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Faculty
Feature
Dr. Jack Karns
Department
of Finance
College of
Business karnsj@ecu.edu
I came to
ECU in 1986 after teaching five years at a Midwestern
University. My first
experience with web teaching occurred in 2000 when my
Department Chair convinced me to take up the task of
developing the required
College of
Business law
course (FINA 2244) into an on-line offering. We started with
just one section and a limited enrollment, but there was
a clear understanding that all
College of
Business web-based
courses must have student enrollments comparable to
face-to-face sections. We met that goal
by the Fall 2002 semester. There is no
question that my web teaching experience has been
impacted dramatically by these large class
enrollments.
Areas
of Specialization:
Tax
Law; Health Law and Policy; Deferred Compensation and
Pensions Law; and Equitable Splitting of Market
Investments in Divorce Cases.
Courses
Currently Teaching: FINA 2244, COHE 6300, FINA 3244 and
Legal Aspects of Nonprofits.
Using
Technology to Teach in DE Courses:
During the
2005-06 academic year I participated in the “Social
Presence” project sponsored by Academic Outreach. This program was
instrumental in sharpening my understanding of the need
to insure that an instructor’s presence is projected
through the web to enhance the on-line learning
experience.
Communication is generally accepted as 10-15%
subject or content area, another 10-15% based on the
actual words that are communicated, with the remainder
consisting of the tenor and tone of the actual voice
that is transmitting the communication. In the on-line
environment this latter, critical 70% of communication
is often subsumed in e-mails, chat room dialogue,
discussion board postings and responses, or other
interaction that is non-verbal in nature. Accordingly, it
is the student’s interpretation of this written word
that is substituted for the usual first-hand reception
of spoken communication.
As
a result, it is the on-line instructor’s command of the
“social presence” component of projecting communication
to the student that plays the primary, material role in
determining just how successful he or she will be in
making the student feel as though the teacher is talking
to them every time an e-mail is read or chat session
experienced.
This is the essence of “social presence” in the
web classroom, and my involvement in the Academic
Outreach program made me better at accomplishing it
because the instruction made me more aware of exactly
what “social presence” is. My e-mails and
other communications have become less cryptic and more
personal, and they are started with a salutation rather
than a head-long dive into the message content. As students
sense this difference in communication style they will
open up more both as to their course work needs and
problems, as well as any personal experiences that may
be adversely affecting their performance. This is an
invitation to the instructor to acknowledge the exchange
of messages as real “conversation” rather than a mere
exchange of information. It also allows
the instructor to more accurately personalize the
messages and the overall tone of the course by drawing
students into this social presence discourse. And the beauty
of the total experience is that it soon starts to occur
throughout the course without anyone really becoming
aware that anything has changed. “Social
presence” naturally and effortlessly becomes an integral
part of the on-line course
fabric.
Jack's
Technology Tip:
Always send
yourself an information or courtesy copy of every e-mail
and develop a strong habit of carefully archiving these
messages along with conducting a daily back-up and virus
scan. It is
simply good practice to develop these protocols, as I
can attest to a number of student disputes that were
quickly put to rest with access to these archived
e-mails.
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Centra
Online Courses Create a
Community~
Use Centra
for:
- Office
Hours
- Meetings
- Individualized
Group Sessions
- Feedback
to a Group of Students or One-on-One
- Present
Student Projects/Presentations
- Hold
Classes with Flexible Hours- Meet the Needs of Your
Students
Centra
is a user friendly distance learning program for use by
ECU faculty and students for online/hybrid
learning. It has audio, video, file sharing and
collaboration capabilities.
The Centra
staff in Academic Outreach will set up the classes, hold
training sessions (online or face-to-face), enter your
first sessions for assistance, and support you
throughout the entire process. Join the ECU Centra
family of current Centra users! For those that
used Centra in the past, we are ready to schedule your
fall sessions. Please go to: http://ecu.centra.com
and click on Resources for the online form request
or contact Sharon Collins (collinss@ecu.edu)
or John Southworth (southworthj@ecu.edu)
to find out more about Centra to schedule your
classes.
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Course
Management System
At Academic Outreach,
one of our major commitments is to provide a feature
rich and user-friendly course management system (CMS)
to support teaching and learning for both on-campus
and distance education students at ECU. The
objective of
this CMS Platform project is to conduct a formal
analysis of three different CMS platforms: Blackboard,
Moodle, and
Sakai. In order to have
a complete CMS evaluation, we have asked for input from
faculty, staff, Instructional Technologists, ITCS, and
students.
Currently we have classes underway in all three
learning platforms and this will continue into the
Spring 2008 semester. We will keep you
informed as the project
progresses.
