End of my second week of CF, and even though I could only do 5 burpees (no weight) before I got a full body cramp, I loved this WOD and left super happy and looking forward to kicking my own butt again next week. I really appreciate the variety and creativity in the WODs.

Hi Andrea, I totally agree that providing information several times in different places is a mistake. This was the first hard lesson I learned when teaching online. At the time it seemed like a smart thing to do to make sure that students could find the information they needed by planting it in more than one area of the course, but all it did was confuse the students in the exact way that you have described. I can definitely appreciate the challenge of finding a balance between the need to cover the chapters in the text so that students can transition smoothly to the next level, and the desire to let the SLOs be the guiding force of the class. Good luck. Pilar

Hi Linda, I like how you're thinking about how to repackage and perhaps separate your course content, procedures, policies, etc... Lisa's model is a good one. I know that many of us have found Jing to be a very useful tool to help students remember important course information beyond the first week. Good luck. Pilar

Hi Richard, Your second bullet point really resonated with me. Students do have unrealistic expectations of their online instructors and it can vary greatly from semester to semester. It seems that no matter how many safeguards I put into place to make sure students are getting the information they need (FAQ's so they can look for answers themselves, a Q & A forum like the one you described above, and video tutorials about how to use the course), some students still just want an immediate response to their questions similar to what they get when they raise their hands in an on-site class or when they text their friends about their plans for the day. Some semesters, everything goes according to plan and I think that I've finally found the magic formula, and then the following semester, a surprising amount of students will email me with questions that are all answered in the video tutorial, which is the first thing they are supposed to watch. In this 'texting' culture, I guess I've come to accept that there will always be students who want to text or instant message with their instructor on demand like so many of us do with our families and buddies. In many ways, texting and IM'ing rewards impatience.

Hi Andrea, In Elluminate, the drop down at the top gives you a choice of live sessions or recorded sessions. If you click on recorded sessions and then click on the entire month or entire week option under the calendar, it will show all of the recordings archived in that time frame. Your idea to communicate with online faculty in Italy is interesting. My experience has been that Europeans are great at rooting out the free resources, so I look forward to hearing what they have to share with you. Pilar

Hi David, I have had an online student with severe hearing loss (even with the hearing aid) and he did not even notify me until the midterm when he asked if he could listen to the listening comprehension portion of the midterm 3 instead of 2 times. He did the same for the final. He did very well in the course and his speaking final with me was excellent.

Hi David, Yes, I still use voicethread. The students really like it and find it easy to use; no technical problems. Thanks for the iphone tip!!!! I didn't know that. Let me know how you end up using twitter.

Thanks, Lisa!

Jim, I'm still not so comfortable with google docs and have more experience with wikis. We've had some formatting problems in google docs when people tried to copy and paste from other documents to the google doc that I haven't encountered on a wiki. I'm not crazy about google docs yet, but it's probably just be because I haven't used it as much as the wikis. I don't know. I'll have to get back to you on this when I get to play more with the power of google docs; I suspect I haven't yet scratched its surface. Yes, Laura, it's very productive. POT NEVER meets face to face except on Elluminate, Tokbox or Skype. We do everything via email, wiki or google docs.

Thanks for the guidelines for using Ning in the classroom link! Pilar

Hi Andrew, I like your blog title; playing with potential online teaching tools can really make you feel like you finally "get" what other people have been talking about. It's good to know what tools are out there so that when you do start teaching online and you get an idea about an activity you want to do with your students, you'll know which tools work best for what you want to do and which ones are just plain noisy. I enjoyed reading your blogspot blog; you're a natural. :-)

Hi Claudia, Love the logo. Clearly, I NEED to take a MAT class. Maybe this summer? I totally understand how you feel with ning. I use ning for my classes and when I started, I decided it was best to keep it simple; I used it as a place for students to post their bi-weekly blogs. They could read and comment on each others' posts and edit their own after they'd read my comments. I made the video and photo sharing functions available so that students could make their blog posts come alive and build community (I left them in the left hand margin). I put a text box front and center on the main page to post a photograph and instructions for that weeks' post (the blogs right underneath the text box). Ning has a lot of power, so it is tempting to want to take advantage of it, but for the first time, I would suggest choosing what is most important to you for this summer's class. Happy creating!

This is great, David. Let us know how this goes with your classes. This makes me want to go and resuscitate my voki. I had used it to embed on Blackboard with one minute reminders before we got Wimba, but the idea of having students use it is cool!