Dogwood Course Syllabus

Syllabus 2005-6
Authoring Web-Based Learning Materials: A Dogwood/TAC Seminar

Welcome to the Dogwood Project Seminar, a year-long collaborative graduate credit course being taught by NVCC faculty and TAC staff for community college faculty. The primary course goal is to help faculty develop web-savvy learning objects to share with their own students, other faculty and NVCC students. A secondary course goal is to develop criteria and methods for the further evaluation of learning objects created by community college faculty.

Faculty Project Director: Dr. Monica Sasscer Course Directors: Ms. Nancy McTaggart, Ms. Cathy Simpson, Dr. Agatha Taormina, Dr. Diane Thompson Additional Course Presenters: Mr. Robert Brown, Dr. Laura Franklin, Mr. Jud Sage, Ms. Joan Trabandt Additional campus-based technical mentors will be available by appointment to help participants with software problems.

Course Organization The 2005-06 seminar will be presented in two parts; both parts must be completed for graduate credit.
Part I: Technical and conceptual skills for web site development You are expected to attend four meetings in the Fall 2005 semester; in these sessions you will conceptualize your project web site and acquire the technical skills you will need to complete your web site project. By the end of Part I, all participants will have produced or revised their college professional web site to include a home page, a page for course information (including syllabus) for each course taught, at least one external link, at least one graphic or photograph, and consistent site navigation and footer information on every page.
Participants must satisfactorily complete Part I assignments before the Part II sessions begin.
Part II: Web project development You are expected to attend seven meetings in the Spring 2006 semester. During these sessions you will be involved in planning and producing your own project web sites and in writing peer reviews for the web sites of other participants.

Seminar Objectives To define and practice strategies to create online materials that meet usability standards. To develop and practice strategies for effective interaction among faculty and students in an online learning environment. To develop individual web sites that contain learning materials of substantial content in a teaching field. These websites will be included in NVCC, VCCS, and national databases of similar learning materials. To develop a peer review process for assessing the effectiveness of online learning materials. To understand and participate in a learning community where everyone collaborates to complete online learning materials.

Required Materials supplied to all project participants: Dreamweaver and Fireworks (included in Macromedia Studio 8) Hester, Nolan. Creating a Web Page in Dreamweaver: A Visual Quick Project Guide

Web Resources The Web Design Center by Aggie Taormina Sage's Webliography: An Annotated Bibliography of Web Design Resources by Jud Sage

Seminar Assignments NOTE: All participants must complete the update of their professional web site before the first Spring semester meeting. Updated professional web site (to be completed before the first Spring Semester meeting) ** Selected reading assignments, to be followed by posting online comments and discussions in sessions. Specifically, each participant will: Present to the group a research web site in his/her teaching field* Present to the group a brief overview and review of a book on web site design* Regular participation in online discussion forums as required: Responses to assigned readings Posting of project site plans in progress Two rounds of well-developed peer reviews (2 reviews for each peer checklist) and quick critiques of other participants’ web sites Generation of planning documents for your web site: Initial site proposal, including the purpose of the site, the intended audience, and at least one course in which the materials could be used Site outline Finished project web site on a topic to be used in conjunction with a course you are teaching. This web site will contain substantial content in your teaching field. * Link the finished web site to the Dogwood site *Required of all project participants before the beginning of Part II of the Seminar. Required of all project participants who wish to earn graduate credit equivalents.

Graduate Credit Equivalent Faculty participants who successfully complete the seminar will be awarded 3 graduate credit equivalents in their teaching field. These credits are not transferable but may be applied to criteria for promotion.

Meetings Meetings will be on designated Fridays from 1:00 pm - 4:00 in the CT building at Annandale throughout the 2005-06 academic year.

