Distance Education Newsletter
Kapiʻolani Community College | November 1, 2018
DE PLAN UPDATES
Congratulations to the Math/Sciences department on its amazing course comments for online classes! We’re trying standardize the course comments for our online classes, ensuring that students have access to information they need before they register (such as whether or not proctored exams are required). ALL Math/Sciences online classes have the suggested information in their comments!
Some of you have let us know that the form we’re using to get the information we need to build the individual course comments is difficult and unwieldy. So we’re working on a revision, to be presented in Google Forms, hopefully in time for the building of the Summer 2019 schedule. It’s looking like this new version will be MUCH easier for both faculty and secretaries to work with. If any of you are interested in helping us test the new version, just let Leigh know (ldooley@hawaii.edu). We’d be happy to have your feedback.
We’re working hard to shape a DE Class Review Process that will satisfy Federal, State, and Accreditor requirements while keeping control of online classes in the hands of teachers (where it belongs!). The Faculty Senate is discussing a proposed DE Class Review Process this semester, especially the FS DE Committee and the FS Professional Rights & Responsibilities Committee. If you’re interested in learning more, contact Leigh (ldooley@hawaii.edu). Your input is welcome.
Defining Course Formats
What does it mean to be an “online” course?
Can online courses include location-based meetings? If students can choose a location for things like internships, service learning, or proctored exams, does that make it more online?
How many times can we require a location-based activity before a course is no longer online?
How much of a course must be online for the course to be hybrid?
…What if most of my class attends face-to-face (F2F) every other week and online every other week, but some off-island students attend the F2F portion via videoconference and there is a service learning project completed at the location of the student’s choice?!?
TESTING & PROCTORING
Does your course require proctored exams (online or paper)?
If yes, then your students have the ability to take the exam at any of the UH testing center sites or they may choose to take their exam using ProctorU (see ProctorU information below). The forms to set up proctored testing for a UH testing site can be found on the KCC Testing Center website.
If your student is off-island, then you may want to work with the student to arrange a non-UH testing site. Most community colleges and universities allow students from other institutions to take exams at their site for a small fee.
Instructors may want to review the KCC testing center faculty guidelines for more information.
Our ProctorU pilot has been going fairly well! Ten teachers from four departments have been testing out using ProctorU online proctoring as an option for their online students. And now, we’re ready to open it up: if you’re teaching in Spring 2019, require proctored exams, and would like to offer online proctoring as an OPTION for your students, go for it! Here’s how:
Set up an INSTRUCTOR account at ProctorU.
Put Youxin (UH username: youxin) in your Laulima site(s) as an INSTRUCTOR. She will set up your site(s) with a ProctorU button in the left menu. She’ll let you know when she’s done so you can take her out of your class.
Attend a ProctorU training (watch the Bulletin for dates/times), where you’ll learn how to set up your tests. If you can’t make a training session, contact Youxin at youxin@hawaii.edu to set up a one-on-one meeting at least a week before the first exam.
INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN SUPPORT
Did you know there are multiple locations on campus where you can make an appointment and stop in for instructional design support for your classes? Instructional designer office locations include:
Kopiko 212 - Jamie Sickel (jsickel@hawaii.edu)
Lama 113 - Helen Torigoe (htorigoe@hawaii.edu)
Lama 113/111B - Marisa Yamada (myamada@hawaii.edu)
Lama 111B - Youxin Zhang, part-time (youxin@hawaii.edu)
Please feel free to contact us for instructional design support!
ONLINE LEARNER SUCCESS
It’s that point in the semester when we’d like online students to take stock of their learning and progress, make action plans for improvement if they need to, and connect with learning and student support services. It’s also time for them to look forward and make academic and registration plans for Spring 2019! Take a look at the latest Success for Online Learners Newsletter that was sent to the 3,257 students (unduplicated count) currently enrolled in our Kapiʻolani CC online classes!
RECENT & UPCOMING WORKSHOPS
* October 26: 1:30-3:00, Fix Your Documents: Hands-on Accessibility and Universal Design for Learning (UDL), Guest Presenter: Leanne Riseley (Leeward CC)
Last Friday, Leanne gave a helpful, hands-on presentation on the basics of Accessibility and UDL and the importance of including them in your documents! A Google Docs template was provided in which participants applied accessibility best practices such as adding headers, lists, and alternative text to their images in Google Doc. Here are a couple of tips from Leanne: when creating accessible tables, do not merge any cells and did you know you can add a period to the end of your alt text to make the screen reader pause?
Upcoming workshops in November (located in Lama 118):
* Attend all 3 Accessibility Workshops (10/26, 11/9, and 11/16) and get a free subway sandwich!
November 8: 12-1:30, CES Open Lab
November 9: 11-12:30, CES Open Lab
* November 9: 1-3:00, Hands-on Accessibility Lab - IDS Group
* November 16: 1-2:30, Laulima Accessibility and Closed Captioning
November 30: 1-2:00, SPOTLIGHT: "See? Laulima's Not So Bad..." DE teachers will give an overview of their classes, showing us how they've worked within Laulima to build functional and successful classes.
ProctorU (TBD)
VISUAL DESIGN TIPS
Have you ever seen a powerpoint slide that looked like a huge wall of crowded text? This month, we’ll learn about the importance of adding a little bit of breathing room, or “white space”, around images and text. “White space” is any space added between your content in order to define and organize content clearly on a page as well as balance design. Compare the two slides below, the second one which includes "white space."
LAULIMA TIPS
OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES (OER)/TEXTBOOK $0 TIPS
T3: TECH TOOLS FOR TEACHING
In this edition of T3, we’ll take a look at Zoom, an app for synchronous online meetings...