Syllabus

Course Description

Welcome to Using Internet Communication! I hope that this course will enhance your understanding of the communication technologies available on the Internet, and that it will help you become an effective communicator using internet tools -- effective in your personal and professional lives. The major purpose of this course is to enhance your abilities to find information, organize it and to communicate effectively using information technologies. You will review basic principles about effective communication generically, and participate in the translation of these principles into using digital communication tools in interpersonal, small group, and public presentational settings. You will have opportunities to develop your skills in technological modes befitting these respective settings, document sharing, internet publishing, discussion forums, blogging, electronic meetings, and social networks. Basic web-design principles will be presented, and students will create and publish a personal blog, and work in a virtual team to create a group project. You will create a final research paper that will explore some of the issues raised in the course. This course does not introduce you to the basics of browsing, emailing, downloading files, etc. It assumes you have these skills already, and builds on them.

Course Objectives

• Have an enhanced understanding of how the internet works.
• Know how to search, find and evaluate information on the internet.
• Have enhanced skills in using internet communication tools, including: Threaded discussions, Tools for e-meetings, Collaboration Web publishing tools, Web searching tools, Library searching techniques and Research tools.
• Have made new colleagues using tools of the internet.
• Have enhanced your ability to communicate in general.

Prerequisites

None.

Required Textbook

None.

Other Reading

• Calishain, Tara and Rael Dornfest. Google Hacks. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly 2003. ISBN: 0-596-00447-8 (Paper)
• Moreville, Peter. Ambient Findability Seabastopol, CA: O'Reill,y 2005. ISBN: 0-596-00765-5 (Paper)
• Rheingold, Howard. Smart Mobs. Boulder, CO: Basic Books, 2002. ISBN 0-7382-0861-2 (Paper)

Course Methodology

This class will start each Monday at 9:00 AM. At this time the weekly assignments will become available in the “Course Sessions" folder on the course home page. Plan on logging on to the course web site at the start of each week to read the plan for the week and plan your schedule accordingly. Plan on logging onto this course 3-4 times each week and spending 5 - 6 hours each week on course work.

Communicating with Me

Instead of sending me e-mail with course related questions, please post them in the Q & A folder found on the course home page and in the Discussions section instead. I will respond to any questions posted here. This is the best place to post all non-private questions that pertain to the course since like a classroom other students will benefit from the exchange.

Please call me with any private issues. You can reach me during the day time at 617-287-3998.

If you're local, I'm also available to meet with you on campus in my office. Just call me with a couple of times that would be conveient for use to meet.

If you can't come to campus and can't reach me by phone we could meet in WIMBA. Let me know you'd like to do his by sending me an e-mail to eileen.mcmahon@umb.edu

Horizon Wimba Meeting Dates

Horizon Wimba is synchronous online tool available within BLS/WebCT Vista. Wimba allows the instructor and students to meet in a virtual classroom where you can share applications and talk to each other in real time. An Open Wimba Session can be accessed from the home page for online class sessions and small group meetings.

We will be meeting synchronously four times over the semester in a Horizon-Wimba Live classrooom that you will access from this course. We will never meet as a class in an actual location. Please arrange your schedule so you can participate in at least two of these meetings.

If you are unable to participate you will be able to access an archived recording of the session but will not get credit for attending.

The dates and times of these meetings are as follows:

Sunday, June 8th 7:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Wednesday, June 25 7:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Sunday, July 13th 7:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Wednesday, August 20th, 7:00 PM - 8:00 PM

Academic Integrity

Students should be aware that, at the discretion of the instructor, assignments may be submitted to plagiarism detection software programs for the purpose of detecting possible plagiarism. Students in this course must be prepared to submit an electronic version of any written assignment upon request of the instructor.

Grading

There will be a least one assignment each week and each assignment has a point value. You should plan to spend somewhere between 4- 5 hours each week on assignments for this course. Unless noted otherwise weekly assignments are due by Monday at 9:00 AM. The following grading scale will be use to determine your final grade:

The individual point value for all course assignments are listed below,  I suggest that you refer back to this throughout the course so that you can guage your progress and if necessary take advantage of some extra credit assignments.  There will be opportunities to do extra credit assignments throughout the course. These assignments will be found in two places - the folder for the current week and the extra credit folder.

I will accept some late assignments but will deduct at least one point each time. If you are late with more than 3 assignments I would suggest that you do some extra credit projects if you want to get a good grade.  Some assignmets can not be done after the due date. These include: the Wiki project, your bio, and adding yourself to the course roster.

For 4 weeks of this week course you will be part of a virtual team. The grade you receive on this group project will be heavily dependent on your ability to successfully communicate with your team. You will be required to coordinate your schedule with your team members and participate in at least two synchronous online meetings with them.

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Copyright ©2011 Eileen McMahon, Ed.M