this is a presentation on a course I taught on-line called Effective Communications

1. Applied Project
eTeaching Certificate Program
February 2010

2.  Background
 Course Proposal
 Context
 content
 Goals
▪ Technical
▪ Social
▪ organizational
 What Worked
 What Didn’t Work
 Comments

3.  Target Group
 English as a Second Language ‐ Internationally
Trained Professionals
 Advanced English Level
 Engineers and Technologists
 Variety of ethnicities
 Up to 10 students

4.  Context
 Offered to students attending Communication for
Engineers and Technologists (CET) at Vancouver
Community College
 CET on hiatus during Olympic period‐no f2f
contact during on‐line course
 Course ran for 12 days
 Met students to present course and get recruits
 8 students enrolled

5.  Content
▪ Communications focus in a professional setting –
listening and speaking
▪ More on listening than speaking
▪ Listening strategies
▪ Listening practice

6.  Technical
 to post in a discussion forum, reply, or edit a post
 to add an image, emoticons, a link
 to upload a written document
 to upload an audio file (MP3)
 to add an entry in a class glossary (Vocabulary
Sharing)
 to use Voice Thread (to create a voice message, to
“Tell me About Yourself”)
 to participate in ‘Elluminate’ on‐line sessions
 to complete a variety of quizzes (multiple choice,
matching, True/False)

7.  Organizational
 Content presented on a daily basis – not all at once
 Students managed their time to complete a variety of tasks:
▪ complete short listening items and quizzes
▪ create written and spoken instructions to teach others
▪ create a voice message
▪ share listening resources
▪ share new or discovered vocabulary (minimum of 9 entries per student)
▪ evaluate a voice message and a classmate’s oral response
▪ complete a vocabulary quiz based on Vocabulary Sharing
▪ create a minimum of 24 ‘quality’ posts or interactions (each post must
respond to established criteria)

8.  Social
 Asynchronous communication with the instructor
on a daily basis
 Asynchronous communication with other
participants on a daily basis
 synchronously in Elluminate
 Communicate for a variety of reasons ‐ to teach
others, ask questions, comment, respond to
feedback, share vocabulary, state opinions

9.  Few technical problems
 Students easily navigated the course
 Instructions were clear
 Students enjoyed communicating on‐line
 Communicated with instructor and with each other
 Communicated to ask questions, share, give feedback, state opinions
and to problem solve
 Student generated material
 Shared resources
 Shared images
 Created an activity not planned by the instructor (Song Sharing)
 Vocabulary sharing

10.  Elluminate Sessions added cohesiveness to course
 Posts
 Generally thoughtful ‘quality’ posts
 Vocabulary Sharing
 Fun – useful phrases shared “pain in the ass”
 Students reflected on listening strategies through
 Random listening glossary
 Quizzes
 Videos and feedback on videos
 Feedback from instructor
 Feedback
 Instructor able to give effective written and oral feedback to students about
their speaking/pronunciation

11.  Participation
 a student dropped out at start (work
commitments)
 Another disappeared half way through
 One only participated in the Elluminate sessions
 Posts
 Some students participated more than others
 Some students directed their posts more to the
instructor than to each other
 Only a few managed to post 2x/day

12.  Voicethread
 Took a lot of time for instructor to learn and adapt
to course
 Few students did this activity
 Vocabulary Sharing
 Not all students consistently contributed to
Vocabulary sharing

13.  Assessment
 Students not formally assessed by instructor
 No ‘marks’ given except for quiz results and
anecdotal feedback
 Lack of formal assessment may have affected
participation
 Workload
 Most students reported they spent 2 hours a day
in the course

14.  Instructor Response
 planning the course more stressful than running
and moderating the course
 Sense of wonder when students started
participating in planned activities (It’s working!!)
 Felt like there was more participation from
students on‐line than in the classroom
 Wonder how it would be to manage same course
with 20 students as we do with f2f.