on Instructional/Audience Analysis,  Goals/Objectives, Instructional Activities, Evaluation, Teaching Strategies and more (Faculty Development and Support website at Florida Gulf Coast University).
• Instructional Design and Development - A choice selection of presentations, handouts, articles and books (Rogers State University).
• This Road Map, Creating Online Courses, was created for the educator on the journey to online course creation. Angela Benson and Jashoda Sanghvi, have designed the Road Map with six stops at points of interest to new online educators. At most stops, the educators will be able to go one or more excursions for a deeper exploration of an area of interest.
• EdTech - This web site is designed to help faculty effectively utilize online course tools in their classroom. The purpose for the site is not to train faculty how to use the mechanics of various computer tools. Rather, this site provides examples of how online course tools can be used in the classroom to benefit learning. Related websites, Creating Learner-Centered Instruction and DesignShop, provide asynchronous, online courses on the necessary resources to begin investigating the process of designing instruction to enhance student learning (Virginia Tech).
• NickNacks Telecollaborate - If you're new to telecollaborating, NickNacks provides a Participant's Guide, with easy to follow instructions for assessing your resources and capabilities, finding a project to meet your needs, and getting the most from this learning experience; Online Resources offering an extensive set of links to telecollaborations on the WWW, mailing lists, useful tools, lesson resources, and online publications; and Innovative Projects developed and tested with supporting instructional resources and extension activities. Techniques and lessons learned are incorporated into our instructional information base.
• EDUCAUSE - If you are an instructor interested in any information technologies, you will bump into EDUCAUSE eventually! EDUCAUSE is a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology. The website includes the following, and much, much more:
  • Constituent and Discussion Groups
  • Current Issues Resources
  • Effective Practices and Solutions Database
  • Events Calendar
  • Information Resources Library

4Online Instructional Design - Additional Readings

• Distributed Learning (Diana Oblinger, Mark Maruyama)  
• Distance Learning: The Shift to Interactivity (Gene T. Sherron and Judith V. Boettcher) 
• A Conceptual Model for Integrating IT into Education (John M. Lanicci)
• Evolution of a Web-Enhanced Course Incorporating Strategies for Self- Regulation (Katherine S. Cennamo, John D. Ross, and Cosby S. Rogers)
• Distance Learning for Continuous Education, (Jack M. Wilson)
• Stories and Strategies for Implementing Distributive Learning, (Jeff McLaughlin)
• Digital Resources in Education, (Arun Kumar Tripathi)
• Asking the Right Question What Does Research Tell Us About Technology and Higher Learning? (Stephen C. Ehrmann)