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Introduction

Greetings and Welcome to RECR 200!

This is a broad overview of this course. An additional section will detail the course syllabus, assignments, and modules. My name is Jennifer Livengood and I am your instructor for this course. I have a PhD in Recreation Sport and Tourism from the University of Illinois and I was an assistant professor in recreation at Chicago State University and University of Nevada, Las Vegas. I made a career change to instructional design in 2011 and am now an instructional designer at Harvard Medical School.

I have been teaching online since 2006 and have taught a variety of online, flipped, and face-to-face course over the past 10 years. In my current role, I help the faculty at Harvard Medical School put medical training courses online. I am also a web developer for fun and also to help non-profits and friends with getting started with building webpages. I recently updated my web portfolio, which details my recent projects.  

This course is 100% online and we will not meet at any specific time or place, unless we make specific arrangements to meet. I live in Boston and will not be traveling to Shepherd University so our interactions will only be online. You will have many assignments due on specific dates listed in your course syllabus or on our course web page. An online course is a lot of work, and some find it more challenging than a face-to-face course because you do not have a regular meeting time. You are more in charge of your progress through this course and have to maintain a high level of scheduling discipline to be successful in online courses. If you do not feel up to this challenge, you might want to take the face-to-face version of this class or take it another semester. I hope you are up for the challenge and look forward to working with you this semester.

 

This course is organized by weeks. Each Monday you will check in to get the readings, videos, module information, links, assignments, and other course requirements. With the exception of a few assignments, you will be submitting your assignments on Sundays. If you do not want to submit your assignments on the weekends, you are always welcome to submit your work earlier.

This week is an introductory week and there is a graded assignment with two parts due at the beginning of Week 2 (September 5). I am giving everyone an extra few days to become familiar with the course before the first requirement is due; however, future assignments will be introduced on Monday and then be due on the following Sunday.

The first part of the first assignment is to get a Google account. You will sign up for email and send me your google email over Sakai. Please do not email me any assignments in this course. The reason behind this is because messages tend to get lost in my email and your submission would most definitely get lost, accidentally deleted, or sent to my spam folder. We will be using Google and Google apps heavily this semester and you will need to have an account established to complete upcoming assignments. You will also need a Sakai email to receive course announcements. If you do not have an email account, there is a help link on the course web page to get you started.

The second part of the first assignment is a technology survey for me to learn more about you and your level of technological expertise. Do not be embarrassed if you do not know the questions or if the terms I mention look foreign. You are in this class to learn technology and do not need to be an expert. If you know the terms and questions asked, then filling out this survey will give me a chance to challenge you to take your skills to the next level. I have worked on computer hardware, software, am a web developer, have written programs, and teach animation and multimedia courses and will always have something up my sleeve to keep you interested! There are two “spaces” for this course you will need to become familiar with and check on a regular basis. The first is the course website at http://jenniferlivengood.com/rectechnology.html the second is the Sakai course page. You will be using Sakai to submit assignments, receive announcements, view your grades, and send and receive messages from me. Everything else is on the website. Your course schedule, syllabus, modules, assignments, and important information is on this site. Bookmark both this website and Sakai because you will be using both regularly.

The next section will be an overview of Sakai and the course web page. I look forward to working with you this semester. If you have questions about this course as you get started, please send me an email at jlivengo@gmail.edu I do have a Shepherd account (jlivengo@shepherd.edu) and check it infrequently so if you want a quicker response, please send me a note at the Gmail address.

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