Welcome to the orientation week for GEOG 863: GIS Mashups for Geospatial Professionals. I hope that by now that you have reviewed the syllabus for important course information. If you haven't, please do so now.
In addition to introducing some core concepts for this course, the orientation also serves as your guide to the structure of the course and to our online learning environment.
At the successful completion of the Course Orientation, students should be able to:
The next page in this lesson outlines the steps you need to perform to successfully complete this orientation.
If you have any questions now or at any point during this week, please feel free to post them to the Orientation Discussion Forum. (To access the forums, return to Canvas. Once in Canvas, you can navigate to the Communicate tab and then scroll down to the Discussion Forums section.) While you are there, feel free to post your own responses if you, too, are able to help out a classmate.
Each lesson in the course will have a list of "Steps to Complete." This checklist will always appear on the second page of each lesson.
To get started with the course, please follow the required steps below. the Course Orientation is one week in length. (See the Calendar in Canvas for specific due dates.) You may find it useful to print this page out first so that you can follow along with the directions.
Step | Activity | Access/Directions |
---|---|---|
1 |
Read through Course Orientation. |
You are in the Course Orientation online content now. Click on the "Next Page" link to continue reading. |
2 | Be sure your Canvas account is configured the way you want it. | See the Course Management System section of the Orientation. |
3 | Introduce yourself to your colleagues. | Go to the Orientation Discussion Forum in Canvas. |
4 | If you haven't already done so, carefully review the course syllabus to learn about the course and its requirements. | The Syllabus is located in the main menu. |
5 | Begin the course! | Click on the Lessons link to begin the course. |
Registered students in the online Penn State courses that use this text need to navigate between several environments in the World Wide Web. These include:
The Course website consists of lessons, each including pages of text, graphics, and activities. Activities prompt readers to read content, watch videos, do research, and join in conversations via VoiceThread.
Canvas [1], Penn State's course management system. In Canvas, registered students consult course calendars, communicate with instructors, teaching assistants, and fellow students, submit assignments, receive feedback from the instructor and teaching assistant, take online quizzes and surveys, and check assignment scores and course grades. Note that a link to Canvas appears in the Navigation menu above.
Students who register for this Penn State course gain access to assignments and instructor feedback, and earn academic credit. Information about Penn State's Online Geospatial Education programs is available at the Geospatial Education Program Office [2].
Navigate from this page to Canvas and back again.
This course website is presented in an open source content management system (Drupal [3]). One advantage to presenting the material in this system is that we can publish the course openly for the benefit of anyone who has access to the Internet, regardless of their ability to pay tuition (this is applicable to most courses in our program - see a full list of our open educational resources [4]).
The syllabus links out to course description, and an account of what is expected of each student.
The orientation familiarizes registered students with the learning environments used to conduct Penn State courses.
To log in, click on the "login" link. Log in with your Penn State Access ID and password.
Penn State uses an online course management system called Canvas to deliver most of its online courses to registered students. (For more information about Canvas, visit the Getting Started with Canvas [5] page). Canvas organizes content using different sections in its site. Here is how we use it for the Penn State courses that use this course text. (Registered students might want to open Canvas in a second tab or browser window while studying this page.)
Main Menu in the left pane:
Menu of links once inside a course:
For a more complete introduction to Canvas please see the Getting Started with Canvas [5] page.
To get the most out of Canvas, registered students should configure their Canvas profiles as follows:
When in Canvas, at the bottom-left corner of the screen you will see a round icon with a question mark. Click this question mark icon for a list of options, including "Search the Canvas Guides", which provides lots of information about how to operate in the Canvas site.
Since you'll be creating web-based maps, you'll need to have space on a web server to publish them. Some of you may have your own personal web site set up already. If so, you can use that. If not, you should apply for space from Penn State (referred to as PASS, short for Penn State Access Account Storage Space). The application form can be found at:
https://www.work.psu.edu/webspace/ [7]
Once you've got your PASS space allocated, there are a few ways to connect to it. Here are two, with the first being the one I recommend most:
You may encounter some PSU web publishing tutorials that recommend you set up a blog. Blogs are preferable to a plain personal web page for most students because blogging software provides page authoring tools that simplify the publishing process. However, for this course you should avoid setting up a blog. You will need to be able to write your own HTML from scratch and the blogging tools will only complicate matters.
As a registered student your role is to read lessons, complete activities and quizzes, produce and submit original project reports, respond to surveys, and complete a final exam on schedule. The schedule of assignment due dates is published in under the Calendar tab in your Canvas section. In addition, you should read and participate in discussions that take place in Canvas discussion forums as well as on particular pages of the course text. Students who contribute to discussions and help other students out are the ones who gain the most from the class experience. The amount of time you invest in your class will vary depending on the number of academic credits you will earn. At Penn State, one academic credit is equivalent to approximately 40 hours of student activity. Thus, a student in a 3-credit, 15-week class should plan to invest about eight hours of study each week. Although there are weekly assignment deadlines, you are typically free to study at places and times that are most convenient to you.
Instructors may include a lead instructor and one or more teaching assistants. Lead instructors follow all course communications, including course mail and discussion forums in Canvas and comments posted to pages of the course text. Lead instructors reply to most, within 24 hours. Some questions are purposefully left for responses by fellow students. Also, instructor responses may be delayed during announced absences). They correct and revise courseware as needed. They assess student attitudes at the beginning, middle, and outset of the course, and share interpretations of those assessments with students. Most important, lead instructors oversee teaching assistants' evaluation of student work, check and upload project scores to the Canvas grade book, calculate final course grades, and submit grades to the University registrar.
