donderdag 16 oktober 2008

How to Redesign a Course for Hybrid Delivery

Participants will learn the principles of good course design and apply them to a traditional, face-to-face course to be delivered as a hybrid (part online, part F2F) course. Using a modified version of UMB's own workshop (http://www.umbc.edu/oit/hybrid/training), the seminar will include demonstrations of best practices and help instructors identify the pedagogical problems hybrid delivery can solve and the new learning opportunities it can create. Instructional designers can adapt the workshop curriculum to their home institution's needs. This seminar will also explain specific requirements UMBC faculty must meet to receive a one-time, $1,500 course-redesign stipend through the Alternate Delivery Program (ADP), sponsored by UMBC's Office of Summer, Winter, and Special Programs (OSWSP).

Please Note: To make the most of this seminar, participants should: (1) read L. Dee Fink's six-page "Integrated Course Design" IDEA Center paper; (2) complete the 10 questions; and (3) bring a wireless-enabled laptop computer, if possible.

Colleges Struggle to Keep 'Smart' Classrooms Up to Date

Many institutions, especially public ones, lack the money to refresh computers and other equipment Colleges have been building so-called smart classrooms for years, equipping them with computerized projectors, digital whiteboards, and other tools. Now some of those once-high-tech rooms are starting to show their age at many colleges.

At a facility used by three colleges in Denver, for instance, a group of high-school students competing in a History Day event recently exposed problems at smart classrooms there when DVD players failed to play the students' final projects. Event coordinators scrambled to find personal computers capable of playing the discs, which were created using a format that the center's old DVD players couldn't read.

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