E-Learning Queen's E-Learning Crossword Puzzle

Here's a holiday gift for you!

Click the link to access a crossword puzzle that tests your knowledge of e-learning terms.

E-Learning Queen's Crossword Puzzle (created by Seth Lynch)

Click the link below for the answer key:

Answer Key to E-Learning Queen's Crossword Puzzle (created by Seth Lynch)

2012

Interview with Elaine Bontempi, Ph.D., Instructional Designer; Innovators in E-Learning Series

As elearning and mlearning move into new forms of delivery, and the appearance, capabilities, and the functionality of the interfaces (including learning management systems (LMSs) evolve, it's useful to take a look at how instructional designers, technologists, and administrators are considering the impact of the interface when developing and teaching online courses. Welcome to an interview with instructional psychologist and designer Elaine Bontempi, Ph.D., who has applied her research in motivation, cognition, and non-traditional students to developing highly effective learning strategies for distributed forms of education including accredited online colleges. Developing elearning and mlearning courses for distance and hybrid delivery, Elaine has explored both issues vital to effective interface and instructional strategy development.

What subject matter do you prefer to work with?

Psychology, Human Motivation, Sociology & Women’s Issues

Who are the intended learners? What level are they?

I have developed online and hybrid courses for a variety of institutions including several universities and museums as well as government institutions. The majority of courses I have developed are predominately targeting undergraduate and graduate students at universities.

How do you use graphics when you design a course?

When I am selecting graphics I always choose graphics that promote learning. In other words, the graphics must correspond to the subject I am teaching, and they are used as introductions, discussion material, or to make a statement. When selecting graphics I always select those that are high quality—sometimes black and white and at other times color, but it depends upon the topic. For example, when promoting learning in natural sciences, color images are preferred because they can help students learn properties of minerals, etc. When using color images, I always try to use images with natural colors rather than colors that are not natural, because natural colors are recognized by the brain as being normal and therefore, are more easily remembered (Richman, 2006). For example, when discussing induction motivation in the military I incorporate images of recruiting posters used throughout the years. These are great for helping students to identify different types of induction motivation that are being promoted. However, black and white images can sometimes capture the moods of people better, so if dealing with the social sciences, sometimes I will select black and white images.

What learning objectives do your graphics serve in an online course?

The graphics I select are used to promote learning. I also use graphics to help students organize information. Tables, charts, and graphs help separate and organize information, and can be a form of concept mapping, tying in concepts.

What kind of graphical content do you use? Banners? Color-coding? Specific images? Special arrangementthat displays information in a certain way on the screen?

When incorporating images into the lectures (ppt slides) or in the website, I select images that again, tie into the topic being taught. I am careful to select images that correspond well with one another…that flow well. Otherwise, images that are not the same size, quality, etc. become distracting to viewers. I never allow images to run off the size of the page and when including an image that has direction (ex: a person’s eyes looking one way or another, their bodies positioned in one way or another, a car or animal moving in one direction or the other, etc) I never allow the image to pull the viewer’s focal point off of the screen. In other words, images with movement point into the text rather than off of the page. Since the majority of students I teach read English or other languages that read from left to right, the text and the images flow from left to right or top to bottom, rather than right to left (as would be preferred in Hebrew or another language that reads from right to left). The colors I select are also important. They are not distracting, complement each other well, and are easily read and viewed. No distracting neon colors, etc that would distract a learner from the content are used.

Numerous studies have identified links among culture, user preferences, and web site usability. There was a very interesting study conducted by Dong and Lee (2008) on the role of culture on cognitive processing and webpage design. People from collectivist cultures tend to be more holistic (or global) learners—looking at the whole picture rather than individual components. However, those from individualistic cultures (with the exception of those from collectivist subcultures such as Native American, Hawaiian Natives, and Alaska Natives) tend to be analytical or sequential learners, wanting to learn things in sequence rather than seeing the “big picture” first. These cognitive differences also influence the way we actually process visual information.

