On FIT Group Project

Okay... I should call it FIT Team Project. Our FIT group truly became a team. First few weeks we had two obstacles to overcome. First, there were not much happeing for us in the online course we were dealing. We were merely observing. Second we had to figure out what to include in the project...more importantly, what not to include.

We categorized the tasks in hand and start working in those tasks in depth. Category of the tasks essentially gave us a neat plan. Once this plan is followed..rest came automatically.

We had some thoughts for the improvement/justification of the site. We made sure we work together in the same direction, instead of duplicating issues. One idea was to walk the students through all of the tools available and how the course is run, the assignments, grading, etc. second idea was to scheduled Elluminate sessions from the beginning, so that the students can plan for them and be available on those nights, instead of scheduling them a week before the session. We also wanted to Develop rubrics for online discussion board postings, to encourage more in-depth and thought-provoking discussions. In addition to that, we can suggest improvement in the interface. For example, IVHS site can have search option. There are some more interface improvements can be done. We divided the topics among us then elaborated it with justifications.

We updated regularly the whole team on what we were working on. In the new activities sections, we suggested "This Week in History" link. Actually, the instructors just have a link to it from the website, but they don't have the students do any activity with it at this point. We also modified assignment in Week 10 and in Week 9.

One of the new activities involves the students creating pod-casts as part of their discussion board postings and to create at least one pod-cast as part of their final Napoleon assignment. We suggested students could post the pod-cast on their class site where they would be more comfortable with posting. More importantly, we throughly visited and investigate the entire site...that enabled us to find out and establish the course objective, purpose, facts, and activities. Overall, it was an excellent experience.