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Educator's Voice

Volume 7, Issue 4
April 12, 2006

eCollege and CiTE recognize excellence in online teaching

Hopefully we got to see many of you at our CiTE conference here in Denver in March, and many of you will have already seen the press release on the awards that were given out during the conference. However, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the Excellence in Online Teaching (eOT) award and to reflect a bit upon online education in general.

I have been a member of eCollege's Academic Services team for nearly eight years now — almost as long as eCollege has been a company! Prior to that, I was an adjunct English Composition instructor at Metro State College, Denver, and at the University of Colorado, Denver. I became familiar with eCollege (then Real Education) when I was, ahem, volunteered to teach one of the first composition classes offered online — the "new and exciting" realm of virtual classes offered by the newly created CU Online. It was touching for me to see CU Online recognized for the 10-year anniversary award.

Truth be known, I didn't even own a computer when this offer was made to me! Therefore, I politely declined. I quickly changed my mind, though, as this was to be my only class assignment for the term. I needed the money, of course, so I decided to give it a whirl and bungle through a term and then get back into the real classroom! In fact, initially, I refused to buy a computer; instead, I utilized the student computer lab and bothered the employees there incessantly. I didn't know how to use e-mail, let alone how to code in this strange, new language called HTML! I did learn, though, and eventually I grew to like the virtual classroom. I taught and evolved the classes for another couple of years, almost completely phasing out my face-to-face teaching assignments.

Then, the platform was much different. I think I could use lecture pages, exams and threaded discussions. There was a grade book, I believe, but I doubt I used it very much. I still have spiral grade books I saved even from my online courses from that time. I do remember thinking, however: what better way for students to learn to be better writers than to have to communicate almost solely through writing! I loved it! And that, of course, paved the way to a satisfying time with eCollege.

Throughout the years, technology, of course, has changed and evolved immensely, and educators are much more computer savvy. And given that computers and online learning are much more commonplace, the advancement in innovation has been tremendous as well. Don't get me wrong — one of our mottos is "good teaching is good teaching," regardless of the environment. There are some fundamental teaching components that don't vary all that much, no matter what the vehicle for delivering instruction/content. The five educators who received this year's awards are, no doubt, phenomenal face-to-face instructors as well as online.

The eOT award was the vision of colleagues, Dr. Ed Ladon and Dr. David Steinberg, as a way to recognize truly innovative instructors in what was then a fairly new environment. Dr. Ladon was one of the first trainers and Instructional Design Consultants at eCollege, and he saw early on that it was important to recognize the pioneers and innovators in the online world. When CiTE was in its infancy, he saw the potential to use it as a vehicle to recognize thought leaders in the online education environment.

This recognition is more critical today than ever before, as I see it, because now that the technology is so robust and can do so much, we chance losing sight of what good teaching truly means and what it means to be a good teacher in the virtual world. We can easily get caught up in the "wow" factor of how technology can be used to present content, with simulations, etc., but without proper context and mentoring/facilitating, these wonderful resources can end up being just that: flash and sizzle with little to no added learning benefit.

The instructors awarded this year (five awards, one up from the previous years) certainly embody all we define as "excellence." That said, we had a very tough time narrowing the field to the five instructors represented. Luckily, there is no shortage of great teachers and true innovators. This year, we also opened the floor to accept nominations from others beyond eCollege employees. One great thing about working here is that, because of the way our partnerships are executed, we get to know many of the teachers and administrators we work with quite well. I have had the great pleasure of working with many incredible teachers over the years. We cannot possibly recognize everyone with a once-a-year award ceremony!

To the winners this year (Jim Vincent, Ruth May, Clark Shah-Nelson, Gretchen Bartelson and Barry McGlumphy): I am a better and more knowledgeable person for having worked with you and having just met some of you for the first time at CiTE. I have learned something from each of you, and so have your students and colleagues, as they will also attest. However, I also want to recognize some other wonderful educators here.

First, Peter Cassidy of Westwood Online. Pete is an incredible instructor and program director. He's a good friend and colleague as well. He worked with our Instructional Design team before moving to Westwood. The attention he shows his students and the mentoring he gives to other faculty is amazing! Also, I'd like to recognize Deborah Silverman of Eastern Michigan University. Deborah also was the very first eOT winner, but she continues to have a great impact on her students' lives and on online education in general. Theresa Ziegler of Iowa CC is also an incredible leader and mentor. Joanna Siebert of Walden University is an innovative thinker, teacher and designer. Our conversations have sparked ideas and excitement on both ends. Finally, Jeff Borden and Dr. Ken Switzer are both members of our Instructional Design team, but they also teach online. I have seen them both in action, and they definitely deserve mention as well.

This still doesn't begin to scratch the surface of all the great teachers out there — those of you who have seen technology as a way to bring education to many more students than ever before in history. You each have my immense respect and this award, in many ways, is to each of you!

       —Errin Klein, M.A.

TIP

Correcting misaligned HTML after the Word conversion process

Have you ever uploaded a Word document using the eCollege course upload tool and come across instances where the images, text, tables, etc., are not properly aligned after the conversion from Word to HTML is completed? This is because the conversion tool can only convert formatting that has an HTML equivalent in the Word background code. The conversion tool uses this background code to reproduce a document for online viewing.

The most common instances of misalignment occur if a document contains tab and margin settings. Tabs and margins do not have HTML equivalents, meaning that there is not an HTML "tag" that will produce the same formatting. The upload tool will be unable to replicate this information correctly since tabs and margins are not referenced within HTML.

To ensure that the uploaded document retains the same formatting as the original Word file, try these processes when creating the Word file:

1. Open a new Word document and create a 1x1 table within it. Copy and paste the text from your original document inside this table. This is one of the most important pieces, as it adds a margin (white space) and visually enhances the look of the overall text within the document.
2. When creating an outline, use the "Bullets and Numbering" feature that is provided within Word under the "Format" drop-down menu. Using this format instead of tabs will cause Word to create background code in the document that can be converted to HTML. The outline will then display accurately after the document is uploaded.
   
          —Theresa Turner