The eye movement of people from various cultures has been studied and results have shown that those from collectivist cultures (holistic learners) tend to have more eye movement over the entire image and have better recall of elements of information from all over the webpage. However, individuals from individualistic cultures who are more analytical learners, have more eye movement in the center of the webpage or image, and have less recall of information that was positioned on the outskirts or edges of the image or webpage. Similarly, Nesbitt and Masuda (2001) conducted a study that examined eye movement of American and Japanese students when shown a picture of an underwater scene “that included focal objects-three big fish-and background objects like rocks, seaweed and water bubbles” (Winerman, 2006, p. 64).

When researchers asked participants to describe the scenes, American participants were more likely to describe the fish in the center, whereas Japanese participants were tended to describe the entire scene. The Japanese participants were also able to describe more details about objects in the background and surrounding rather than simply those images in the center. In other words, whereas the American participants focused more on the objects in the center, the Japanese participants paid more attention to the context.

This is important information to consider if you are developing and presenting information to students or individuals from various cultures. For example, if you were developing an online course for students you knew were from collectivist cultures you may want to position your images differently than you would for learners from the United States or Western European cultures. Faeiola and Matei (2005) found that American and Chinese users exposed to websites created by both Chinese and American designers indicate that users perform information-seeking tasks faster when using web content created by designers from their own cultures.

Please describe your philosophy of using graphics in online courses.

My philosophy regarding the selection and inclusion of graphics in an online course is that graphics and images should are a great way of gaining the attention of learners and promoting learning. Text heavy websites that omit or only scarcely include images are often boring and lose the attention of learners. When selecting images to include in an online course or training program, the images should be high quality and in most cases, the use of color images is preferred (unless the subject is more artistic or perhaps historical, at which black and white images might be preferred). The images should be properly placed on the website so that the readers’ focal point is not drawn away from the webpage. Ideally, images should be small (thumbnail) and readers should be able to click on the image to blow it up if it is a part of the actual content. If the image is an introduction to the topic it may be larger to gain the interest of readers.

Can a good graphic go bad? Why, when, and how might that happen?

Absolutely. When a good image is used in an inappropriate manner, the graphic or image has lost its ability to teach and motivate. If an image does not correspond with the material it becomes a distractor, or if an image is placed incorrectly in the webpage it becomes distracting.

How do graphics "mediate" the e-learning space? In this case, "mediate," describes the way that graphics influence and even alter the way that learning takes place -- between learners, instructors, and the content itself.

As I mentioned earlier, graphics and images have the ability to gain and maintain a student’s attention, drawing them into the subject. A good image or graphic also helps explain the subject, or provides an example and sometimes tells a story by itself. We are visual creatures, and learn not only by reading, but by seeing, observing, and watching. When we learn we take mental pictures of what is happening at the time, so images and graphics can be used to promote learning and organize information. Some people are more visual than others, and the use of graphics, tables and charts can serve as forms of concept maps, linking concepts and information together in a visual way that is easier to recall. For example, in an online counseling course that teaches assessment and evaluation, students might be taught to develop genograms of clients. These genograms may help them to see things that they may not have otherwise noticed…family patterns of health issues, behavioral patterns, etc. in a visual “snapshot.”

Do you believe that the graphics that are used somehow influence how individual learners perceive the instructor? Do they attribute attributes of the graphics to you, your personality, your values?

Perhaps. However, not all instructors have say in the course development since adjuncts commonly teach courses that were developed by other professors. I think that more than anything, the personality of the instructor is revealed through interaction with the students in discussion boards, chats, feedback on papers and projects, video conferences, etc.

How does the interface (the website, course management software, e-mail, the computer screen presentation) affect how you present yourself? What are the elements in the interface that you have to compensate for? How do you compensate for them? Please describe one such experience.

Each university has its own approach to learning. Some offer hybrid courses where instructors can provide more information and interact with students more on a face to face level and the online component is used for further discussions, distribution of information, assessment, etc., whereas others offer online but no hybrid courses. In addition, each online course will differ based upon subject, the individual instructor, as well as the instructional philosophy of the institution. In addition, the actual course management system influences the learning experiences.

