Course Components

This course assumes that you have already thought through addressing the learning principles and standards required by your institution. If necessary, complete that work on your course too.

Introduction
Online courses are uniquely suited to using online resources and links. We'll be using the term link often this week. A link is anything you click on to go to a web page. You have already seen them in email and throughout this course. Links are also called hyperlinks. Sometimes you'll find the term URL too. URL standards for uniform resource locator, but what it really means is the address for a web page. http://www.cnn.com is a URL.

Knowing how to hyperlink Internet resources is imperative for online instruction. In some ways, an online course can be a guided tour through select Internet resources. Consider:

• What resources on the web can you use to enhance your course?
• Where will resources best fit in your course? Will resources be embedded in your instruction or on a separate page?
• Which resources will be required reading? Which will be optional? How will you indicate this to the participants?
• How can participants share resources?

This week we learn how to add links to course materials. Remember the Resources section has instructions and helps you complete this part.

Making Links
First choose one or more of the following experiences:

1. In your syllabus, make a link to a book (Amazon.com etc.), to the instructor's personal website, and to two or three other resources that support the class, then post your syllabus for review by colleagues.
2. OR work on your first unit. Find resources that go with that unit & write it up. Get as far as you can and have time by mid week so you can get feedback. It is fine if the unit isn't done perfectly. Post a draft and tell us what else you want to do with it. Here are a couple examples:
• EDRM605 - Qualitative Research Module 1.2 Note the simplicity of this text. By Shirley Freed, Ph.D.
• Creating WebQuests Module 1 Note the written text around the links. By Janine Lim
3. OR create an additional resources page to provide supplemental links for your students.

Then post your file in the discussion area for feedback.

Library Resources
Then, find out from your library - or from this list of ALICE member libraries how your students will access library resources online. For example, here is Andrews' page for off campus students. (This may take you longer than just this week. It's important that you know how this works for your students, so keep digging until you find out!)

Suggested Timing: Work on Course Components Monday and Tuesday and post your work by Wednesday night each week. Thursday through Sunday we will participate in Community Feedback

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