Technology Tip of the Week - November 28, 2005

Advertise Your Final Exam Schedule in Pipeline

A quick way to remind your students about the day and time of your final exams is to use Pipeline's Announcement course feature. When you add this announcement on your Pipeline course page it also adds it to the MyCCRI page under Personal Announcements. Only your students will see this announcement but it will appear as soon as they log in. The announcement automatically expires seven days after its addition.sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.

To use the Pipeline Course Announcement feature:

Log in to your Pipeline account and click on the My Courses tab

Click on a green course link to enter the course home page

Click on the green Announcements link under the Course Tools menu on the left

Click on Send announcement

Type in a meaningful title, for example: COMI 1100 Final Exam Schedule (keep in mind that this title will also show up under Personal Announcements on the main Pipeline page so it's a good idea to include a course title or code).

In the Announcement box: type in your date and time for the final exam or project along with any other instructions you wish to add

Click on the Send button. Click on OK.

That's it! Your announcement will now be available for the following seven days. Note: This is also a great tool to use to announce a class or clinical cancellation (snow days are coming!) or even a change of room for the day.)

See a more detailed handout with screen shots

Watch a video demonstration of this process

Article of the Week

Face to Face Versus Threaded Discussions: The Role of the Time and Higher-Order Thinking
Mayer, Dr. Katrina; JALN Volume 7, Issue 3

This study compares the experiences of students in face-to-face (in class) discussions with threaded discussions and also evaluates the threaded discussions for evidence of higher-order thinking. Students were enrolled in graduate-level classes that used both modes (face-to-face and online) for course-related discussions; their end-of-course evaluations of both experiences were grouped for analysis and themes constructed based on their comments. Themes included the “expansion of time,” “experience of time,” “quality of the discussion,” “needs of the student,” and “faculty expertise.” While there are advantages to holding discussions in either setting, students most frequently noted that using threaded discussions increased the amount of time they spent on class objectives and that they appreciated the extra time for reflection on course issues. The face-to-face format also had value as a result of its immediacy and energy, and some students found one mode a better “fit” with their preferred learning mode. The analysis of higher-order thinking was based on a content analysis of the threaded discussions only. Each posting was coded as one of the four cognitive-processing categories described by Garrison and colleagues [1]: 18% were triggering questions, 51% were exploration, 22% were integration, and 7% resolution. A fifth category – social – was appropriate for 3% of the responses and only 12% of the postings included a writing error. This framework provides some support for the assertion that higher-order thinking can and does occur in online discussions; strategies for increasing the number of responses in the integration and resolution categories are discussed.

Read the full article at: http://www.aln.org/publications/jaln/v7n3/pdf/v7n3_meyer.pdf

Which mode do you prefer - online or face-to-face? Why? Feel free to post your opinions of this article in the Teaching Forum message board.

These tips are provided by the Department of Information Technology instructional support team. If you have any questions on these tips, or wish to offer your own, please feel free to contact Linda Beith at lbeith@ccri.edu. View an archive of past technology tips.