Thanks for giving me a good reason to take another look at Facebook as a viable option.

I write for ASSETT, a program with the university of colorado at boulder that aims to help teachers and students use technology to assist in teaching and learning. If you all are ever looking for new ideas on technology tools, check out our website at http://assett.colorado.edu.

Thanks again,
Kate

Typically, over the course of a semester in a course of 70 students, there are 700-800 postings.

Both positive and negative. Most students do not approach the course with an open mind (it’s orgo, orgo is hard, it’s the pre-med killer, etc.), and most have never taken an online class before, so they don’t start the semester very optimistic. However, by the end of the semester, most of the students have turned around.

Did students/administrators initially seem open to the idea?

Admin LOVES it. It’s cheaper, and requires hiring fewer TAs as graders, because the tests are fully online and graded with a click of a button- after many a Saturday wasted grading paper exams, I literally swooned the first time I saw all 700 tests graded with a push of a button. Students’ initial opinions range from ambivalent to hostile. But (and this is putting it nicely) students’ opinions are a dime a dozen.

When given the choice, do students actively choose the virtual classroom over the traditional classroom?

It’s too early to tell. We do know that most students leave the course with a more positive attitude toward online courses.

And if you have firsthand experience with it, what are some of the things you liked about the specific web 2.0 platforms used? Would you have used different ones or used them differently?
The big online tool we use is ACE Organic, developed by Bob Grossman at UK. It’s a fully online organic chemistry problem set, which allows students to draw molecules, reaction mechanisms, and the like using MarvinSketch. It provides feedback for the student if the student gets a problem wrong- for example, if you try to do an Sn2 reaction on a tertiary carbon, it will provide relevant feedback, such as “Sn2 reactions on tertiary carbons are extremely slow. Recall that carbocations increase in stability with increasing substitution.” ACE organic alone has been worth the effort of the redesigned class.

While there is a fee for students to use ACE Organic, we have gotten rid of a textbook for the course. The fee for ACE is about $20/student or so, and the price of the course notes is about the same. In that way, we’ve rid ourselves of the stranglehold of textbook organization, which ranges anywhere from random to atrocious. Textbooks are a racket.

Anywho, for discussion sessions we use Elluminate Live, which has whiteboard, video conferencing, and desktop control features. Unfortunately, it’s also buggy and the server tends to overload a lot. Discussion boards are handled on the school’s discussion board servers.

Shoot me an email if you want more info on what we’ve been doing. =)

http://www.educause.edu/Resources/Browse/ELI7ThingsYouShouldKnow/33438

How has the overall response been? Did students/administrators initially seem open to the idea? When given the choice, do students actively choose the virtual classroom over the traditional classroom? And if you have firsthand experience with it, what are some of the things you liked about the specific web 2.0 platforms used? Would you have used different ones or used them differently?