We had a relatively productive DL meeting yesterday and are happy that Dr. Depoo, the new Director of Business, has joined our committee! He's proactively moving forward on implementing DL courses in the business program as early as this fall. We look forward to his collaborations on helping usher in a new era at MCNY.

Now that we are in the 5th week of classes and "On the DL with Dr. Sally" continues to develop, today I have decided to 1) revamp the syllabus for Communicating Across Cultures to make it more "DL friendly" and 2) research effective first day assignments for DL courses. The literature advises that immediately establishing rapport and class dynamics is important but I imagine some techniques are more effective than others. Off to the endless vacuum... I mean resource... know as the World Wide Web.

Here's a good resource, "Best Practices for Online Classes," that includes tips for getting started the first day of class:
http://www.brazosport.edu/sites/CurrentStudents/DistanceLearning/DL/For%20Teachers/Best%20Practices%20for%20Online%20Classes.pdf

And more Best Practices:
http://lpc1.clpccd.cc.ca.us/lpc/blackboard/best_practices/

Establishing "Netiquette" is key. Part II, Netiquette Basics, is a good place to start:
http://www.albion.com/netiquette/book/index.html

And with every search the list of resources grows...
Austin Community College has a DL program with some incredible resources for teachers:
http://dl.austincc.edu/faculty/

Wimba is a Voice Communication Tool that is compatable with Blackboard to add audio to your courses:
http://dl.austincc.edu/wimba/learnMore.htm

Next is to go through my syllabus and start developing online content!