Explorers-Online Learning Community serves faculty who have less extensive or no experience with online teaching, but are interested in investigating different types of online courses (fully online, hybrid, web-facilitated), viewing models of such courses, and learning about the standard instructional technologies provided by the university (such as Blackboard, Collaborate, iTunesU).

Below is a list of past meeting topics. Click on a topic to view the recording:

• October 19, 2012: Waypoint Assessments [1]
  Bret Smith (Music and Assessment Coordinator) introduced Waypoint Assessments for creating interactive rubrics linked to learning outcomes, with digital markup tools, and comment libraries.
• May 25, 2012: Connectivity as Collaboration [2]
  Provost Marilyn Levine shared her vision of "Connectivity as Collaboration" through new learning technologies.
• April 6, 2012: Learning Modules [3]
  Cheri Johnson (Sociology) compared the use of Learning Modules vs. Content Folders in Blackboard to organize an online course.
• February 17, 2012: Jing Audio Feedback [4]
  Lori Braunstein (ITAM) and Fen Wang (ITAM) presented on the use of Jing screencast software to provide audio feedback on student work in order to improve assessment in online courses.
• January 20, 2012: Academic Dishonesty in Online Courses [5] 
  Presentersdiscussed how to address academic dishonesty in online courses through online testing options, LockDown Browser, plagiarism-detection tools and tutorials, and writing draft/revision process.
• November 18, 2011: Was Elluminate Now Collaborate [6]
  Delayna Breckon presented on the use of Collaborate for real-time web meetings, synchronous online classes, virtual office hours, collaborative team projects, and presentations by students and outside experts.
• October 14, 2011: Blackboard 9.1 New Features [7]
  Faculty who developed pilot courses in the new system showed how Blackboard 9.1 offers new tools for organization, interaction, and integration of media into your courses.
• May 13, 2011: Team-Building in Online Courses
  Faculty viewed a webinar from the Blackboard Innovative Teaching Series on  online team-building and group work and then discussed strategies for implementing collaborative work in online courses.
• April 22, 2011: Discussion Board Part II [8]
  Cheri Johnson (Sociology) presented on practical applications for effectively using the online Discussion Board. You may also wish to view her discussion board guidelines and rubrics [9].
• February 25, 2011: Online Assessment [10]
  NaomiJeffrey Peterson (Educational Foundations and Curriculum) presented on classroom-level online assessment, including strategies and best practices, assessment literacy, and online assessment..
• January 21, 2011: Discussion Board Part I [11]
  Cheri Johnson (Sociology) presented a case for using the Discussion Board to engage learners in online courses through public and anonymous forums. You may also wish to view her Training Notes [12] as a supplement to her presentation.
• November 19, 2010: Online Course Types and Models [13]
  Jane Chinn presented an overview of the different types of online courses (fully online, hybrid, web-facilitated) and Chris Schedler (English) presented one model of a fully online course.