Some institutions may use Blackboard, Vista, WebCT, Desire2Learn, e-College, Moodle, etc. and others use a combination of a course management system with a stand alone website. In addition, each course management system has its own features and some institutions purchase only the most basic bundles that do not have all of the capabilities of more expensive ones. If an institution has only limited server space and has purchased the basic model of a course management system the instructor needs to find ways of compensating. Perhaps incorporating social media to conduct introductions, chats, and team activities. Others may need to include outside links to video clips, audio files, etc if server space is limited at their university.

How do you attempt to modify the interface? How do you make it more friendly? More learner-centered? Do you design the course to build in reinforcement of elements you want to emphasize? Please describe one such experience. Tell in detail how you did it.

It is important to keep in mind that depending upon the institution, the instructor may not have a lot of liberties when it comes to changing the webcourse. Sometimes the professors must teach “canned courses” that cannot be changed at all. In these cases, professors can make suggestions to outside links (perhaps videos, case studies, and documentaries all available online) that promote the learning of the particular topic. In addition, keeping good discussions going and interacting with students keeps the students motivated and involved.

When I develop an online course I always try to include various formats for learning. Not just text assignments or outside readings, but also watching documentaries available online, participation in collaborative work (team projects) that promote the sharing of information, lots of dialog in discussion boards, etc. Keep in mind that in an online environment the role of the instructor changes to that of a facilitator rather than simply a distributor of knowledge, especially when dealing with adult learners.

When developing courses for adult learners I always try to have students participate I teamwork and have course spanning projects that pull from their experiences so that the information they are learning in the class can be applied to realistic problem solving activities. Therefore, part of “modifying your interface” really is contingent upon knowing your learners…who they are, what their experiences are, what they want to learn from the class, how they will use the information, capabilities, access to equipment, etc.

References

Dong, Y. & Lee, K.P. (2008). A cross cultural comparative study of users’ perceptions of a webpage: With a focus on the cognitive styles of Chinese, Koreans and Americans. International Journal of Design, 2(2). http://www.ijdesign.org/ojs/index.php/IJDesign/article/view/267/163

Faiola, A., & Matei, S. A. (2005). Cultural cognitive style and web design: Beyond a behavioral inquiry into computer-mediated communication. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(1), article 18. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol11/issue1/faiola.html

Richman, K.J. (2006). Short term memory retention: how time and color play a role

Saint Martin’s University Biology Journal May 2006, 1 (51).

Winerman, L. (2006). The culture-cognition connection. The Monitor, 37 (2), p. 64.

Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) and E-Learning

Chances are, if you're teaching an online course, out of 20 students, two or three have been a victim of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) at least one time in their lives. Actually, that's a conservative estimate, given that 3 out of 10 women and 1 out of 10 men in the United States has been victim of rape, physical violence, and/or stalking (CDC, 2012), and that's not even getting into the issue of emotional abuse, which includes name-calling, intimidation, stalking, and refusal to let someone see family or friends. Accredited online colleges, online courses, programs, and degrees address women's issues, domestic violence, sociology, and psychology. It's easy to think of the problem as occurring in a nice, contained quarantine zone or petri dish. However, its effects are in and around the online world you live in and they may be causing students to underperform (miss deadlines, turn in poorer quality work than they are capable of, fail to interact effectively in collaborations and discussion areas), and to drop out of courses and programs.

According to the CDC's IPV factsheet, Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) is behavior that occurs between two people who are or who have been close. They can be married to each other, divorced, dating, or formerly dating. The violence can take four different forms (CDC, 2012):

Physical violence: a person tried to hurt a partner by using physical force (hitting, kicking, pushing, etc.)

Sexual violence: a person forces a partner into a sex act against one's consent

Threats: threats of physical or sexual violence made with words, gestures, weapons, or other means that communicate an intent to harm another

Emotional abuse: threats to harm a person, a person's possessions, or loved ones, and also harming the partner's sense of self-worth. This can include name-calling, intimidation, stalking, and forced isolation.

If you think that the kinds of violence in IPV have no way of occurring in the online course, you might be surprised.

For example, what about the case of a student whose intimate partner becomes enraged at the amount of time she spends studying, and harms her computer?

Or, what about the time lost from study due to emotional or physical trauma?

