COLLEGE COMPOSITION

I am currently scheduled to teach two online sections of 300 in the spring of 2013.

Section 17556: Mandatory orientation meeting Saturday, January 19th, 9:00 - 10:20 in RHS 311

Section 17553: Mandatory orientation meeting Saturday, January 19th, 10:30 - 11:50 in RHS 311

While a hybrid class works in much the same way as a traditional face-to-face class, an online course is quite a bit different and, generally speaking, students have a few questions about my online classes. Here are the basics:

We will only meet one time, at the beginning of the semester for an orientation meeting. After that, all of the class is online through the Los Rios online learning environment, Desire2Learn. This is the new platform that is replacing BlackBoard.

Microsoft Word is the only program that you will need to purchase if you don't already have it. It can be purchased through the campus bookstore for a significantly reduced rate (I believe it is $60 for the entire Office Suite which normally costs around $300), but if you know someone who either attends or works at Sac State, you can have them purchase it for you through their bookstore for $15. In either case, you will need to provide a current student/staff id. I have not used the free version of Word that is available at www.openoffice.com, but I have had several students use it, and they were very pleased with the suite of programs. Other programs are required, but they are free applications that are probably already on your computer (Acrobat Reader, etc).

The class is typical for any ENGWR 300 class where you can expect to spend about two-and-a-half hours online "in class" each week and an additional two to four hours doing homework or writing papers. The general report I get from my online students is that they like the class structure, planning and assignments and that they recommend it to their friends. I try to make one thing clear though: for some reason there is the impression that an online class is somehow easier than a traditional, face-to-face class, and this simply isn't true (at least for an English class). Certainly there are some instructors in some departments that teach online classes because they can create the course in such a way where they don't have to do anything. For my classes, and I know the same is true for the other English instructors at City College who teach online, my online students learn the same amount as traditional students, but because we have to use a virtual environment, more work is required to meet the same learning goals and objectives.

Yes, online is more work.

Having said that, it isn't unmanageable and I have to do just as much more work as my students, so I am keenly aware of when the workload gets too high. In those cases, I adjust things accordingly.

If you would like to talk to some of my current online students about their experiences in the class, I can forward your email address to them. Just let me know.

If you have any other questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me.

persnickety

ENGLT 327 ENGWR 302 ENGWR 301 ENGWR 300 ENGWR 101 ENGWR 52 ENGWR 51 PLAGIARISM CONTACT

 

MANDATORY ORIENTATION MTG:

The mandatory orientation meeting for section 17556 willl be held on Saturday, January 19th, 9:00 - 10:20 in RHS 311

The mandatory orientation meeting for section 17553 willl be held on Saturday, January 19th, 10:30 - 11:50 in RHS 311

If you have already registered for this course, please click here to be fowarded to the district Desire2Learn site where you will be prompted to login. Once you have done so, you will be able to access the D2L site for this course as well as the syllabus and other information.