Dedos 1

First year is always tough, but thanks to a supreme effort from its staff DEDOS was able to pull many great accomplishments in year 1 of the “Retaining and Graduating through Technologically-based Empowerment”.

DEDOS Staff

Here’s a proof of our achieved goals:

Planification, where everything begins

DEDOS staff, in collaboration with USC's faculty, is creating a "backup system" for students that are at risk of dropping out of their courses by designing and developing 100% web-based courses. One of the main objectives of DEDOS is transforming and updating some actual courses from the Business Administration and Communication’s Academic Departments to interactive and collaborative learning experiences. To accomplish this, our faculty must be fully trained in the latest technology available used with instructional purposes and the correct use of the tools provided by our learning management system, Moodle. DEDOS staff and 12 faculty members have worked on redesigning and updating 6 online courses, while developing at least a learning object per course.

Professional Development Timetable

To reach one of its goals by December 2011, DEDOS’ staff designed and created CED 401: Adoptando nuevos estilos y prácticas en la educación, an online course in which faculty members will learn about online education latest trends, participate in interactive classes via web-conference, discuss about particular situations lived during the teaching-learning process, improve their technological skills, etc.

Online Course CED 401

Knowing this will not be enough, DEDOS’ staff made a translation to Spanish of the “Building an online course with FACT: Instructor’s Guide” (OAR Model) and revised it to provide a self-assessment tool to the faculty selected for the Title V Project and to the instructional designers pertinent to faculty teaching styles. Named “Diseñando un curso en línea con CEDTEC”, this interactive guide helps faculty members and instructional designers assess online courses in terms of objectives, activities and resources, creating a starting point for the redesigning process.

Interactive Guide "Diseñando un Curso en Línea con CEDTEC"

To complement this course, DEDOS planned some training sessions specifically for faculty in order to improve their course designing techniques and technological skills to focus on our students learning needs. Web 2.0 tools have been tested and tutorials developed in order to provide faculty members a wider range of technological options to incorporate to their online learning experiences. That's the main reason we began creating our Web 2.0 Tools Manual, a document that will help our faculty learn some of the many tools used in today's learning experiences.

DEDOS Workshops

Web 2.0 Tools Manual

Open publication - Free publishing - More education