Midterm

I've posted about midterm evaluations before, so I think I'll take this opportunity to link to a few resources that may be helpful as you think about whether or not to implement this strategy in your own classes.

Link to a previous post on this blog - March 2010

A post on the UGA CTL Blog - October 2010

Recent ProfHacker post on using Google Docs for evaluations (!) - February 2012

Do you ask your students for midterm feedback?

I just read a post on the ProfHacker blog about the challenges of teaching multiple sections of the same course. This is not something I've had to do in some time, but I can definitely relate to the issues raised. Dr. Hara makes a number of great suggestions for addressing things like varying class size and dynamics, but instructional technology does not seem to come up at all. I wonder what sorts of technologies might help? What do you think? Also, if you were in her shoes (maybe some of you are) and you were using a learning management system, would you combine the sections into one course space? Or would you keep them separate? What are the pros and cons of each option?

A GarGANTTuan Discovery

In a previous post, I noted how UGA was investigating learning management systems. Now that the investigation process is over, I am turning my attentions to planning and implementation of our new system, Desire2Learn. Fortunately, I have an awesome team to work with, and many of us have been through this before. That means we can improve on processes and project management, starting with communication. We plan to use Google tools, including Docs, Spreadsheets, and Blogger. We are still thinking about whether or not to use Sites as well, particularly for collaboration within the team.

We will use Docs and Spreadsheets  to outline the project plan, and Blogger to inform the UGA user community on the progress of the project. I am very excited (in a nerdy way) about a Google Gadget that I found. It's a Spreadsheets Gantt chart tool, which takes each item in our project plan and plots it on a timeline. Super cool, and pretty easy to use. Watch a future post for more info, but in the meanwhile, you can see an example.Thank you, Mr. Gantt!