ELI Course | How to Humanize Your Online Course

In our social era, connectedness, sharing, and collaboration are values that are central to most college students' informal learning experiences. Yet in higher education, learning online is usually a very different type of experience. Online courses still rely heavily on text-based discussion forums and lack the rich visual context and warm human interactions that the social web offers. How can online instructors leverage the power of the social web to cultivate an engaging community-based online learning experience? In this class, you will participate in a humanized online learning experience, experiment with new technologies, and share your creations in a safe, trustworthy environment. Your teaching toolkit will be refreshed and your students will feel more connected to you and their peers. NOTE: Participants will be asked to complete assignments in between the course segments that support the learning objectives stated above and will receive feedback and constructive critique from course facilitators on how to improve and shape their work.

Learning Objectives

During this course, participants will:

• Explore literature that links improved social presence with student engagement, satisfaction, and learning
• Consider the impact of voice and video in the development of online relationships
• Examine the role images play in cognitionLearn how to locate and attribute Creative Commons images
• Acquire a "tool buffet" of emerging technologies that will make your online course come alive with visuals and video
• Examine how the concept of humanizing learning supports the needs of more learners through implementing the principles of Universal Design for Learning
• Identify strategies for teaching with social technologies that consider student privacy and motivate reluctant learners
• Critically analyze practical examples of humanizing activities and strategies shared by guest speakers
• Create and share your own unique humanized project with your peers