If the partner has to hide from a stalker or a violent partner, there may be disruptions to connectivity, not to mention the fact that the extreme emotions are very disruptive. It is not easy for a student to focus if he or she is experiencing emotional turmoil.

If one's teenage son or daughter is a victim of dating abuse, they are also likely to have affiliated problems which can include fighting, binge drinking, eating disorders, and even suicide attempts.

Further, there are measurable impacts on one's mental and physical health. For example, men and women who have been victims of rape, stalking, physical or emotional abuse by an intimate partner reported headaches, chronic pain, sleeping difficulties, anxiety, and depression. Women victims were likely to have asthma, irritable bowel symptom, diabetes, and other health problems. (CDC, The2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, 2011).

The CDC has developed a video explaining teenage dating abuse:

www.cdc.gov/CDCTV/BreakTheSilence/

(transcript: http://www.cdc.gov/CDCTV/BreakTheSilence/Transcripts/BreakTheSilence.pdf)

Perhaps one of the most tragic consequences of IPV is that it sets off a chain reaction of behaviors, all of which can be damaging to one's self-concept, self-esteem, and even physical wellbeing.

With an awareness of the pervasiveness of Intimate Partner Violence, what can you do if you're teaching / designing an online course?

How do you help your students succeed, knowing that they may have disruptions due
to abuse, trauma, or injury?

1. Make the online environment a safe one. Do not allow intimidation, threats, demeaning or belittling behavior of any kind.

2. Encourage research papers having to do with topics of interest and current problems. You can create a list of possibilities, and include IPV. (Clearly, this works with some
   courses, but not all.)

3. Put links to health and wellness sources, which can include the CDC sites that have information on IPV. Include hotlines as well. Encourage wellness in general, so it is also good to include links to nutrition sites such as the USDA's "My Plate" guidelines.

4. If students indicate in personal correspondence or posts to discussion boards that they are in an abusive situation, encourage them to research the situation and find a qualified person to speak to about the situation.

5. Provide a flexible, supportive environment that provides students a chance to contact you if they need more time on an assignment.

6. Realize that extreme stress can interfere with cognitive functioning, and provide more support for the writing process by asking for invention strategies, outlines, brainstorming, and multiple drafts so that students can take a building
   block (rather than having to generate everything at the last moment).

7. Provide practice tests and activities to help students build confidence.

8. Encourage goal-setting and provide a great deal of positive feedback and reinforcement.

The idea that one's most intimate and trusted partners can be the sources of nightmarish cruelty is very sad, and it's a shame that it exists at all.

However, it's a reality, and the only way to help people overcome it and heal their wounds is to open yourself and become aware of what is happening.

Once you have achieved a level of self-awareness, you can determine what is best for you as you
think of actions and activities in the e-learning space that will help your everyone achieve their best and brightest selves.

REFERENCES AND INFORMATION SOURCES

CDC, 2011, The 2010 National Intimate Partners and Sexual Violence
Survey. http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/pdf/NISVS_Report2010-a.pdf

CDC Facebook Page on Violence Prevention www.facebook.com/vetoviolence

National Domestic Violence Hotline 1-800-799-SAFE (7233), 1-800-787-3224 TTY, or www.ndvh.org

National Coalition Against Domestic Violence www.ncadv.org

National Sexual Violence Resource Center www.nsvrc.org

Family Violence Prevention Fund www.endabuse.org

Happy National Science Fiction Day -- and, 2012!

Today, January 2, is National Science Fiction Day. It occurs on January 2, the day Isaac Asimov reported as his birthday.

What will you do to celebrate Science Fiction Day?

2011 was a year in which science fiction and science "fact" (the scientifically observable world of phenomena replete with multiple working hypotheses) seemed to converge. So, I thought I'd take a moment to contemplate a few of the more thought-provoking convergence points.

Speed of light broken by neutrinos?

Responses to the report in September 2011 that it's possible that scientists at the CERN labs conducted experiments that allowed them to detect that subatomic particles (neutrinos, to be exact) travel faster than the speed of light as they pass through the earth.

What are the implications / ramifications? Scary and exciting -- for one, cause and effect could be potentially be reversed.

