Hello students, 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. In just one week from today (it's almost Monday), we will start Winter Term and begin our course. ************************************************************** First, please read my "open letter" to students located here: http://media.lanecc.edu/users/escobarj/lcc/HST_209.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 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 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 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. 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 TEXTBOOKS & 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 the McPherson book at Chapter 8, The Counterrevolution of 1861, so you might choose to get an early start on your reading now. (We are not reading chapters 1-7 this term, so don't spend your time on those pages. We'll have PLENTY of other pages to read each week this term.) 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