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Meeting was called to
order at 5:05 PM.
Attendees introduced
themselves and stated their involvement, if any, with online courses.
No one offered changes to December minutes.
Delaware Instructional Technology Conference
- Dates are set for
April 2-3, 2001
- New this year will
be the Cyber Cafe - provided by Apple and Tech Connections. It
will offer 20 minute mini-sessions rather than full concurrent
sessions.
- Presenters are still
needed.
ITUG Presence at conference
- Susan Cornett has
agreed to organize this effort; she will use the listserv to solicit
member involvement
- Volunteers will be
needed to man the table whjch will probably be in the Cyber Cafe
- An information sheet
will be handed out; Judy Haller had volunteered to create this
sheet
- A calendar of meeting
dates and topics should be made available
- Possibly offer online
registration
- Try and think of a
giveaway that is not just paper.
Marco Polo
- The state has entered
into an agreement with Marco Polo. They offer six websites that
have educational content linked to national standards. The state
agreement is used to coordinate the extensive, and free, training
that the organization offers.
- Training will be offered
through districts (usually the larger ones) and regionally through
DCET. Current DCET dates, pending confirmation from Marco Polo
are 4/3 (during the conference) and 4/11.
- You are free to access
the Marco Polo website to start making use of their resources.
They are free and no logon or prior training is required.
Future Meeting Plans
- Based on member voting,
the June meeting will be cancelled. The poll can be viewed on
Egroups.
- Members were asked
to vote online about having the second Annual ITUG picnic in July
or August. Only six members voted, so it was decided to ask members
present to vote. The attendee vote reflected the member vote.
The picnic will be held on August 15th and families will be welcome.
- It was suggested that
a local park might offer more activities than the DCET office
lawn. Bethel Crockett will investigate using Killens Pond or Abbott's
Mill Pond and whether fees or registrations will be required.
Evening Topic: Online
Courses - Are they for you?
Online courses were discussed.
Present were three people who participated in the online course
pilot sponsored by DCET, and provided a firsthand experience with
taking courses, Pat Sine from the University of Delaware who has
taught online courese, and Richard Sparke from Classroom Connect,
whose company offers online courses. The discussion covered multiple
aspects of these courses:
- Participants - Those
present enjoyed the format and the flexibility of this course
medium. They agreed that this is not for everyone and that participants
should be self motivated and not need deadlines. They learned
a great deal; Carol Modesto has taken four courses and has asked
to have her logon extended past the pilot deadline. A dicussion
of the online forum (threaded discussion) was held. Some enjoyed
the content and ability to converse; others were frustrated by
the volume of mail that needed to be read and learned ways to
selectively read what was posted.
- Teaching - Pat Sine
discussed some of the aspects of teaching a course online. Pat
said that maintaining a balance between teacher/student interaction
and student/student interaction was difficult because as the instructor
you want the students to form a community and start to help each
other. She audited the DCET pilot and noticed that one instructor
felt obligated to answer every comment made on the forum which
lead to extensive, often unnecessary reading. She also appreciated
the forum format because if an instructor starts emailing directly
to each student, he/she could find themselves dealing repeatedly
with the same question, where as the forum allows all students
to read the instructor's comments.
- Payment - currently
most companies that market online courses do so on a per-course,
or subscription basis. A discussion ensued as to why the latter
type of payment is a problem for districts in Delaware (ostensibly
they are buying resources that might never be used). Classroom
Connect offers courses for college credit through Pepperdine University
and CEU's based on the state the teacher works for.
- Delaware Inservice
Credit/90 hours of Professional Development - Delaware currently
has legislation that will require teachers to have 90 hours of
professional development over 5 years. We discussed how online
courses could potentially assist teachers in meeting this requirement,
but since the state hasn't determined all the specific details
on the 90 hours, most of the discussion was speculation.
Next meeting will be
held on Monday, February 12, 2001.
Meeting adjourned at 7:05
PM.
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