Course Orientation
Readings
Instructor notes
Learning activities
Web resources
Readings
During this orientation week, you should read and familiarize yourself with the following course materials:
- the course syllabus (make particular note of the policy section)
- the course assignments page, noting particularly those units that will work best for the scheduling of group work.
Note: There is no text assignment for the Pre-Unit. However, by Wednesday 9/4/02 you should have completed the reading assignment for Unit 1.
Instructor notes
Your job for the first week of the class is to familiarize yourself with the course, with oncourse, the instructor, and other members of the course. Note any questions you have, or things that seem confusing. You can ask me about these next time we meet in class.
Learning activities
Since we are going to be using oncourse to turn in weekly products and to facilitate some class discussion, you will need to visit oncourse and set up your profile this week. You should also take time to introduce yourself to your colleagues (because a little bit in class is never enough) and list the expectations you have for this course. All of this will help the course run smoother because I can tailor the learning environment/discussions to your needs and ideas best.
0.1: Student profiles
Update your student profile in Oncourse. To do this, follow these steps:
- Go to http://oncourse.iu.edu
- Login with your IU username and ADS domain password.
- You should now see the user profile page.
- Click on create/edit contact information.
- Enter the requested information.
- In the "other information" text box, of special interest is where you live, what your work and education experiences are, unique things about you, and why you are taking this course.
- Please post a photo to Oncourse as well. You must do this by providing a URL that points to a photo that you have uploaded on a Web server somewhere. Oncourse provides 100MB of storage space for your private use. No one can access the files in your Oncourse "File Manager" unless you give them the URL of a particular document.
To upload your picture go to "MyProfile" in Oncourse.
Then under "My Tools" choose "My File Manager".
To upload the file, pull down the menu and choose "upload".
Browse for the file on your hard drive or A drive.
Once you've found it, choose "upload now".
When the upload is complete, the computer will give you a URL for the picture.
Go back to your profile and add the picture URL in the appropriate empty box - and there you are! If you experience problems, let us know and we can help.0.2: Introduce Yourself
This week we will spend some time in the discussion forum getting to know each other and getting comfortable with the Oncourse environment.
In the "Class Orientation: Eight Nouns" discussion forum in Oncourse, introduce yourself to the class by choosing 8 nouns that describe you. Explain why you chose each noun. Comment on one or two of your colleague's nouns.
0.3: Course Expectations
In the "Class Orientation: Expectations" discussion forum in Oncourse, post two or three expectations that you have for this course. Think about what you hope to gain from your experience over the next semester.
Web resources
There are no particular Web resources for this Pre-Unit, but you may want to look through the Web Resources page to get an idea of what is there. If you know of other good links to add, please let me know.
Comments: joalexan@indiana.edu
