The E-Learning Design Award for exceptional content-rich and innovative online courses As part of the conference program, The Center for Research on Learning and the E-Learning Design Lab at the University of Kansas will present four awards to recognize outstanding contributions to learning using online technology. This recognition, entitled the E-Learning Design Award, celebrates and illustrates innovative approaches to teaching using online technology. Nominations were invited from faculty and teams of faculty and staff who have made outstanding contributions in courseware development in the last two years. The courses had to be fully online, content rich, self-directed, and feature active, self-paced learning and interactive communication. The course had to be taught at least once Four honorees will demonstrate their award-winning work this week as part of the 2nd Annual Online Instruction Conference. They are: DoHistory.org DoHistory.org, an ambitious new website for historians, teachers, medical professionals, and lay people interested in history and America's past, was just launched by the Harvard Film Study Center on February 4th. It has been used at the University of Maine in a course entitled "A Midwife's Tale and the Social Web" as well as at other universities and high schools nationwide. The site is an experimental, interactive case study that allows its users to experience the process of piecing together the life and world of an "ordinary" person in the past. At the site, users get to try to piece together the world of 18th century midwife and healer Martha Ballard, whose remarkable diary was the basis for the Pulitzer Prize winning book and the PBS film A Midwife's Tale (shown on The American Experience). The DoHistory website takes its users into the process of doing history, and also provides them with a practical set of printable guides to help them launch history projects of their own. English III: American Literature On-Line (Josh Anderson) The English III course is offered in both synchronous and asynchronous formats on the Basehor-Linwood District Website. The English III: American Literature On-Line course is available as an open site for all students in USD 458 courses. Students and parents have complete access to all course materials used within the classroom. Each day, students have at-home and in-school access to all course materials necessary to excel academically. For classroom students, these resources are supplemental (no more assignments and books left at school!). For Virtual Charter School and Distance Learning students, the comprehensive nature of on-line course materials has proven valuable. More recently, the internet has provided a necessary link between parents and teacher, for example, parents receive an email a few days before major projects or tests. OLMA The On-Line M.A. In Political Science The On-Line Masters of Arts in Political Science is identical in course content, requirement, and workload to the widely respected and high-quality residential MA degree program that has been offered in Blacksburg since 1969. The faculty are among the nation's most professionally active political scientists, who are well-known for their research publications, editorial board service, research grants, and classroom teaching. Through the capabilities of VTOnline, NET.WORK.VIRGINIA, and the Internet, the Department of Political Science now can offer its M.A. degree program, which features a broad array of methodologically sophisticated, theoretically grounded, and empirically oriented graduate courses, to new audiences in the Commonwealth, across the nation, and anywhere in the world. The requirements for the M.A. degree can be accessed at the scheduling page. Students have been able to conduct their studies on-line since fall 1997. The scheduling of current and future courses can be reviewed at the VTOnline site. The OLMA audience, unlike many distance education efforts, is truly international, and thus we have to design our material with this in mind. Currently enrolled students are from Bosnia, Albania, Japan, South Korea, Germany and Abu Dhabi, as well as a great number from across the United States. The majority of those students are in Virginia, but several areas of the country are represented. Health Care Issues and Professional Nursing Practice Jo Ellen Greischar-Billiard MS, RN Kansas University School of Nursing 'Health Care Issues and Professional Nursing Practice' is a two credit senior course required for RN students at the School of Nursing. This seminar course has been fully on-line for two years. The material is divided into four units where the students participate in active learning assignments for topics such as 'Practice Issues in the Workplace' and 'Influencing the Political Process.' There are multiple topics under each unit, each with their own content and active learning tasks. Students connect to web sites that have been evaluated for variety and quality related to the content. They address issues on-line that are reviewed by the other students in the course, thus providing learning for all. Self-directed and self-paced learning is stressed, as students navigate through these sessions. Interactive communication occurs through use of the Web-board. Students are required to submit weekly entries on current health care issues that they identify in the media or on the web. They describe the issue, list the source and take a stand. Classmates are expected to respond to each other's entries. One final project is required which can be either a PowerPoint presentation, development of a web page, or a traditional paper including graphics, all of which must be submitted by e-mail. Over three years new topics have been added reflecting health care concerns that these RN students must address in everyday practice. Honorable Mentions: Joseph Walwik Blue River College in Kansas City Using an Online History Text in a Regular (Unwired) History Classroom Setting http://www.digitlearn.com Dr Ingrid Day; Mel Muchnik Communication and the Media (Assessment component) University of South Australia; Governors State University (Chicago); Singapore http://www.com.unisa.edu.au/cmmediaforum/ Robert Holt Jazz History and Appreciation University of Wisconsin http://128.104.226.160/uwc/music273 Dr. James Brey, Dr. Ira Geer, Dr. Robert Weinbeck, Dr. Joe Moran, Dr. Ed Hopkins, and Mr. Bernard Blair Introduction to Meteorology (MLG 100) University of Wisconsin Colleges Online Program http://www.uwm.edu/wcb.uwc/schools/UWFV/38/jbrey/4 Dr. Lucinda Hart-González and UMUC team SPAN 101, 102, 201 Elementary Spanish I,II, Intermediate Spanish SPAN101 Spr'98, SPAN102 Su'98, SPAN 201 Sp'99 University of Maryland University College (UMUC) Site currently not available Robert Kendall Hypertext Poetry and Fiction New School University http://wordcircuits.com/kendall/htclass-1.htm David Martin KU School of Nursing http://www2.kumc.edu/instruction/nursing/nurs455 Ryan J. Burns Methods of Building Online Education Communities Public Speaking http://www.ou.edu/deptcomm/2613 Issues in Adult and Higher Education Decision Making http://webct.cas.ou.edu/public/edah5123/index.html Seminar in Nonverbal Behavior http://webct.cas.ou.edu/public/hr5162220/index.html Steven C. Williams Latin America in the 19th Century: The Popular Response to Problems of National and Economic Development UCLA http://toro2.csudh.edu/courses/latam99-2000wi/ Dr. Joel A. English English 327W: Advanced Composition Old Dominion University http://courses.lib.odu.edu/engl/jaenglis/327 Dr. Rick Halpern and Mr. Frank Deserino "History of the United States, 1877-1972" University College London, UK http://www.ucl.ac.uk/history/courses/usa2/ Thomas D. Bacig Romanticism and Revolution University of Minnesota http://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/tbacig/hmcl1007/ Dennis O'Neil, Ph.D. Physical Anthropology Palomar College, San Marcos, CA http://daphne.palomar.edu/anthro100/ Jeffrey G. Hoham, Peg Trumble and Kevin Fussleman Lincoln East High School http://www.Fozzee.net/~hoham/ Akram F. Khater World in the Twentieth Century North Carolina State University http://www2.chass.ncsu.edu/khater Rob van Kranenburg Hyperlectures in Cultural Studies University of Ghent/Amsterdam http://simsim.rug.ac.be/schole/story.html Kathleen Jones History 1116: U.S. since 1865 Virginia Tech http;//www.majbill.vt.edu/history/jones/prive_1116 John McClymer HIS 213: Women In The American Experience Assumption College, MA http://www.assumption.edu/HTML/Academic/history/Hi113net/Hi113Syllabus.html