Online Learning, Las Positas College, October 2018 Volume 1, Number 5
 
Flex Day Edition - Hulk

3 Big Workshops Offered On Flex Day

If you use Canvas--and particularly if you teach or want to teach Distance Education classes--you will want to participate in one or all of the following Flex Day sessions Oct. 23:
  • Making your Canvas Course Site ADA-Compliant, 10-11:50 a.m., Room 2412
  • What to Expect When You Submit Your DE course to the OEI Course Design Academy, 1-2:50 p.m., Room 2410
  • Regular, Substantive Interaction in Online Classes, 3-3:50, Room 2410 

Making your Canvas Course Site ADA-Compliant

Whether you teach an online course, a hybrid course, or simply enhance your face-to-face course with online materials, you are bound by state and federal regulations to make your sites accessible to students with disabilities. This hands-on workshop, led by Instructional Technology Coordinator Scott Vigallon and Instructional Technology Specialist Wanda Butterly, will focus on ADA-compliance within Canvas. You will learn the basics of web accessibility, along with techniques to use in Canvas and techniques to make Word and PowerPoint files accessible. The workshop will follow the Online Education Initiative's Course Design Rubric sections on web accessibility.

                                                     We can do it! Chris Lee as Rosie the Riveter.

What to Expect When You Submit Your DE Course to the OEI Course Design Academy

During the first hour, Counseling faculty member Christina Lee (flexing above) and adjunct CIS instructor Vicky Austin will share their experiences of participating in the OEI's Course Design Academy. They will offer insights to the process, dispel myths of judgment, and provide examples of personalized feedback they received about their courses regarding specific sections of the OEI Course Design Rubric. They will provide examples of what faculty can do to prepare their online courses before they submit them to the OEI Course Design Academy. During the second hour, faculty will have the opportunity to participate in the OEI Course Design Academy informational webinar to see how it can benefit them and students, the steps to the review process, and additional professional development faculty can access as participants.
 

Regular Substantive Interaction in Online Classes

Join adjunct English instructor Kat King to learn best practices for increasing interaction in your online class. Also known as regular effective contact (REC), regular substantive interaction (RSI) is a requirement in distance education classes. REC is part of the state Title 5 guidelines that were just updated to include not only regular instructor-to-student interaction, but also regular student-to-student interaction. RSI is a federal regulation that is used to determine if your course is truly distance education or if it is correspondence education. The latter has negative effects on students' abilities to claim federal financial aid.
 

  Accessibility logo         
Caption Video with 3C Media App

The easiest way to close caption the instructional videos you create is by using the 3C Media Solutions app within Canvas. In fact, you don't have to do any of the captioning; 3C Media does it for you. You just add the app, upload the video, and click a button to request captioning. 3C Media takes 3-5 business days to complete the process. View a tutorial on using the app.                      

If you need one-on-one help with web accessibility, you can make an appointment with LPC's Instructional Technology Specialist Wanda Butterly, aka The Wizard of Accessibility. Known for her Magic Wand(a), she can help you ensure that all of your Canvas materials are accessible to all of your students.

                                                                  Wanda Butterly, the Wizard of Accessibility
 

  Canvas logoLast Day of Attendance

                         
For financial aid and auditing purposes, you should record the last day of attendance for students who drop DE courses. This can be done easily in Canvas. In your course, go to the People page, click on the three dots on the right side for a student, and select User Details. This brings you to the student’s Profile page. Simply enter the date in the box under Last Day Attended. If a student dropped prior to Census, you can't enter the student's LDA into Canvas because that student simply disappears from the course. The best you can do is note the date elsewhere after monitoring your class roster in CLASS-Web.

                  Last day attended textbox

The last day of attendance is not the last day a student logged into your course; it’s the last day a student actively participated in class. Read Federal Title IV and Last Day of Attendance
 

DE Rates on the Rise 

                                                                 rising rates

There were several milestones set for DE during Summer 2018:
  1. It marked the first time in any semester that there was more enrollment in DE courses than face-to-face courses (54% to 46%). The previous high percentage was 49% in Summer 2017.
  2. The retention rate of 89% was the highest ever for any semester at LPC, besting 85% set in three previous summer terms.
  3. The retention rate of 89% was higher than the 88% attained in face-to-face classes. This is the first time ever that the DE retention rate was higher than the corresponding f2f retention rate.
  4. The success rate of 78% was the highest for any semester, obliterating the previous high of 75% set in Summer 2017.
  5. The success rate gap of 1% (79% to 78% in favor of f2f courses) is the closest gap for success rates ever at LPC. The previous best was 5% set in Summer 2017 and Spring 2018.
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