Integration Project: Julia Ann Hypes

Project Overview

The primary objective is to web-enhance PHED 630 with assignments and activities developed to maximize student cooperation utilizing technology. A Blackboard course site will aid in this through such methods as online group work, a current issue discussion board facilitated by the students, and the use of the site for supplemental course materials. A secondary objective is to ultimately move PHED 630 to a fully integrated distance education course.

Project Details

The web enhancement, using a Blackboard course site, was a natural progression toward an online offering of PHED 630. The main areas of concentration for this project were class discussion, project presentation and seamless communication between students both on and off campus.

The site allowed the students to access information on a 24-hour basis. It provided all of the students the opportunity to work on projects with fellow students outside of the classroom setting. By using a Blackboard site to enhance the course, I was able to provide a common site where students could retrieve information regarding class assignments, lecture notes, meet their classmates in a chat session regarding a project, file share and post presentations to a Discussion Board Forum.

The biggest positive for me as an instructor was that this common site eliminated many email messages from students regarding information on assignments and how to contact their classmates. The information was readily available to the students and they could often answer their own questions. The site also allowed those students who were participating in this course and not able to join us on campus every day to keep abreast of class discussions and lectures. All students could post questions to the discussion board question and answer section and either they could help each other out or I could answer their questions.

A goal for this integration for me was to work out some of the “bugs” with the seamless communication among students on and off campus so the lessons learned could be shared with colleagues. I was able to do this much more quickly than first anticipated. A colleague used many of the same methods as I did during another summer course. The great discovery was that the enrollment in the two courses was quite different and yet the methods for connecting students both on and off campus worked well in both. To see someone else take the techniques I had tried and incorporate them was of great benefit.

Some students, in both classes, were reluctant to embrace this way of communication and accessing information. However, after the first week of class, they realized that they could communicate with each other without having to be in the same room. It appeared that some students, who are normally quiet in class, participated more completely in class discussion on the discussion board.

This project was a wonderful experience and I am glad that I was able to see some of the methods of integration used in a subsequent class so quickly.