“I have an attendance forum where the online students are required to post a brief "attendance" message each week. I have a public forum for each major topic we cover in the course and I require the students to post a certain number of messages and/or replies to these forums. For example, I might have a forum called "Societal Issues and the Internet" where students can post their thoughts on legal and ethical issues, or post information about articles they have read that are related to the topic.”

·   Faculty-student interaction

·   Student-student interaction

·   Rich, rapid feedback

·   Promotes active learning

·   Respects diverse learning

·   Verbal learners

·   Social learners

·   Textual learners

 “The feedback that we had from the students was that the Chat room was a *very useful* feature to keep in touch with the professor, answer questions, or plainly 'feeling like being in class.‘”

“What I like most about WebCT this week, by the way, is my office hours. I used to try having office hours with webchat, and I had to keep hitting the chat button every minute or so, or I would miss someone. All I have to do is enter the chat room, turn on the sounds, hang out my "sign" on the main page and then I just putter around and do other things.

·   Faculty-student interaction

·   Student-student interaction

·   Diverse learning

·   Rich, rapid feedback

·   Promotes active learning

·   Verbal learners

·   Social learners

Student can compile pages from a path and create their own custom study guide.

·   Time on task

A WebCT Path

Compilation of chapter outlines.

Presentation of detailed content for each “chapter” or “learning module”. 

·   Diverse learning

·   Communicates high expectations

·   Linear learners

·   Learner to content interactivity

·   Facilitates directed instruction through constructivism

·   Provides global picture

·   Advanced organizer

 “…the mail tool provides the necessary private mail between students and faculty in the course.  Also, having private mail inside WebCT helps to organize and store mail specific to the course instead of getting mixed up in all the other email that flows into a faculty's system.”

·   Faculty-student interaction

·   Student-student interaction

Run clips of writers -- poets, novelists, and dramatists -- reading and discussing their own work. 

Run film clips -- for film studies, for drama studies -- to illustrate staging, directing variations, etc.

·   Diverse learning

·   Visual learners

·   Demonstration of techniques

Use the Notes function to have students create their own annotations of various text or image documents posted within path pages in the course -- then have the students compile their notes and share them with the whole class.  Opens a whole world of discussion regarding interpretation, how one approaches text and image, etc.

·   Active learning

·   Detailed oriented

Navigation and user orientation.

·   Time on task

Use the image database to house images that the instructor has created, or where copyright is not a problem.  Perfect for history classes (maps, images of current landscapes, diagrams of battlefields, architectural drawings, etc.); art and art history; cultural studies (advertising, etc)

·   Faculty- student interaction

·   Student – student interaction

·   Active learning

·   Supports visual learning

Put the resume session icon on the homepage so students can pickup at the last place they were in the course path pages.

·   Time on task

·   Sequential learners

Practice quizzes

Mini “pop” quizzes

Surveys

Include graphics, charts, tables, links to other websites, streaming media, video, audio, etc.

·   Rich, rapid feedback

·   Communicate high expectations

·   Time on task

·   Faculty-student interaction

·   Active learning

·   Can direct student learning through selective release

Practice questions

Test your knowledge questions.

At the end of a chapter or learning module, have several self-test questions, which directly test the learning objectives for that module.

·   Rich, rapid feedback

·   Communicates high expectations

·   Diverse learning

·   Can direct student learning

·   Allows for self-evaluation

·   Self-paced learners

Use sound clips of musicians, artists, poets, and writers, playing, reading and discussing their own work. 

·   Respect diverse learning

·   Rich, rapid feedback

·   Auditory learners

Provide the bookmark tool on path pages so students can create their own custom shortcuts to key pages.

·   Time on task

·   Sequential learners

·   Self-paced learners

Some use the calendar as the “grand central station” of their course.  Outlining on each day the activities a student should be completing and directing students to course resources and external URLs.

·   Time on task

·   Concrete, sequential

·   Advanced organizer

Build an index to cross reference key terms and concepts to the detail content within the course.

·   Time on task

·   Active learning

·   Global view of course contents

In a literature course, tie in reading of Walt Whitman (or other writers) with discussion questions and projects where resources are available either on CD-ROM or on the web.  For instance, the Dickinson archives at Harvard are in the process of being digitized. 

·   Time on Task

Describe written assignments, such as papers, essays, and formal lab reports in detail.  The grading criteria can be given and any external materials (example of assignment, files or URLs) can be suggested.

·   Rich, rapid feedback. It provides a forum for extended and meaningful feedback that the student cannot lose and can access at any time

·   Faculty to student interaction

·   Time on task

Use the glossary to define terms but also provide media, such as images, audio, etc. that will explain the term more completely.  For instance if this is a foreign language course, include an audio clip, which pronounces the term correctly.

·   Time on task.  Students can access definitions in course without stopping to thumb through notes and texts

·   Rich, rapid feedback

Use the student homepages as an introductory “ice-breaker” activity so students can get to know each other.

Have students list websites in their homepage that are related to the course.  Students can write a brief description of the site.  This is a web adaptation of an annotated bibliography.

·   Student to student interaction

·   Respects diverse learning

Use the link feature to mix media on path pages.  For instance in an art class, you could include the image of Vangogh’s “Starry Night”, an audio clip of the song, and a web link to the Vangogh museum in Amsterdam.

·   Time on task (helps students reach needed materials quickly)

·   Active  learning

·   Links to others resources that may promote different learning styles

·   Facilitates guided learning

Release grades to students as well as other types of information such as the group they might be assigned to, general remarks on participation, etc.

·   Rich, rapid feedback

·   Concrete sequential

·   Achievement oriented

Use the student presentation tool to let students share their own animation, audio, video -- or archival information -- if they have been able to find the materials, for instance, in hard copy form. 

·   Faculty –student interaction

·   Student-student interaction

·   Active learning

·   Diverse learning

·   Rich, rapid feedback

·   Collaborative

·   Constructivist – provides for application of knowledge construction

·   Visual

Provide this tool to students so they can quickly evaluate their participation in a class.

·   Rich, rapid feedback

·   Respects diverse learning

·   Faculty – student interaction

·   Time on task

·   In a constructivist environment, this tool can help a student track themselves

Provide students with appropriate references which tap several types of media, i.e. journals, text books, websites, etc.

·   Respects diverse learning

·   Active learning

·   Communicates high expectations

Insert the search tool on all path pages so students can easily locate topics in the course.

·   Time on task

List learning objectives for each path or even each path page.   Tie this tool to self-test questions, which evaluate these learning objectives.

·   Communicates high expectations

·   Faculty –student interaction

·   Time on task

 “…that is, the important thing here is not the option to make pictures, but the possibility of SHARING them with other people. For example, an instructor could be handling a class using the chat tool, and showing slides pasting them in the whiteboard tool, an even drawing in it in a "real time" way. Students could participate in the class, making exercises and showing real presentations using the whiteboard, and asking questions using the chat tool. “

·   Faculty – student interaction

·   Student – student interaction

·   Active learning

·   Respects diverse learning

·   Collaborative

·   Visual