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From the Director of Extended Programs

DSU Community,

Extended Programs would like to offer a warm welcome to Dr. David Borofsky as DSU’s new Interim President.  We are pleased to invite him and the entire DSU community to view the spring 2012 issue of the Office of Extended Programs newsletter. This twice-yearly publication is intended to keep you up-to-date with the activities in our office as well as with the latest in e-learning, emerging technologies and best practices in the e-learning arena.

Registrations for summer, fall and spring online classes are coming in daily and we are already seeing some filled classes. So tell your advisees to register as early as possible to assure that they get into the classes they need both on campus and online.

Extended Programs has had a very busy academic year and we look forward to an equally busy summer.  Please take a look at our web site Extended Programs to see all of the ways that we can be of assistance to you and your students.

For those of you teaching online classes we encourage you to direct your students to our Distance Student Orientation site. It provides valuable information to new and continuing students. Also, we welcome you to view our new online tutoring services for all students Online Tutors and our proctoring services for faculty who require exam proctors for online students Proctoring Services. Our goal is to provide the best service possible to students and faculty.

I hope you enjoy the information provided by this newsletter and welcome your comments and insights.

Peg O’Brien, Director

Learning Analytics Coming into D2L

a line graph showing statisticsLater this year, predictive analytics will be integrated with D2L to help student retention when SDBOR signs the contract with Starfish. Predictive analytics encompasses a variety of statistical techniques for mining information gathered across a variety of sources including student information systems (WebAdvisor), learning management systems (D2L), and analyzing those current and historical data to make predictions about student learning performances. The integration with a learning management system is particularly helpful as it can look at various data points to watch student attendance, participation, and performance information to predict when students might be in need of help.

Updated Technical Readiness for Taking Online Courses from DSU

students ready for schoolWe have recently updated the Technical Readiness document for taking online courses from DSU, including hardware and software requirements, browser platform compatibilities, D2L mobile access for iPad and smart phones. If you teach online or blended courses, it would be a good idea to include the link below in your syllabus or course introduction.

http://support.dsu.edu/onlinecourses/technicalreadiness.htm

A Word document is also available if you would like to send it to your students as part of the preparation for online learning. Click here to download the Word document.

Blended Learning/Hybrid Course Design and Development

a blenderMixing face-to-face and online learning, blended learning is becoming increasingly popular for its access flexibility, media richness, resource integration, and more technology-enhanced collaborative opportunities.

To promote the development of blended course design at DSU, we have created a site in D2L that explores the major aspects of blended learning and hybrid course design, from administrative, instructional and technological perspectives. If you are interested in the content of the site, please e-mail D2L@dsu.edu and Haomin will add you to the site.

Customizing D2L Sites

Stacey Berry, Mark Hawkes, Chris Olson and Mingming Shao shared their experience in customizing D2L course sites in a recent faculty development session. The following resources can help you use what was introduced in the session.
Released in April 2012
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