I find that a pre organized syllabus ,created by the institution, somewhat takes away from the authority of the instructor.After reviewing the syllabus I find that there are some things that I would like to change after teaching the course a number of times; however, I am told I must follow the syllabus already in place in the class. Any thoughts on this? Is there a way I can make a suggestion on some of the course material and be heard by my institution?

I plan to utilize group assignments/projects as a way to facilitate the learning experience of the online learners. After week 1, I will begin to put students into groups according to the way they have performed during the 1st week of class. I intend to put students into groups of two, with one student having done poorly in the first week and the other having done exceptionally well. This way I feel that the students can help each other or the strong student can help the weak student. To prevent cheating or to ensure that one student is not obtaining all the answers from the other, I will give instructions that will require the answers to the assignments be written in their own words. Are there any pros or cons that may arise with this distribution of course work?

Utilizing a Cellular Phone to submit an assignment as proven to be unacceptable to me. Most students do not possess a smart phone; therefore I've receive horrible homework assignments via text messages.

Course evaluation is an ongoing process. We are professors have to look at our courses to be sure they are current and all links work. Also we have to be sure the textbook is the latest ed.

Structural integrity in online courses has us preparing lesson plans for presenting material in a logical manner. What examples can you share of structural integrity?

I wish AIU introduced a feature where instructors teaching the same course are able to share content, links, instructor files and so on. With student access to this pool it will enrich the learning experience tremendously.

Some learners are best taught by "old school" instruction; use of the chalkboard, pen and pencil, and handwritten tests. Has this type of instruction died or has it been proven to no longer be the best approach to learning?

There are so many different tools available for streaming video, animation, three D presentations, IMovie, etc. Where do you think the imaginary line of too many technology bells and whistles is located? How do you know?

During my traditional educational experience, soft skills were taught that I do not see being a value added experience on-line. I am afraid by isolating our students more, we are taking away the ability to network, socialize, and overcome the fear of communicating either one to one or one to many. How do you add the value of learning soft skills to your online students?

I like the idea of opening a live chat with a survey- as well as adding a survey to the home page of any course I teach. It gets people engaged- and generates interesting results.

I would prefer to include a 5-10 minute You Tube video 2-3 times during a one hour live chat. It breaks up the live chat, which keeps each student's attention.

I've taught online for about 3 years. I think that at least some live chats should be mandatory. The best interactions I get with students is in a live chat environment.

I recently finished my first book, Cost Accounting for Dummies (Wiley Publishing, March 2013). By offering a free, online course, I think I can enhance the material that students read in the book. I'd be interested in feedback. Thanks! Ken Boyd www.stltest.net

Instructional design is heavily important when trying to communicate data that is appropriate to the reader. The design of a curriculum must be thoughtfully plan to provide a blended learning to an online environment.

A learner centered quiz should be designed to cover weekly course material in an effort to gage a student learning ability in communicating the subject.

Online learning should be consistent with chat rooms. Chat rooms allow students to actively engage with their classmates as well as the instructor. I believe online chat should be mandatory for students to attend. This would allow students to understand weekly and upcoming assignments and post questions regarding the assignment.

I am challenged with keeping students engaged in weekly discussion forums. The focus is to stay on topic without adding new subject content. Students often feel that when a new subject of topic is added to the current subject that this is information overload. I would like to combat this dilemma by providing an effective way to communicate the intended message.

Some say that final exams are mere regurgitation of information and have no real value when it comes to preparing students for the workplace today. Your thoughts?

In reflecting upon the four phases of ISD, it seems to me the most difficult of the phases is development. In performing the analysis phase it should be relatively easy to establish what can be transferred as is into the online course, what needs to be modified and what needs to be created. Also quite easy is the course design specification were a blueprint for what needs to be accomplished in terms of instructional content, media, and presentations strategies. Also the evaluation phase or the fourth phase of ISD seems intuitively easy as well. However I suspect that development is the most of all the phases to accomplish. Finding the right blend, right media, the right instruction and presentation strategies and creating the module calls a seamless e-learning environment I think is the most difficult of all of the phases. Factors such as the nature of the content, the complexity of the concepts, and the interactions or relationships between theories are variables can make development very difficult. Topics that are highly visual can benefit from and pictures. Topics that are very complicated because there are a series of moving parts that make up the whole of the concept, may be best illustrated through animation or videos. Abstract concepts may require carefully crafted texts with multimedia presentations as follow-up. Combining the parameters of the course design specification and producing a seamless platform that optimizes media strategies is perhaps the most difficult of all the phrases of ISD. Here I would've like to see a specific example developed online to be able to understand better how to create this seamless environment. Perhaps the illustration of a good example and a poor example will help provide a better understanding on how to manage this phase. Essentially it's easy for me to understand what is intended and the development phase of ISD, but at the same time I suspect that I would need more practice and more examples to see exactly how this is done. Maybe in some of the upcoming iterations of this course it would be possible to see more specifics related to this phase.

As part of my online lectures I always like to take the opportunity to provide a brief overview of the assignments each week. The intention of this presentation is not necessarily to provide responses to the questions so the students can use them in the assignments. The objective of this discussion is to present the expectations and discuss the relevance of the assignments to the material being presented. It's also an opportunity for the students to ask questions about the assignment and an opportunity to share with them some supplemental resources that may be used any assignments. The assignments themselves already have the narratives regarding purpose, expect patience, relevance, and the basic elements that are expected, but the online synchronous review allows them to present questions that may not only be of importance to those attending the synchronous mode but also those attending asynchronously. The week after, once assignments are completed, I also take the opportunity to discuss the model answers so they can compare expectations with what is considered acceptable and at the same time understand what specific areas can be improved in upcoming assignments. Although the specifics for each student is posted in the grade book, I find it best to gather general observations from all assignments within one section and present them as an overall platform to improve the quality of the upcoming assignments. This may be a little longer than what is presented in this module, but I found that it has been very effective for the students in the online environment.