I hope that the transition to online learning is going smoothly in all your classes. Please let me know if there’s anything that I can do to help you, including practices that other instructors are using that you find particularly helpful.

I’ve been hard at work the past few days trying to improve the online experience. Some of the things that you might notice are as follows:

estimates for learning activities
Each learning activity includes an estimated time for completion – look for the amount of time in light gray after the activity. These estimates serve two purposes. First, it’s my way to track the amount of work that I’m assigning and to ensure that it’s commensurate with a 3-hour course. Second, you should use it to judge if you’re progressing too quickly (or more slowly than expected) through the material.
revisions to lessons
I revised the following lessons this week: JavaScript, AJAX, and PHP. These revisions, including the estimates for the learning activities, essentially mean that I’m working through all the material myself in hopes that I can identify problem spots before you encounter them. In some cases, I’ve also removed activities that weren’t as useful as I originally expected.
Blackboard quiz
Next lesson (AJAX) resumes our semi-weekly quizzes! (I know that you’re excited even if your face doesn’t show it.) Thus, I’ve been experimenting with all the capabilities that Blackboard offers for online assessments, such as question sets and answer randomization for multiple choice questions.

One thing that you can do to help me (and your classmates) is to provide feedback on my estimated time for learning activities. If you’re spending significantly more (or less) time than expected, then I’d like to know it so I can improve my estimates. Thus, I’ve created a short survey to solicit feedback. If my estimate is close (e.g., you spent 35 minutes whereas I thought it would take 20–30 minutes), then you need not respond; otherwise, please take 45 seconds fill out the survey. While I cannot give you time back, I can adjust future lessons if necessary to reflect the amount of time that you’ve already spent on the course.

Estimates for Learning Activities (survey): https://bit.ly/2JjxF4Q