Category Archives: elearning

MOOCs and Other Four-Legged Chickens

Posted on February 8, 2013 by geoffcain

I have just moved to Humboldt State University. The college is fairly rural but we get a lot of folks from urban areas. I over heard a very interesting conversation between some students in the cafeteria.  One of them was … Continue reading →

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MOOCs: Why Do We Need Instructional Design?

Posted on January 16, 2013 by geoffcain

Note: The following is an extended abstract for a paper. I was in the process of sending this out to journals when I realized that this needs to be an open document. I have always found the publishing process in … Continue reading →

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Effective Online Teaching Techniques

Posted on October 25, 2012 by geoffcain

These are the slides and some resources from my workshop on “Effective Online Teaching Techniques.” It relies heavily on Chickering and Gamson because I like to emphasize that the same principles that make face-to-face teaching effective are the same principles … Continue reading →

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Closing Open Ed with State Authorization Rules

Posted on October 18, 2012 by geoffcain

State seal of Minnesota (Wikipedia) The Chronicle of Higher Ed reported on Minnestota’s state authorization rules for distance ed that we in the California Community College’s Distance Education Coordinator’s group have been wrestling with as well. The state of Minnesota … Continue reading →

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Rubrics for Discussion Posts

Posted on August 30, 2012 by geoffcain

Hierarchy of Instructional Design (Photo: jrhode) I gave a presentation today on discussion forums. I know that LMSs are old-fashioned now in the post web 2.0 social media world, but my goal as an instructional designer is to at least … Continue reading →

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15 Time-Saving Tips for Teaching Online

Posted on July 12, 2012 by geoffcain

Online learning saves time for students. Students in online courses have 24/7 access to their course materials, other students, and their instructor. For working students, this is an incredible benefit. But we often hear that online learning takes a lot … Continue reading →

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DE 101: Preparing Students for Online Learning

Posted on June 19, 2012 by geoffcain

On June 15th, 2012, my associate Barry Tucker and I presented at the Online Teaching Conference 2012 in San Jose, CA. We presented on DE 101, our live, free, fully online, two-week orientation for students here at College of the … Continue reading →

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Mobile Learning by Default

Posted on March 31, 2012 by geoffcain

Motorola MILESTONE smartphone displaying Wikipedia home page (Photo credit: Wikipedia)When I first started reading about mobile learning platforms, there was a lot of talk about special content management systems or learning management systems that would enable mobile learning (or “mlearning”). … Continue reading →

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Six Factors Driving Online Enrollments

Posted on October 14, 2011 by geoffcain

Image by proper dave via FlickrThis was the article that I wrote for the Times-Standard‘s Tech Beat: Many students are taking online classes at College of the Redwoods and Humboldt State University. Even though online learning is called “distance learning,” … Continue reading →

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Tegrity: The future of distance learning is just learning.

Posted on May 18, 2011 by geoffcain

Image via WikipediaI was asked recently about the future of distance learning. Because of my experiences here at College of the Redwoods, I thought immediately of Lenin’s analysis of Marx’s stateless communism: the “withering away of the state.” That is … Continue reading →

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