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Artificial
Intelligence-Based Training Program
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A
new smart product
using artificial intelligence to provide induction
training for public school teachers was developed by the
Academic Outreach/Technology Advancement
Center (TAC), College of Education/Department of
Business and Information Technologies Education, and the
Division of Continuing Studies. The TAC was
contacted by the NC Department of Public Instruction,
Division of Career and Technical Education, and
asked to prepare this product. This Online Assessment
Training System uses Artificial Intelligence
software to determine what is known and what is unknown
from initial assessment questions. Then a
prescription for learning is generated that distributes
only the content that is not known to the learner.
Two smart mini-courses, Classroom Management
and Vocational
Competency Achievement Tracking System, were
completed during the summer. A third course
on Instructional
Methods is now underway. Teachers will soon be
registering for these modules through the Division of
Continuing Studies. For more
information contact:alejandroj@ecu.edu.
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DE
Day ~
ECU Pirates from a
Distance
Academic
Outreach and the Division of Continuing Studies at ECU
are sponsoring the 2nd Annual DE Day
for Distance Education students on Saturday, October 27, 2007.
The ECU Pirates will celebrate Homecoming as we
take on the Blazers of UAB in a 3:30pm game. ECU is
celebrating its Centennial year, so now is the time to
come to Greenville
, visit the ECU
campus and show your Purple and
Gold Pride!
DE Students will be offered special pricing to purchase
tickets and will be recognized as a group during game
time. Catch the "Pirate Spirit" and come out and join
us.
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October 2007
In
This Issue |
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1. Faculty
Feature
2.
Centra
3.
Course Management
4.
AI-Based Online Training
5. Out and About
6. Think-In 2007
7. Academic Integrity
8. DE Orientation Website
9. Blackboard
10.
Technology Advancement
Center
11. Moodle &
Sakai
12. DE-Day
13. D-ECU News
Out & About
The first Academic Outreach Out and About was a
tremendous success! Out and
About sessions were scheduled from September
10-21, 2007. AO staff
scheduled more than 100 one-on-one personalized
training sessions for the following topics:
Blackboard, Camtasia, Centra, Moodle, Open
Journal System, Social Presence and
Sakai. We have
found this is the best way to learn how to use
our new tools and ask any questions you might
have.
Thank you to all of the faculty that
signed up and participated. Watch
your email for Academic Outreach Out and About
announcements for the Spring 2008
semester.http://www.ecu.edu/cs-acad/academicoutreach/outabout.cfm
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ECU Think-In 2007:
A Teaching with Technology Showcase
The Third Annual Think-In will be held at the Mendenhall
Student Center at East Carolina University on
November 13th, 2007 from 10:00am-2:00pm. This
event will showcase faculty and how they utilize
technology to educate students in the classroom
– in both face-to-face and distance education
courses. Presentations will be made via “laptop”
poster sessions and will include course
demonstrations. For
more information please
visit the "Think-In 2007" website.
http://www.ecu.edu/cs-acad/academicoutreach/thinkin2007.cfm
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Academic Integrity for
DE
Courses
Distance Education courses, whether they
are fully online or blended, pose new challenges
in the area of Academic
Integrity. Presenting students with guidelines or discussions concerning
integrity early in each course will go a long
way in securing decisions which will help
develop ethical behavior and improve Academic
Integrity. An Academic Integrity web site
for Distance Education is now
available
at http://www.ecu.edu/cs-acad/
academicoutreach/Integrity/.
This website contains information
and strategies that will
help foster Academic Integrity within online and
blended courses.
Please direct questions or
comments to Ginny
Sconiers at sconiersg@ecu.edu
or
Sherion Jackson at jacksonsh@ecu.edu.
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Distance Education Orientation
Website
The DE Orientation will take you
step-by-step through the process of how to get
started taking classes online. As you work
through the orientation, you will discover
answers to questions you may have such as:
What is distance education? Who is my
advisor, and how do I contact him/her? How do I
access course material? How do I get an email
account and DE
student card?
http://author.ecu.edu/cs-acad/DEOrientation/index.cfm
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Technology
Advancement Center
The TAC (www.tac.ecu.edu) designs and
implements new products, solutions and
applications for distance, mobile, and hybrid
eLearning.
Our alliance partners represent
corporations, universities, public schools, the
military and professional organizations. To
discuss collaboration, moving your innovative
idea into action, contact:
http://www.ecu.edu/cs-acad/tac/
collaborate.cfm
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Moodle
@ECU
The Course Management
System called Moodle is available for your use. You do not have to be part of
our Course Management System study to schedule a
class on Moodle. If you would like to try it out
contact Sharon Collins at collinss@ecu.edu.
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Sakai
The Sakai Course Management System is
available for you to use if you want to give it
a try during
the Fall 2007 semester or maybe you are
already planning for Spring 2008. You do
not have to be part of our Course Management
System study to host a class in
Sakai. If
you would like to try it out, please contact
Ginny Sconiers at sconiersg@ecu.edu.
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