At the very least, causality is problematized and/or made much less important. For example, consider heaving a large rock into a pond. The splash happens -- ostensibly because the rock fell into the water.

If causality is problematized, it is not a given that the rock cause the splash. The reasons for the splash would/could be multiple.

Surveillance Society on Steroids

Cloud computing has given rise to concerns regarding the security of information, and also the ethical use of information collected in the course of daily commerce, transportation, and communication.

An example is the new network of 250,000 surveillance cameras in Wuhan, connect to cloud computing to help control crime. Google Earth, but up close, personal, and live. I wonder if anyone can tap into all these surveillance scenes.

The world's a big "Nanny-Cam." I wonder if it will lead people to falsify their thermal / image signatures... play games with facial recognition... who knows...

Tragic Uses of the Apocalyptic Narrative: The Cases of Libya and North Korea

When the local leader starts employing the apocalyptic narrative to voice his stance about "outsiders" and the "outside world," it rarely portends happy, rosy times, at least for the leader, who is girding himself up for doomsday and close encounters with horsemen and harlots.

The late North Korean leader (may he rest in peace) was definitely willing to go to extremes to protect his hermit kingdom...

The new leader (his son) seems to be continuing the narrative by calling for "human shields" to protect him. (or at least, that's what English-speaking readers are reading) .. Isn't it supposed to be the other way around? I'm thinking of Queen Elizabeth's speech to the troops at Tilbury... this truly beautiful. I had the good fortune to work with the manuscripts at the Huntington Library (San Marino, CA) in the 1990s, and was able to work with some of the works attributed to Queen Elizabeth, as well as Wilmot, Earl of Rochester.

Dictator Fashion: To Watch and Be Watched

The surveillance society and "Newspeak" of George Orwell's 1984 have been long been surpassed by technological capabilities and the flowering of collective fictive imaginations that create spectacles of tyranny in many of the world's despotic fiefdoms. Interestingly enough, several imploded or went up in flames in 2011.

Au revoir to some amazing fashion statements (and self-fashioning)...

Love the colors!

(makes me think of an Oklahoma Sooners home game :))

Here's a gallery of Moamar Gaddafi's outfits

(amazing)

Hydraulic Fracturing: Aquifers and Earthquakes

Journey to the Center of the Earth anyone? Jules Verne envisioned vast karst (underground caverns) capable of sustaining life (especially the monstrous kind) and, when disturbed, could convulse, rupture, and destroy the entire planet.

Many have looked at Verne's vision as an elaborate allegory that replicates a descent into the subconscious mind, and all the beasts and visions residing there.

Clearly hydraulic fracturing has become, in the collective consciousness, a narrative that suggests great destructive force -- one that seems to defy the laws of physics (conservation of energy, etc.). In the narrative found in most news reports, the process triggers earthquake swarms, with some earthquakes achieving surprising intensity (5.6 in Oklahoma).

Whether or not this narrative can be supported by facts is not yet determined. However, it's very difficult to fight a narrative, especially once it has embedded itself deep into the psyche of the people, and interweaves itself with beliefs, fears, and core values.

(all drawings by susan nash)

Interview with Breanne Hull, Educlone. Innovators in E-Learning Series

Finding new ways to engage students and create engaging e-learning experiences is a continual challenge. Welcome to an interview with Breanne Hull, Educlone. The Educlone learning platform features an interface designed for rapid development of distance learning (elearning /mlearning) which uses a drag-and-drop approach.

1. What is your name and relationship to elearning?
My name is Breanne Hull and I've worked as a public school teacher, an instructional designer in educational software, and as a training and eLearning consultant. I am currently the co-founder and CEO of Educlone.

2. What is Educlone?
Educlone is the eLearning platform that I wished I had as a teacher. Individual accounts for public school teachers are free, and it's a place where they can create their own online learning just by clicking and dragging boxes around. It's so simple that it's almost hard to explain. Our goal is to make is simple for teachers to create their own engaging, dynamic online learning.

