• Friendly tone to my writing style.
• Technology skills
• Content knowledge
• Experience as an online STUDENT
• Self-discipline
• Desire to improve as an online facilitator

Discussion boards

• Better prompts

• Awareness of people being left out or ideas not being acknowledged

• Ensuring involvement from all students

Move courses from content presentation and recitation to communities of practice

Discussion Boards

• Prompts: Go through each prompt to determine if it encourages discussion

• Acknowledgement: Be sure all students have a response to their initial post (especially in the introductory discussion.) If not, take their ideas and try to elicit further discussion among the other members of the class.

• Involvement: Ensure students feel safe; use more small groups; change rules to include a due date for the initial post and requirements for how many DAYS students must reply to others; increase opportunities to create shared goals. (To measure goals, I will compare the number of posts per student from last semester to this semester as well as compare the depth of the discussion)

Communities of Practice: Delete activities that are busy work; (TBD) Focus grade on discussion boards and not assignments and assessments; possibly incorporate the portfolio idea so all assignments are “works in progress;” increase student to student feedback, small group activities, and discussions 

·         Classmates from this class

·         Instructors from this class (Is this ok with you guys?)

o   Kay Lehmann lehmannk@uwstout.edu

o   Lisa Chamberlin chamberlinli@uwstout.edu

·         Copied responses from my peers for Module 3 Scenarios

·         Textbooks in my personal library

o   How to Be a Great Online Teacher

o   Building Learning Communities in Cyberspace

o   The Virtual Student

o   Facilitating Online Learning

o   Engaging the Online Learner

o   Collaborating Online

·         People in the Distance Learning Department at Western Technical College

      Neil Ihde IhdeN@westerntc.edu

      Kerry Hogan HoganK@westerntc.edu

.     URLs

      Questioning Strategies - http://www.fno.org/nov97/toolkit.html