Lesson Lectures
We would love to have interactive class discussions and hands-on activities, but a lecture is the best we can do in a class that is delivered on the web using this format. For each lesson, you will have two choices.
- You can view/listen to the lecture online by clicking on “View/Listen to Lecture” for the actual class presentation.
- You can view/listen to the lecture offline after downloading the zipped version for the actual class presentation.
- You view/listen to the lecture offline by playing it from the CD-ROM purchased from the bookstore.
Regardless of whether you elect to listen to the lecture online or to use the CD-ROM, you will need Macromedia Flash®. Here is a sample of the lectures you will see:
Estimate of time required
We intend that these courses should require roughly the same amount of time and effort that a similar course offered on-campus would take. For a traditional 1-semester hour course, 15 hours of class time is normal. Combine that with approximately 2 hours of out-of-class time for every class hour, and a typical course should take about 45 hours of work. Our field-test teachers found those estimates to be pretty good estimates.
Assignments
Most lessons have either a quiz or a practical exercise associated with them. To download the assignments or quizzes, click on the Course Documents button and then click on “Assignment to be Submitted” for this lesson. The file will download to your computer and you should save or print it to use in preparing the assignment.
Prepare the assignment or quiz as a Microsoft Word file and save it to your disk or computer. You will submit the Word file using your Drop Box (see below).
The Drop Box and how to use it
When you complete an assignment for a course and are ready to “hand it in,”
»Save it on either a disk or on your hard drive.
»Be sure that your name is in the file name and that you identify the lesson. For instance, Smith U1 L3 Task Analysis.doc would indicate that Mr. Smith was submitting Unit 1 Lesson 3, which is on Task Analysis.
»Go to the course web site and click on Tools, then on Drop Box, then on Add File, and Browse. A dialog box something like the one below will appear. You will notice I have gone to my A:\ drive where I have saved an assignment named Smith U1 L2 Objectives.
»Select the file you are submitting by clicking on it and then click on “Open.” The Choose File Box will close and the following screen should appear:
»In the Title box, type whatever description you want your instructor to see in his or her drop box. In this case, I entered Lesson 2 Assignment.
»Type any message you want the instructor to see in the “Comments” box.
»Click on “Submit.”
»You’re done!
Contents of CD
At this time, the CD's
for the course are available for Windows machines only.
A Macintosh version is under development, but is not available
from the Virginia Tech Bookstore at this time.
The CD-ROM
is not self-opening. You must open Windows Explorer or the
"My Computer" icon on your desktop, open the CD-ROM,
then double-click on the icon titled "StartHere!" to enter
course 1. Similar icons appear on the CD-ROM
for each course.
Once you open the course, a screen like this one will appear:
To view the lecture for a lesson, click on the corresponding
link (for instance, "Unit 1 Lesson 1"). This will launch RealPlayer,
which will display the lecture.
Links to printable versions of the transcripts and slides
are also accessible from the CD-ROM.
Estimate of time required
We intend that these courses should require roughly the same
amount of time and effort that a similar course offered on-campus
would take. For a traditional 1-semester hour course, 15 hours
of class time is normal. Combine that with approximately 2
hours of out-of-class time for every class hour, and a typical
course should take about 45 hours of work. Our field-test
teachers found those estimates to be pretty accurate.
Expected download time
Download times for the support materials should be fairly
quick on a 56 kbs modem, but the lesson lectures cannot download in real time.
That means a 45-minute lecture will actually require at least
50 minutes of connection time. For that reason, you should
try to use connections with unlimited, or at least inexpensive,
connection time. If download times become a problem, you should
consider whether to purchase the CD-ROMs
with the lectures on them. On the other hand, you need to
weigh the connection time costs and the costs of the CD-ROMs
against the gasoline and time involved in driving to a class.
You may also find that the server slows down sometimes. Usually
that happens when we have several hundred students trying
to access lessons at the same time. If the server gets too
slow, just log out and try it again at another time.
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