3. How is Educlone different?
We thrive on simplicity. While some teachers are comfortable with the current eLearning interfaces that are out there, some are not. Unfortunately, this prevents many teachers from giving eLearning a try. Our interface doesn't look like it was built by a room full of engineers and computer programmers. It looks like it was built by teachers, for teachers, because, well, it was!

It's eLearning, made easy. We also avoid content development and just focus on making our platform easy and intuitive to use. So many educational software companies spend huge sums of money on content development. They make sure to meet every objective tied to every standard for every state and territory. A teacher ends up with this district-mandated pricey software that contains tons of superfluous content and, ultimately, wastes time instead of saving it. Educlone leaves the teaching in the hands of the teachers. They develop their own content with their own special flair, tied to their specific state and local objectives. Once the lesson is created and recorded in Educlone, students go through the lessons at their own computers, at their own pace. This leaves the teacher free to use class time to actually help the students who need it, with one-on-one attention, without having to stay after school or hold the other students back.

4. Where will Educlone be in five years? In 20 years? (E-Learning Queen realizes these seem to be rather crazy questions, but "the Queen" thinks we've problematized ourselves by thinking in short-term and medium-term solutions, and that we are stuck in this year's technology -- rather than thinking in broad-brush principles…)

Educlone will be wherever teachers and trainers want it to be. What we have created is an organic, living, breathing ecosystem that responds to the needs of its users. If a feature is requested, then we add it. Otherwise, we leave things just as they are and avoid over-complication. I want teachers to feel like this is their technology. No more having things handed down from administration that they are forced to use. If they want it to be complex with more features, than it will be. If they want to share lessons with other teachers across the miles, then it will be done. If they want students to create lessons and learning experiences for each other, then we'll throw that in. Otherwise, we'll leave it as it is - clean and simple. I want Educlone to feel like a comfy living room that educators can really spend some time in, creating valuable learning experiences.

strong>5. How are you transcending the tendency of today's LMS's to create an education garden rather than a factory?

I'm not sure who it was, but someone at some point decided that putting a book on screen is online learning. I've taken online courses, recently, that were like, "Read this paragraph. Ok, now read this paragraph and see the attached stock photo. Now click the 'next page' button to read the next paragraph." Seriously???

Technically, since reading a book is a form of learning, then putting some form of that book online could be considered "online learning." But come on, people. If I can tap one button on my little phone and see, oh, I don't know… an immediate live feed of Times Square, then surely we can leverage technology in education to do more than throw text up onto a screen! In that same vein, software that helps teachers to automate tasks related to school and classroom management are great - but is that really managing learning? I'm not even sure that Educlone should be considered an LMS. We're not trying to create an online school, and we're not aiming to automate administrative tasks like taking attendance. Like a garden, Educlone offers itself up as an open space to create and grow ideas. We focus on allowing teachers (and their students!) to create really interactive and engaging learning experiences. We also focus on giving teachers really clear and immediate feedback on how students are doing throughout the lesson.

6. List your top 5 books …

That's a tough question! I'll just list the three that I'm currently most interested in. Those are Drive by Daniel Pink, The Habit of Thought by Michael Strong, Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson

Tune-Up Time? Updating Your Elearning / Mlearning Programs / Courses

Accreditation visits, self-studies, competition, and the changing world (and technology) make it necessary to update your online courses every 2 or 3 years, at the very minimum. In some cases, you’ll need to tune them up every year, depending on the kinds of changes in the course content, the academic field, your accrediting bodies, or the legal environment.

When do you update? How extreme does the updating have to be? Do you have to start over, completely rebuild from ground zero, or are there ways to update efficiently, economically, and relatively painlessly.

Updating your courses, and doing a tune-up can be fun, especially if you have a bit of guidance. Not only will you enjoy the process, you’ll be delighted when you find you can do it quickly and cost-effectively.

We’ll look at how to know when, where, and why to update. Later, we’ll go into details about how to economically update your courses and programs.

Instructional Materials // Content Changes: When did you last update the course? Was it 2 or 3 years ago? Chances are, many things have changed. Articles have become obsolete, science has advanced, and political changes have altered the landscape. Even if your content is impervious to change, it’s possible that the links you’ve incorporated have changed. Even if you’ve subscribed to a service (rather than linking to websites), they have a way of updating and reorganizing their repositories.

