at your service

This afternoon we will deliver the first of four workshops regarding teaching online at SU. These are extremely introductory sessions -- more of a gradual easing into something new than a hands-on design and development engagement.

We're excited about these workshops because they seem to be filling a need on campus that is only recently being exposed. For a very very long time, SU has not had much of a desire (or concern) to fully explore opportunities for more robust and extensive online course offerings. However, with budgets being what they are, deans and decisions makers here are finally starting to realize what thousands of colleges and universities understood 10 years ago: online courses do not take students out of classrooms. Rather, online courses (especially lower-division / high-demand courses) simply give you more students in those additional sections each semester.

Our service -- UC's Online Program service -- is now open to all faculty interested in putting an existing F2F course or a new course online. That's where our little intro workshops come in. We want to facilitate a complex endeavor to improve the chances of success -- for faculty and students.

Much more to come.