GENERAL ORIENTATION

HISTORY 109 ONLINE 

SUMMARY OF CLASS:  History 109 online consists of the following:

1. Six self-paced online quizzes
2. Six discussion board answers and interaction
3. Two key assignments- take home midterm and take home final and
4. Flexible time and space with this online class.

Here is your orientation to online history. You are being introduced to the content of the class as well as the technology of online learning. This online history approaches history in a topical format. All the topics covered will be found on the syllabus. We generally cover one topic at a time and then move on to another topic. Some topics have subtopics. This is a topical approach to history.

This is my home page and you need to read all the information before you start the class.This online class uses Blackboard as its class management system. .Your text and reader are in digital format on a CD. You need to purchase your class CDs with the serial number for the registration process; go to http://www.nsspress.com; this is an automated registration system. On the text website at National Social Science Press you will find the text chapters with embedded videos, slide shows, and words that link to websites. You will also find a search engine for the entire text along with other supplementary material such as Readings with links. At the reader website you will find the reader essays along with Mini Essays, discussion questions and project topics. There are also webquests found at both text and reader website.

You now need to go to: http://bb.gcccd.net  Blackboard is your online class system. It contains Announcements, Course Information, Staff Information, Course Documents, Assignments, Discussion Board and My Tools with Calendar and My Grades.  Your login name for this system is your first name and last name in lower case with no space and your password is your birthday. Example May 4, 1988 is 050488. Students are automatically placed into this online class before the class begins and add students take up to 24 hours before they appear in the class. If you are not familiar with Blackboard, there are student tutorials at: http://blackboardinfo.newark.rutgers.edu/tutorials.html and http://www.germanna.edu/dl/blackboard/ . There are many other sites that you can Google to learn more about Blackboard through student tutorials.

You begin the class by going to Blackboard and do your login in for the class. You read the announcements information and then go to Course Information where you will find general information on the class, on the assignments, on the instructor expectations for the class, along with class goals. You can visit the Staff information and read about your instructor and then go to Course Documents where you will find lectures and readings for the class. The assignments area contains the six quizzes along with the two key assignments: take home midterm and take home final. There are also extra credit assignments in the assignment area. In Tools the Calendar shows the various dates for quizzes, discussion board assignments, and two key assignments. My Grades is where you find grades for all assignments in the class.

You begin the class by going to Tools and to the Discussion Board where you click on the Introduction Forum and click on the Introduction Thread and put up your introduction. This is how the discussion board works with your clicking on the subject forum and clicking on the forum thread before you put in your posting. You also see the question and answer forum where you can put up any questions about the class and you will get a timely answer.

You are now ready for your introduction on the discussion board and below that introduction thread you also find an area where students can put up questions throughout the class and get answers to those questions.

So to summarize the class: You have six self paced quizzes with ten multiple choice and ten fill in the blank questions from text chapters; each quiz is worth 100 points and you have one hour to take each of these quizzes. The quiz grade is 20% of your final grade. There are six discussion board assignments from lecture and text and readings; these assignments average about 800 words and count for 60% of your final grade. Finally there are two key assignments: take home midterm and take home final based on the digital reader essays and these assignments count for 20% of your final grade. For the grading scale 90-100 is an A, 80-89 is a B, 70-79 is a C, 60-69 is a D, and below D is an F.

The two digital books: text and reader are listed on the course syllabus and are found at the Grossmont College bookstore and at Ross Books on Navajo Road.