Changing Course Objectives: It is possible that the course itself has changed. The objectives may have changed, and its role in the degree or certificate plan may have changed. While the changes may seem subtle and relatively minor, if you don’t update the course, there will be a big disconnect between your course and the real-life needs and objectives.

Institutional Changes: Has your institution obtained new accreditation? Have structural changes occurred? Are you experiencing a transition? It’s hard to find an institution of higher learning – profit or not-for-profit // private or public – that has not gone through amazing sea-changes, especially in the last few years, when there has been significant pressure to demonstrate that the educational program that students invest in (and become indebted through),

Technology Changes: Are your courses smartphone and tablet-friendly? Are they downloadable and portable for people who do not have 100% cloud connectivity? We made assumptions about access, bandwidth, and browsers / plugins / systems when we originally developed the courses, and sometimes those assumptions turned out to be massively wrong. What now? What do we do to turn things around when we have no budget for it? There are ways.. don’t despair. Unfortunately, this is not the article that discusses the shoestring solutions. But, it is the article that lets you know that shoestring solutions exist. They are there. Just reach out and ask for guidance. It will be there.

Student Base Changes: You may find that your student base has changed, and you’re in a situation where your courses seem a bit out of alignment. For example, you may have designed courses for students deployed to Iraq. Now, however, most of your students working at hospitals and clinics in the U.S. As a result, some of the course content seems strangely out of synch. What should you do? Obviously, you have no choice. You need to update the course.

Legal and Regulatory Environment Changes: Many courses exist because they help working professionals stay up-to-date with regulatory changes. This is an ever-shifting target, and the content is in flux. You have to bite the bullet and update whenever there are substantive changes, even if it’s twice a year. Bite the bullet. If you do so, you’ll gain market share because your program will be head and shoulders above the laggard competition.

Financial Condition Changes: Has the financial condition of your educational institution changed? Are you suddenly in financial dire straits? This may mean that it’s time to update your courses so that they cost less to run. Is that possible? Yes. Spend money to save money. It’s counter-intuitive, but it works.

There are a number of reasons why it is a good idea to continually update your online courses. Doing the updating on a regular basis will allow you to avoid catastrophic delays and expenses.

If you’d like assistance, E-Learning Queen has assembled a knowledgeable, experienced team, The Queen Team. Please inquire for more details. Email: susan@elearningqueen.com

Interactive Grammar Exercises: Better and More Useful than Ever

Some think that grammar reviews are only useful when taking a developmental writing, or the required set of first-year composition courses. In reality, grammar and syntax reviews are valuable across the board, and all college and university students can benefit from ongoing writing reinforcement. So,whether you are writing a term paper about hospice care, or an analysis of the current economic situation, the proper care of dogs, or any other topic, understanding the basics of grammar will help you.

I highly recommend supplementing peer reviews and personal guidance with interactive exercises. Many interactive grammar reviews are available online without registering, and they are free of charge. You can practice grammar using your laptop, tablet, and handheld.

Link: http://youtu.be/kTnxMD9pFx4

Further, many of the grammar reviews have downloadable apps so they display nicely and work smoothly with your smartphone or tablet. If you are currently enrolled in a course, chances are your textbook will come bundled with an e-lab (MyCompLab or My Writing Lab, just to name a few). These are also excellent guides.

If English is your second language, you may wish to pay special attention to sections such as "countable and non-countable nouns" and "easily confused words."

click for video

Here are a few good, easy-to-access, easy-to-use interactive grammar exercises:

Grammar Bytes -- http://www.chompchomp.com (by Robin L. Simmons)

Skillswise (from the BBC) -- http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/topic-group/writing

Interactive Quizzes (Capital Community College Foundation)

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/quiz_list.htm

Business English Grammar Exercises (actually applicable to all occasions)

http://www.better-english.com/grammar.htm

Enjoy!

(E-Learning Queen http://www.elearningqueen.com // Susan Smith Nash, Ph.D.)

Visit E-Learning Queen's Youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/elearningqueen

More elearning videos at http://www.youtube.com/beyondutopia