Assistant instructors evaluate student project reports. They prepare detailed critiques and itemized scores in response to every individual report. Assistant instructors may also propose revisions to the scoring rubrics which guide evaluation of each project assignment.
Others are involved as well, depending on whether you are registered through the World Campus or some other Penn State campus. World Campus students can get technical support from the Outreach Help Desk and other assistant from World Campus Adult Learner Enrollment Services. Students registered at University Park and other Penn State campus locations can get Canvas-related technical support from the Canvas Help Desk. Links to these helpful services are available to registered students via links in your Canvas sections.
Meaningful interactions among students and instructors are the hallmark of an successful online class. Canvas supports several kinds of communication, as described below.
In addition, registered students have a Penn State e-mail account (<Access Account ID>@psu.edu) that they need to monitor for any official communications that come from the University or from the Penn State World Campus.
The Canvas course management system supports several modes of communication, including discussion forums and course mail.
Whenever you post a message in a forum or send course mail, please title every message with a descriptive subject line. Subject lines that include the gist of a question or comment increase the chances that students and instructors can retrieve the messages we're looking for. Poor subject lines, such as "Question" or "Lesson 1," are not very useful as search keywords. When replying to a prior message, consider whether or not the subject line should be altered to indicate the content of your reply!
Occasionally the University or the World Campus needs to communicate with students. To do so they use the @psu.edu e-mail address that each registered student has, not Canvas course e-mail.
In addition a letter, in PDF format, that reports your final course grade will be automatically generated and sent to your @psu.edu e-mail address.
So, it is important that you regularly monitor your @psu.edu e-mail account.
There are many ways to get the help you need. See the "Help!" link in the Resources menu (left) to learn more about the people and resources available to you.
How do you define and achieve success in an online course like the ones that use this text? It depends on your goals and perspective. A 19-year-old undergraduate student who registers for an online course in the hope of earning an easy “A” is unlikely to be successful, no matter how adept he or she may be with information technology. However, Palloff and Pratt observe that “in general, distance education has been applied to and seen as most successful in the arena of adult and continuing education” (Palloff and Pratt 2001, p. 109).
“Much of the research done on successful students in distance education programs suggests that students who are attracted to this form of education share certain characteristics, including that they are voluntarily seeking further education, are motivated, have higher expectations, and are more self-disciplined. They tend to be older than the average student and to have a more serious attitude toward their courses, education, and learning. They are what most would consider to be nontraditional students.” (Palloff and Pratt 2001, p. 109)
This is not to say that younger students can’t succeed in online classes. Indeed, “most [undergraduate] students today are older, are working, and need more flexible schedules” (Palloff and Pratt 2001, p. 109). The question is, assuming that a student is motivated to get the most out of an online class, and that the class is well-designed and led by attentive instructors, whose attitudes and behaviors increase the student’s chance of having a satisfactory experience.
Swan and colleagues (2000) surveyed approximately 3,800 students enrolled in 264 online courses through the SUNY Learning Network. Of the 1,406 responses received, the researchers analyzed data associated with 73 courses for which there was a 40 percent response rate or greater. Among their findings were statistically significant correlations between student satisfaction and (a) perceived learning gains (b) interaction with instructors and (c) interaction with fellow students. Additionally, respondents who rated their own level of activity in online classes as high also tended to report higher levels of satisfaction.
Research results like these, along with lessons learned in our more than ten years of experience in distance learning, leads us recommend the following three study habits that will maximize your chances for success in your online class:
Bransford, J. D. et. al. (Eds.) (2000) How People Learn: Brain, Mind, and Experience. Washington, DC: National Research Council.
Chickering, A. W., and Gamson, Z. F. (1987) Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education. AAHE Bulletin, 39(7) 3-7.
Gibbs, G. (1999) Planning Your Students’ Learning Activities. In McKeachie, W.J. (Ed.) McKeachie’s Teaching Tips, 10th Ed. pp. 20-33. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Palloff, R. M. and Pratt, K. (2001) Lessons from the Cyberspace Classroom: The Realities of Online Teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Swan, K. et al. (2000) Course Design Factors Influencing the Success of Online Learning. Proceedings, WebNet 2000 World Conference on the WWW and Internet. San Antonio TX, October 30-November 4.
This course orientation is meant to prepare registered Penn State students for success in this online environment. It should also be informative for prospective students considering future enrollment at Penn State (or in online programs offered by other institutions, for that matter).
The Orientation described the two learning environments we use to deliver our online courses--the content management system called "Drupal" in which we present this material, and the password-protected course management system called "Canvas" in which registered students submit their assignments and receive feedback from instructors.
The Orientation also outlined roles and responsibilities of students, instructors, and other groups involved in providing this outreach service, and described the assignments that registered students complete to earn academic credit. The lesson described the various modes of communication among registered students and instructors, and recommended three study habits that will maximize students' chances of having a satisfying educational experience.
Registered students should now review the Orientation checklist to make sure that they have completed all assigned tasks.
Click the Lessons link in the menu.
Links
[1] http://psu.instructure.com
[2] http://gis.e-education.psu.edu
[3] http://drupal.org/
[4] http://open.ems.psu.edu
[5] https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-2036
[6] https://www.work.psu.edu/
[7] https://www.work.psu.edu/webspace/
[8] http://kb.its.psu.edu/article/891
[9] https://downloads.its.psu.edu/download.cgi?os_type=Windows&prod=ssh
[10] https://explorer.pass.psu.edu/
[11] https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-4121#jive_content_id_Discussions
[12] https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-4121#jive_content_id_Conversations
[13] http://www.psu.edu/dept/itscss/internet/email.html