Reflections on ICT Innovations of an Online Literature Course
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| Year of publication | 2015 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
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| Description | The proposed paper discusses the various ICT innovations implemented in an online literature course. The undergraduate course, ENGL 228.599: American Literature Civil War to Present, was taught at Texas A&M University in the fall and spring semesters of the 2012/2013 academic year by professor Amy Earhart and I served as her TA. The course was a more streamlined version of its first incarnation the previous academic year and the data gathered during the first year clearly showed that the students who frequently visited the study materials provided in the Moodle environment of the course tended to get better grades than those who did not. Therefore, several ICT methods were implemented to further refine the overall feel of the course and these updates were supposed to not only distinctly improve the learning environment, but also enable a more active participation of the students and facilitate the communication between students and the teaching staff. The ICT teaching innovations included individual blog posts, online office hours via a web camera, or a final group assignment. This paper then comments on the efficiency of the applied methods and the changes these and other online resources had undergone between the fall and spring semesters. The resulting discussion should provides some thoughts on possible ICT implementations as well as an inspiration for other teachers of online courses, mainly focusing on the importance of writing center support for students of an online course. |
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