CTL Blended Learning Blog

The CTL has attempted to use blogs to convey information about fellowships and to publicize activities . . . the blended learning blog was created to share information about blended learning. It was the first WordPress blog for us, we use Blogger mostly, but it turned out well.

View the blog here

What does a high quality online course look like?

An excellent site (from California State University) for assessing online learning. Check it out:

[taken from]

This site is designed to answer the question being asked: What does a high quality online course look like? It is our hope that instructors and instructional designers will use this site to learn more about the Rubric for Online Instruction, and be able to view examples of exemplary courses that instructors have done in implementing the different components of the rubric.

Using Google Docs To Grade Essays

I rarely touch paper when I grade anymore. I typically will hand grade the first assignment (even scanning in papers if needed) because I think there's something special about seeing handwriting on an essay. However, most other assessments are handled electronically.

I've used all types of learning management systems and they all require you to download documents (word, PPT, Excel) and then edit them on your machine. Well, I don't trust students and their often virus-laced files and I've been looking for a workaround for a while.

Google Docs to the rescue! [View video on Google docs] . Google Docs allows you to manipulate Microsoft Office files on the web, making your grading portable.

More than that, you can even share the document with the student to continue the conversation on a paper in a collaborative manner.

So here's my process:

1. Download the papers from the LMS. Every LMS I've encountered provides an option to download files and will typically give you a ZIP file with all of the documents.



2. Go to Google Docs and import the files [not sure how?] into a FOLDER. It's important to keep the assignments grouped. Here's what it looks like for me:



3. Then using Google's Comment and Footnote features to edit the document.



4. Once complete, you have two options (I typically do the latter):
   
   
   
   
   
   • Share the document with the student by providing a URL which they can use to access it
   
   
   
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   • Download the files, en masse, as individual PDF's, and then upload each student's graded essay back to the LMS. [this is also a good way to backup your Google Docs]
   
   
   
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I know I probably left out a few steps, but I covered the BIGGIES. Make grading work for you. Google Docs to the rescue!

Unified Learning and Collaboration:

Meeting the Needs of Education and Training in the 21st Century

Elluminate, though pushing its ware's in the process, provides an interesting paradigm for online learning.



http://www.elluminate.com/Products/Unified_Learning/?id=305/