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  • 1.  Question on Best Way to Facilitate Communications between International Classes

    Posted 03-06-2008 14:18
    Hi All.

    I need help solving a problem. I am teaching two graduate-level courses in
    creativity and innovation concurrently, one in the US and one in Adelaide,
    Australia. The one in the US is in standard mode, 3 hours per week over
    15 weeks. The one in Australia is in executive mode - two full days in
    March (during spring break) and two full days in May (after classes end in
    California). I want to connect the two courses, for joint assignments and
    interaction. I can use google groups, zoho, skype groups, moodle (an open
    source blackboard system), Utterz or any other platform that makes sense.

    Here's what I would like to do and I don't know the best way to do it.

    1. I would like the capability to do synchronous and asynchronous
    communication. Adelaide is 16-1/2 hours ahead of California.

    2. I want to set up dyads of students, one here, one in Australia where
    they can have conversations and I can monitor it on an occasional basis.
    The conversation would be closed to everyone else.

    3. I want to be able to have everyone contribute to a forum or a wiki on
    occasion and to have everyone else have the capability to see what others
    are saying and to contribute.

    4. I want to be able to periodically form new groups, say, one-third of
    the class(es) in one group, another in a second group, and a third in a
    third group.

    Does anyone have any suggestions of a good way of doing this? I
    appreciate your help and will send the best solution to people who email
    me.

    Thanks,

    Fredric

    =================================================
    See the invisible, capture the intangible, do the impossible
    =================================================

    Fredric Kropp, PhD
    Associate Professor of Marketing and Entrepreneurship
    Fisher Graduate School of International Business
    Monterey Institute of International Studies
    460 Pierce Street
    Monterey, CA 93940 USA

    TEL (831) 647-6684 FAX (831) 647-6506
    E-MAIL fredric.kropp@miis.edu

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  • 2.  Question on Best Way to Facilitate Communications between International Classes

    Posted 03-07-2008 10:34

    Fredric,

    I passed your inquiry over to one of my colleagues here at UMUC , Stella Porto - she ' s quite agile about handling these kinds of situations in her classes.   I consider her to be an extremely knowledgeable and helpful resource.   See her response below.  Hope you find this helpful.

    On the matter of the course topics you teach, I have a direct and keen interest.  I ' ve taught a few courses on Innovation in Business (at the undergraduate and graduate level) , and a significant portion is devoted to understanding individual and group creativity .  Would you be willing to exchange syllabi and course resource information with me on those topics?  I ' d sure appreciate it.

    Sincerely,

    Tom Mierzwa

    Dr. Thomas J. Mierzwa

    Professor and Program Director

    Doctor of Management Program

    Graduate School of Management & Technology 

    University of Maryland University College

    3501 University Boulevard East

    Adelphi, MD  20783-8030

    301-985-7372

    tmierzwa@umuc.edu

    and ... .

    Adjunct Faculty in S trategy & Entrepreneurship

    Robert H. Smith School of Business

    University of Maryland

    tmierzwa@rhsmith.umd.edu

    _________________________________________________________

    Tom -

    Here are my suggestions of the best ways to deal with what he wants. Share this in the best way you think you should.

    1. I would like the capability to do synchronous and asynchronous
    communication. Adelaide is 16-1/2 hours ahead of California.

     Many of the social networkings have chat capabilities. Thus, one can create groups using Ning, Facebook, Google groups, etc. If you need audio synchronous exchange Skype is a great option. You can have a group of around 9 people at the same time. All of this is for free. Skype also allows chat instead of audio.

    Looking at your other requirements, for example having subgroups, you could possibly instead of using social networking environments, plan on using Rcampus.com They have a classroom environment and allows groups to be created.

    2. I want to set up dyads of students, one here, one in Australia where
    they can have conversations and I can monitor it on an occasional basis.
    The conversation would be closed to everyone else.

     It seems you want subgroups. You could either ask them to post their conversations through skype for you, or having a discussion forum that you could visit. Social networking groups, usually don't have the capacity of creating subgroups. You would have to create other groups. Rcampus.com that I mentioned before would give you all of it.

    3. I want to be able to have everyone contribute to a forum or a wiki on
    occasion and to have everyone else have the capability to see what others
    are saying and to contribute.

     Forums are very different from wikis. You can builld a wiki using several different engines, such as wikispaces.com or wetpaint.com. The forum exists within the social networking groups I mentioned. However, wetpaint besides the wiki capacity has a forum, so you might want to consider that. There is no subgroups like you requested in 2.

    4. I want to be able to periodically form new groups, say, one-third of
    the class(es) in one group, another in a second group, and a third in a
    third group.
    Again you're talking about subgroups within a group. I know of Rcampus.com. Social networking groups can be easily created and deleted, so you could work with that as well.

    Here is the wiki my group has been working on and has some information about other web 2.0 technologies:     http://mdewiki.wetpaint.com

    Hope this helps. Please feel free to contact me in case you have further questions.

    Best,
    --Stella.

    --
    Stella C.S. Porto , D.Sc.
     http://mdeblog.blogspot.com/ - http://sporto.wordpress.com
    Master of Distance Education, Director
    Graduate School of Management & Technology
    University of Maryland University College
    Tel: 301-985-4616 (school) / 678-277-9339 (home-office)
    Fax: 301-985-4611 (school)
    Visit us at     http://www.umuc.edu/
    --------------
    MDE Student Lounge:
     http://groups.google.com/group/MDE-lounge
    Faculty forum:
     http://groups.google.com/group/MDE-faculty

    ************************************** This message is from ENTREP which is sponsored by the Entrepreneurship Division of the Academy of Management. Please do not post messages with attached files. Commercial messages or spammed messages are not allowed on the list. The use of auto-responder "out-of-office" messages may also lead to your removal from the list. You can manage your subscription options, including joining or leaving the list here: http://aomlists.pace.edu/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=entrep&A=1 If you have questions or need help, please contact Dr. John Bunch jbunch@benedictine.edu. Ventures HO!