Something new you would like to try

About what I would like to do next I would like to try the tools that I did not use in this course but that were shown to us such as audacity, Jing, Prezi, pollev, etc. All these are tools could be used for our online classes but sometimes there are so many times that it is difficult to keep the rhythm.

Honestly, at the beginning I was really reluctant to use Voki, it looked creepy for me. But then I gave it a chance and I created a voki (even though I did not create one for this course) which I have not used yet, but I think it could have a valid use on my online course, perhaps providing instructions to the students through the avatar (voice) instead of only text (syllabus) could be useful. In fact, I would like to try secondlife for my course. By the way, have any of you used it before? What do you think about it?

Thanks

Assessment or survey tool

Survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FYT3BYR

I could use this tool to create quizzes about topics studied on class. Nevertheless, for this purpose I used another tool incorporated on blackboard.

Another use for this tool is for creating an instructor evaluation survey that can be given to the students at the end of the semester. Again, I am using another similar tool provided by my institution because this tool is free and provides the same basic features as surveymonkey.

Content you've produced by your own

Content: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBAuObgRgrk&feature=youtu.be

The video shows a couple of tools that my e-commerce students can use to know what the clients/users of an e-commerce site are doing. These tools offer a set of feature to monitor the clients’ behavior on a site. The video was helpful to show the students the potential of those tools from the perspective of an e-commerce site owner. The advantage of this video is that face-to-face students as online students can watch it at their own pace.

The creation of the video took some time to figure out how the technology worked, but after that, it was like a regular synchronous class. 

Example of ready-made content

Podcats: http://ecommerceboy.net/2013/05/mobile-commerce-accounts-for-11-percent-of-u-s-online-sales-in-q1/

Podcast is an excellent tool that I can use to provide examples or to support a claim about specific topics studied in class. Given its size (file size, no bandwidth issues) podcasts are usable many time during a class, easy to download and to play. Even though my classes this semester are about databases and e-commerce, I could let my students use podcasts to answer their assignments. I wonder how many of them will use it or they would prefer the text only version.  

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uO80f642LCY&list=PL7C46A328323298E1

The video is about normalization and I used it in my database course. In addition to explaining the steps of normalization, I also show them this video as an additional example.

Tool for Synchronous communication

Tool: Collaborate

For this assignment I participated on the Collaborate session, but due to licensing restrictions, my institution from this semester on is using Microsoft Lyn; both tools allow synchronous communication. I am using Lync twice a week for my two online courses. Lync as Collaborate allow bi-directional communication via audio, audio/video, and text only (IM) between the instructor and the students and also between the students. It also let me record a session and post it later so students who could not attend the “live” session will be able to watch at their convenience.

Tool for asynchronous communication

I used option A (regular text message). It is a fast way to communicate with your students but I will not use it because I do not want to share my cellphone number with my students. In cases where you need to communicate with your students in a faster pace, use twitter. 

Social networking/media

Link: https://twitter.com/jhcanelon

I am not sure yet to what extent I could use twitter to meet and instructional need, nevertheless, I have used it to send my students links to news related to the topics covered in class. Also, I have used this tool to communicate with my students, sending them reminders about due dates and answering common questions. However, I have to use an “official” mechanism to communicate with my students (CMS-Blackboard) so I have to send the same information twice.