Hello, My name is Joe Escobar and I am your instructor for HST209 Civil War Online at Lane Community College. You are receiving this email because you have signed up for the course and you have wisely included your email address in your ExpressLane account information. First, please read my "open letter" to students located here, under the HST209 link: https://teach.lanecc.edu/escobarj 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. Last term, I had a student who wrote poorly (all term long), write this on my end-of-term evaluation. "It felt like you found the way an assignment was written was of more importance then the understanding of information." He (or she) could not be more wrong. Assignments and forum posts with spelling mistakes, typos, and poor grammar reveal a number of things about a student. First, it illustrates that this 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, or all-lower-case-cell-phone-texting-type writing, they know that the student is usually guilty of some last minute cramming to make the deadline. Worse, but understandably, they will associate that student (just an online name to them) as a poor student and may avoid interactions with them in future course activities. This is especially detrimental when participating in open, online forums, which you will be required to do in this class. TECHNOLOGY REQUIREMENTS In the "old days", LCC tried to address the technical requirements necessary for student access to online courses. We still have a list online, complete with processor speed, operating system, RAM and even some software versions. I think the situation is a little different in 2010. As stated on my open letter, we use Moodle at LCC. It is as easy as accessing a web page. I also included two links in that open letter: one which went to a short video clip I put online, and the other which went to the Ken Burns Civil War videos, offered online through the LCC library. 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. RECENT CLASS EVALUATIONS Think about this. You are spending approximately $400 in tuition to take this course, and most of you know nothing about this "Instructor Joe Escobar" listed on the schedule of classes or even the course itself. To help you decide if you are spending your money wisely, I just completed an online Vietnam War class this past term, and I'm sharing the student evaluations of the course with you. I would strongly advise that you take a look: https://teach.lanecc.edu/escobarj/evaluations/2010w195eval.html Please pay particular attention to my "Instructor Comments" following a few of the student comments. I even have a few entries on ratemyprofessors.com. You should know that the older evaluations of the Civil War class were about a strictly telecourse (correspondence-type course) version of HST209. I've converted the class to an online format so that students would be able to have better communication with the instructor and their own classmates. 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, than to complain about it at the end of the term when it comes time to evaluate the instructor and the class. READ THE COURSE SYLLABUS NOW Since you don't have access to Moodle before the term begins, I've posted the course syllabus online and have made it available for you to read right now (see link below). If you don't like what you read, consider dropping the course. If you think this class might be a good fit for you, I'll see you online next Monday. https://teach.lanecc.edu/escobarj THE TEXTBOOKS Finally, I wanted to let you know about the course textbooks. The LCC Bookstore has the textbooks for $20 and $16 new and $15 and $12 used. I've seen better pricing at Amazon.com or Abebooks.com. (new $14 and $11, used $6 and $3, plus shipping) I've also seen these books locally as Smith Family Bookstore. I was (and still am) a slower reader when I attended college, so I appreciated any of the advanced notice I could get. We are starting the McPherson book at Chapter 8, The Counterrevolution of 1861, so you could choose to get an early start on your reading now. 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