Hello students, My name is Joe Escobar and I am your instructor for HST195 - History of Vietnam War, an online class at Lane Community College. You are receiving this email because you have registered for the course and you have wisely included your email address in your ExpressLane account information (which was transferred to Moodle). In just seven days from today, we will start Spring Term and begin our course. I wanted to contact you before the term started with some information relevant to this particular course. Top 5 things you should know before taking this online class. #1 This is not an "independent study" type of course. You will not "work at your own pace" but instead be held accountable to weekly deadlines. You will be expected to login to the class website multiple times each week. In addition, you may not "work ahead" and attempt to finish the course material ahead of schedule or in less than the 10 week duration of the term. #2 No late work will be accepted in this class. You will have regular deadlines each week, given well in advance. It is imperative that you complete and submit your work by each deadline. #3 Your midterm and final exams must be taken in a secured testing lab on LCC's Main Campus. This means you will need to come to campus at least two days during the term. (For those of you living outside of the Willamette Valley area, you will be required to make special arrangements for a testing proctor. See the LCC Distance Learning website for more details.) #4 One of your "textbooks" for this course is a video series that you must watch. If you do not purchase the DVDs, you may watch the videos in the LCC library. There are also 30 DVD sets and 20 VHS sets that may be checked out by students on a first-come, first-served basis. #5 You will also be be responsible for viewing several more hours of web-based video; therefore, you must also be able to watch video on your computer over your internet connection. You'll find much more information by reading the class information website. I highly recommend that you do. I have provided some technical tasks, such as downloading and reading a pdf file and viewing a web video clip. If you cannot successfully accomplish these tasks, then you should drop the class. ************************************************************** Please read my "open letter" to students located here: http://media.lanecc.edu/users/escobarj/lcc/HST_195.html ************************************************************** WRITING ONLINE Please pay particular attention to the part about my expectations about your writing ability for this class. Since none of the class assignments will require that you create a video or deliver a speech, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of your ability to write clearly and effectively. If you have concerns about this class requirement, please consider dropping the class. In addition, since most students know how to copy and paste text on a computer, it is of little concern to me which word processor you use. It is very important that your word processor has spelling and grammar checking, especially if you need some assistance in this area. It is even more important that you re-read your work, since spelling and grammar checkers cannot be 100% accurate, especially when dealing with homonyms and the uncommon names of historical people and places. Assignments and forum posts with spelling mistakes, typos, and poor grammar reveal a number of things about a student. First, it illustrates that the student does not bother to take the time to spell check and re-read what they have written. That is simply a very poor way to do your work in any online class, but especially this one. No assignment in this class requires your instant, unfiltered, spontaneous, and unanalyzed input. Second, in 20+ years of teaching history, I have never read a compelling, well-supported, and analytical paper by any student who wrote with poor spelling, poor grammar, poor sentence structure, and poor organization. It just does not work that way. Third, and finally, OTHER students in the class, when they read the work of a peer which is filled with flaws, lack of punctuation, run-on sentences, all-lower-case-cell-phone-texting-type writing, or texting abbreviations (CUl8tr, omg, lol, etc.), they know that the student is usually guilty of some last minute cramming to make the deadline. Worse, but understandably, they will associate that person (who is just another "online class name" to them) as a poor student and may avoid interactions with them in future course activities. This is especially detrimental when participating in both groupwork and online forums, which you will be required to do in this class. TECHNOLOGY REQUIREMENTS I included two URLs in my "open letter" to you. One linked to a short video clip I put online, and the other was to a PDF file which you should be able to download/view and read. It is very important that you successfully access these now. If there are any problems, figure them out on your own, update your Quicktime plugin and/or web browser software, contact the LCC student help desk at SHeD@lanecc.edu, use a friend's computer or one in an LCC computer lab, or drop the class. All technical issues you may have should be solved now, before the term begins. Technical issues, beyond the LCC Moodle server going down, will not be valid excuses for failing to meet class deadlines and complete class assignments. EXPECTED WORKLOAD Most students know that a 12 credit class load is equivalent to full time. But it is NOT full time just because a student is in the classroom for those 12 hours. Each hour in class requires 2 to 3 hours of homework and studying OUTSIDE of the classroom. THAT is where "full time" comes from. A 12 credit class load will require 36-48 hours of your time, both in and outside of the classroom. A 40 hour work week is considered a full time job. The same goes for a 12 credit college workload. These hourly requirements are no different for online courses. So, theoretically, my 4 credit class will require 12 to 16 hours of your time each week. If you are not willing to dedicated the time necessary to be successful in this class, then you should strongly consider dropping the class. I would much rather you realize this expectation now, save your tuition money and/or find another class, rather than to complain about it at the end of the term when it comes time to evaluate the course. THE TEXTBOOK & READING Finally, I wanted to let you know about the course textbooks. The LCC Bookstore has the textbooks (I'm not sure what they are charging for them this term). I've seen better pricing at Amazon.com or Abebooks.com. I've also seen these books locally as Smith Family Bookstore. I was a slower reader when I attended college, so I appreciated any advanced notice the instructors could give me. In that same tradition, I offer you this information. We are starting both books from the very beginning. Getting a start on chapter/part 1 in each book will be beneficial. MOODLE & SYLLABUS Finally, I have just made the Moodle class accessible to all registered students and have made the syllabus visible as well. Feel free to login now and take a look. Well, that's all of the news I have for you now. I look forward to meeting you online and working with you during the term. Until then, Joe Escobar History Instructor Lane Community College P.S. Feel free to contact me with questions before the term begins, but I ask that you use Moodle messaging (INSTEAD OF EMAIL) to do so. Often, student emails get "caught" in LCC's spam filter. I don't get the messages and can incorrectly be perceived as being unresponsive to students. Moodle messages ALWAYS get to me, and I respond very quickly. If you've never sent a Moodle message, watch the help video on the Moodle class website.