Tentative Schedule
PART I: Technical and Conceptual Skills for Web Project Creation
Session 1 11/4/05	INTRODUCTION TO THE PROJECT SESSION ACTIVITIES Overview of Course Syllabus and Course Requirements (Taormina) Orientation to Dogwood and the Dogwood Site (Taormina) Using Learning Objects for Student Success. Overview of Learning Materials web sites. Use previously completed Dogwood projects as examples. (Simpson) Introduction of participants BREAK SESSION WORKSHOP ACTIVITIES Introduction to Blackboard and Blackboard Forums (Thompson)
PLEASE REMEMBER TO BRING A DISKETTE CONTAINING FILES YOU WILL BE WORKING ON TO EVERY SESSION FROM THIS POINT FORWARD.
Session 2 11/11/05	WORKSHOP: Update your professional home page. Focus will be on Dreamweaver. (TAC)
Session 3 11/18/05	WORKSHOP continued: Update your professional home page. Focus will be on Fireworks (TAC)
Book Review Assignment Choose a book from the list of web design titles or ask to use another web design book of your choice. Let Aggie (ataormina@nvcc.edu) know your title choice and also when (Dec. 2, Jan 20, or Feb 3) you want to give your oral report to the group. Before the date of your oral report, please post a brief (maximum 200 words) review of your book in the Book Review Forum on the Dogwood Blackboard. In this review, provide the author, title, publisher, and publishing date of the book under review, describe the intended audience (i.e., the level of knowledge of web design implied) for the book, and provide a summary of the content covered by the book. In your oral report (5 minutes maximum) you will describe 2-3 useful ideas that you derived from your reading.
Session 4 12/2/05	Conceptualization: Developing Useful Web Content DO BEFORE CLASS Post a developed personal introduction and respond to at least two other introductions on the Blackboard Forum for Introductions Review previous Dogwood sites and post a comment to the Blackboard Forum for Site Reviews explaining which site or sites you might use as a model for either content or design and why Search for an external site in your teaching field and post a comment with the URL explaining how you might use this site in a course that you teach. SESSION DISCUSSION ACTIVITIES Discussion: The Nature of the Web (Thompson, McTaggart and Taormina) Nancy McTaggart's presentation Aggie Taormina's presentation Diane Thompson's presentation Questions for discussion: What is your motive for using the web? How can you use the web in the classroom? What can you do with the web outside of the classroom that you cannot do with paper handouts? Web Content that is useful for teaching (Thompson, McTaggart and Taormina) Questions for discussion Where is the content for your project site coming from? How are you going to adapt the content for the web? How do you intend to use the content in your course or courses? How could other instructors use the content on your web site? BOOK REVIEWS
Please provide Diane Thompson (dthompson@nvcc.edu) with the URL for your updated/revised professional web site by Jan. 20, 2006 , so that the course directors can verify your successful completion of Part I before Part II begins
PART II: Web Project Development
Session 5 1/27/06	Planning a Project Website I PLANNING THE PROJECT WEB SITE I: SITE ARCHITECTURE ( Taormina) BOOK REVIEWS (TBA) DO BEFORE CLASS Post a paragraph in your Blackboard Forum describing your project web site, what it is for, the nature of the content, and how you envision people using it.
Session 6 2/3/06	PLANNING THE PROJECT WEB SITE II: ST0RYBOARDING BOOK REVIEWS (TBA) DO BEFORE CLASS Create and post an outline of the content of your web site. Bring a copy of the outline to the session. SESSION DISCUSSION ACTIVITIES Introduction to storyboarding with a demo of a site from idea to storyboard to site pages ( Taormina) Introduction to Navigation Schemes ( Taormina) GROUP WORK Create storyboards by hand. Work on navigation scheme.
Session 7 2/17/06	MISCELLANEOUS DESIGN ELEMENTS TO CONSIDER: Fonts, Graphics, and Layout (Brown) ADA Considerations (Trabandt) Copyright (Taormina) Watch the playback of the Centra session: Log in to EMeeting Session ID is DRM307840; you should be able to access the session by clicking on the Past tab after you log in.
Snow Date 2/24/05	If we have to cancel a session due to inclement weather.
Session 8 3/17/06	BOOK REVIEWS EVALUATING FORM THE USABILITY PEER REVIEW CHECKLIST TO DO BEFORE CLASS Post the first branch (section) of your project web site to novaweb. SESSION DISCUSSION ACTIVITIES Review and revision of peer review criteria for web usability Demonstration of critical review of a web site. Troubleshoot publication of web pages
Session 9 3/31/06	USING YOUR PROJECT WEB SITE IN YOUR TEACHING EVALUATING CONTENT MERLOT (Simpson) QUALITY MATTERS (McTaggart) THE TEACHABILITY PEER REVIEW CHECKLIST DO BEFORE CLASS Post your assigned usability web site critiques to the Blackboard Forum GROUP WORK Generate a checklist on the teachability of a web site Apply the checklist to selected web sites.
4/7/06	Post completed project web site.
Session 10 4/14/06	LESSONS LEARNED DO BEFORE CLASS: Complete assigned teachability peer reviews. SESSION ACTIVITIES Problem Solving Reflections: What we have learned Course Evaluation Troubleshooting
Session 11 4/28/06	Final Website Presentations SESSION ACTIVITIES Peer Review Summaries Open to Invited Guests (provosts, division chairs, etc.)