{"id":6077,"date":"2004-04-28T22:11:24","date_gmt":"2004-04-28T22:11:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2004\/04\/28\/irreducible-bit\/"},"modified":"2004-04-28T22:11:24","modified_gmt":"2004-04-28T22:11:24","slug":"irreducible-bit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2004\/04\/28\/irreducible-bit\/","title":{"rendered":"Irreducible Bits"},"content":{"rendered":"\u23f3 Approximate reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> mins<\/span><\/span>

With a new CMS provider officially in place, the U. is open throttle prepping online instructors to teach in the eCollege platform.
\nI helped critique the instructor training course over the weekend; the
\nself-paced course was released yesterday. Estimated time of completion: 1-3
\nhours.  Current instructors must pass the summative assessment at the end
\nof the course with an 80% score.  I don’t have immediate plans to teach in
\nthe eCollege system, although I might pick up one course this summer before the move to NY in mid-July.  I’ll continue to
\nshoulder responsibility for the FY sequence as their developer, but my faith in
\nthe whole arrangement remains in an awkward, delicate balance.  I’m
\nconcerned by some of the outcomes-oriented initiatives freshly blanketing the
\ncurriculum–without sensitivity to disciplinary difference–as the programs
\nbrace for a fall accreditation visit.  Late-semester fatigue has me
\npreferring a brief entry here tonight, and it’s better if I don’t go too far
\nwith the deep angst I feel about a few messages in the self-paced instructor
\ntraining program.  For fun, here’s one chunk of the instructor training
\ncourse that, well, I’m sure you can guess what I think of the view that chunking
\nenhances online content.  Granted, design affects the ways we read words
\nand images on the screen.  The stuff about short paragraphs, bulleted lists
\nand an abundance of headings…*sigh*. I passed the "summative
\nassessment."<\/p>\n

Strategies for “chunking” content: <\/p>\n

    \n
  • Strive to keep Online paragraphs between two and four sentences long. Block paragraphs, like the ones illustrated on this page, maximize white space, providing a visual cue of how you have chunked the information. <\/li>\n
  • Differentiate discussion from illustration by shifting format (for instance, from paragraphs to a bulleted list). <\/li>\n
  • Use headings to signal new chunks of information–and their relationship to one another–and to help the user navigate the page.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    Thirty or so of the questions at the end were T\/F like this:<\/p>\n

    6. In a threaded discussion, controversial topics or assigning students to argue one side of an issue may be used to engage learners. (Points: 1)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    And the others were the loose accumulation kind, as in, check all that apply.<\/p>\n

    Which of the following are phrases from the U.’s mission statement.  (Check all that apply.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

    \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    \u23f3 Approximate reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> mins<\/span><\/span>With a new CMS provider officially in place, the U. is open throttle prepping online instructors to teach in the eCollege platform. I helped critique the instructor training course over the weekend; the self-paced course was released yesterday. 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Yeah, $477 mil. I've taught a few courses with eCollege for old U. over the past four years. I find their platform to be only mildly (.01 micro-measures, to be exact) better than Blackboard. I did, for what it's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Design"","block_context":{"text":"Design","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/category\/design\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6763,"url":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2007\/06\/12\/summer-is-off\/","url_meta":{"origin":6077,"position":1},"title":"Summer Is Off","author":"Derek Mueller","date":"June 12, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"This summer's work is well underway. 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May I never grow tired of waves of encouraging comments. (Makes me consider, for half a minute, the possibilities in announcing that I passed exams every week until the diss is finished. Entry #1419: For the Hundredth Time: Pass! Pass!) 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It's a class I know well. I first developed the online version several years ago2002 and taught it a handful of times, including every summer during my tour de PhD. I was the course developer for, I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Unspecified"","block_context":{"text":"Unspecified","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/category\/unspecified\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6077\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}