Welcome to the History of Still Photography online. This is Michelle Pacansky-Brock; I
will be your online instructor this semester. I understand how challenging it is to be an
online student for many reasons. And one of them is because each online instructor does
things a little bit differently. So I've created this brief video tutorial to help you get
oriented to the way I've designed our course and I hope you find it useful.
When you log into our Blackboard course you will always be taken to the announcements
page that looks like this -- this is what you are seeing here. At the top there is a
banner that will likely rotate from time to time.
And then down below you're always going to see the most recent announcement that I've
shared with the class. So every time you log in, it's really important that you check down
below to be sure you haven't missed some important information that I've shared with you.
Now over on the left hand side you're going to see a series of gray rectangles. The top
says "Announcements" and that is our entry point. So you always enter into the Announcements
area.
To move to another area, you just click on it. So I'm going to click on "Check In." And
these are the items that you are required to complete first and foremost. The most critical
item here is the Check In Forum because that has a due date of Tuesday of week one. And
if you do not check in here, you will be dropped from the class so that is critical.
The other activities for the Check In are listed down below.
In the Syllabus are you simply are going to find a link to the PDF syllabus that you can
download and another link to the Syllabus Quiz which is also included in the Check In
area.
The Learning Units area is an area where you where you will be spending a great deal of
your time. Each week, as you get oriented to our class you are going to learn that our
weekly units open up on Tuesday mornings at 6am. So right now we have Unit 1 available
and when a new unit opens on Tuesday morning, you are expected to open it up, review it,
and see what is expected of you. Each learning unit will always include a Unit Overview with
a high level description and your learning objectives. It will include an announcement
from me and this is where you will see a video announcement as well as a link to read the
announcement in text if you prefer or need that.
And then you're going to see two folders at the bottom. Your "Content" area will include
your reading assignments or videos that you are expected to watch for the week. And then
activities is going to include all the details you need to know for the assignments you need
to complete and submit that week. And, in general, these activities will always be due
the following Monday at 11pm.
Below "Learning Units" you'll see a link to our "Ning Studio." I have created a closed
social network, it's a private network for us to interact in. You will each be participating
in Ning and keeping your own, writing your own blog throughout the semester. That's one
of the activities you'll find in our Learning Units are the blog posts that I'll assign
to our class in Ning.
The first week of our class you will need to join Ning. So I'm going to go ahead and
click here to show you what it looks like. I have already become a member so I am taken
straight in. You will need to join before you will actually get into our Ning network.
Once you are in Ning, you can click on the link at the top that says, "My Page." It will
take you to your very own page. And, of course, I'm logged into Ning as myself so it's taking
me to my page. And it's here where you'll see any activity that I've contributed to
the Ning network. And it's also here where I can go in and easily add a blog post if
I wanted to do that. At the top it says, "Share a blog post."
Ok, so I'm going to go back to Blackboard which is in a separate window. If you have
any questions about the class, you can click on the Ask a Question button on the left and
that will take you to the discussion forum. I've set up a few generic discussion forums
at the bottom where you can funnel questions about the class, questions about Ning, or
questions about VoiceThread which is another tool outside of Blackboard you will be using
regularly throughout the class.
The "My Grades" area is where you go to check your grades. If you have any questions bring
them to my attention immediately.
About Michelle is just a little bit about me. It includes my email address and other
contact information.
And then student resources is going to take you to an external link on the MSJC website
where you'll find some helpful resources to help you on track for a successful online
learning experience.
I hope you found that helpful. I wish you a very successful semester and I look forward
to getting to know all of you.