ed2go Courses and Programs

The University of Illinois Springfield, in partnership with ed2go, offers a wide range of online, open-enrollment programs designed to help learners develop the knowledge and skills needed to advance their careers, prepare for in-demand occupations, and pursue personal and professional growth.

Accessibility Resources

• Accessibility information from UIS Center for Online Learning, Research and Service
• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 – Most accessibility laws point to the WCAG 2.1 guidelines
• FAE – The Functional Accessibility Evaluator (UIUC)- analy

Technology Resources

Technologies for many types of online learning activities are listed in the Online Instructional Activity Index.

All links below are to outside resources – the following links do not necessarily constitute endorsement.

What is PBL?

Learning is more complex than memorization of facts. Students must learn to apply what they have learned to real life situations. After all, very few jobs depend on recalling memorized facts. Most jobs depend on application of knowledge or problem solving skills to solve complex problems. Problem based learning attempts to engage students’ curiosity and prepares students to think critically and analytically, and to find and use appropriate learning resources.

By Virgil E. Varvel Jr

Please discuss possible answers to the questions below. This exercise will hopefully generate a lot of thought provoking discussion since there are many right answers to each question. Click the links for examples of activities and answers for each situation/question.

What could you do to “break the ice” or set the tone to provide a comfortable atmosphere in online discussions?

Starting discussions in an online environment can be challenging. Here are some specific activities that promote online discussion. For more online activities, see our Instructional Activities or Online Instructional Activity Index

1. First, it is critical to clearly communicate your expectations. Provide a policy on expected student participation and a description of your grading criteria. Always include a grade for participation and a MINIMUM number of weekly student contributions to the discussion. At first, students may submit short, superficial responses – but at least they will start “talking.” In time, their responses and contributions will show more depth and insight.

To conduct a useful learning experience, especially in an online course, it is important to have a focused chat. That is, one that focuses on a specific topic of discussion so that it is easier to keep some order to the chat.

In some chat programs, you can even save all or just a portion of chat sessions for future use. This feature could be used to post to a class discussion area so that students not able to attend the live chat can read others’ postings and not feel left out.