From the outset, I want you to be honest and open about any
suggestions about how to run the course. The course has been offered
online for over 10 years. Many improvements have been made in response
to students in the past courses.
The On-Line option of the course transcends the
"time and space" limitations of the traditional course,
and is designed for the well motivated adult student. An adult
student with a varied work schedule, frequent out of town travel,
or various family responsibilities may find this type of course
attractive.
The traditional science lab class has 6 contact hours, with an
additional 2-5 study hours expected outside of class per week.
The total time requirements will be about the same for the On-Line
option (8-10 hrs). "On-line" computer discussion time
is expected to be frequent (2-3 times) per week which will be
in place of hours not spent in attending class.
In the past there are always a few students that get behind in doing assignments, probably for lack of time or in making a definite time. Because you will not be sitting in class at a specific time, it might be easy for you to procrastinate, and there might be only a few times when you actually work on the course. As you do for any class, you need to set aside some very specific times when you will work on the class assignments. You have flexibility in that these times might be late at night, early in the morning, during your lunch hour, etc. The point is to make a definite time commitment for when you will work on the course and do not let other distractions intrude upon this time.
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Dr. Sagarin, the on campus faculty liason would like to hold
an orientation class to help everyone get acquainted. The orientation
class is at 5:00 - 6:30 PM in the Science Building in Room TBA
on Monday, August 25. If you are unable to make this class than
please contact me by email or phone to get acquainted more fully
so that I can answer any questions that you may have. If you miss orientation, here is the link to a Word doc handout, basically an abbreviated version of Course Requirements |
Activities for Week # 1:
During this week you should look carefully at all of the components
of the course format. Look at the Course
Requirements and look at the Course Schedule. The various
due dates are for Wednesdays, midweek, that way you get the weekend
and a couple of more days to finish up assignments. The listing
in the schedule is the same as a due date for a particular
assignment. I will give a little leeway initially on these dates
for the first week or two, but will assess penalties later for
late work.
If you have not already done so, it will be to your advantage
to purchase the text book from the book store.
In the past several students have tried to take the course without
a textbook - pretty near impossible to pass without a book!
CHM 110-51 : Text: "Chemistry Fundamentals: An Environmental
Perspective", 2nd Ed., Phyllis Buell, James Girard, Jones
and Bartlett Publishers, 2003
First Week Assignments - Due on September 3:
1. Email Accounts: Blackboard for Communication:
A primary communication tool that will be used with the course is the Blackboard - CHM 110. After the first week any mass emails will originate from Blackboard. This means that your Elmhurst email will be used.
A. Elmhurst College provides you with an email account or user
ID and password. If you do not already know this, you must appear
in person with a valid ID at the computer lab aid office in the
first floor lobby of the Computer Science Building. This is
the ID, password, and email address that is automatically entered
into Blackboard. Once you have accessed Blackboard the first
time, you may change your email address to one that you regularly
use by clicking on Tools, and then Personal Information.
Blackboard
Personal Info Help.
OR BETTER do B.
B. If you want to forward your Elmhurst email to another email
account here is a procedure to forward email:
Go to the Elmhurst Home Page (www.elmhurst.edu),
then click on Students, then click on Intranet (way at the bottom
of the page), then enter your EC ID and password, then click on
Forward Your Email, finally click Edit, and type in your forwarding
email address. That is all there is to it!!
2. Email Contact: We need to make
email contact to make sure that the email communication channels
are open through Blackboard. I will send out several test emails
in duplicate to the email address that you first used to ask for
permission in the course and the same one through Blackboard and
your Elmhurst email. This will ensure that you have completed
the following instructions in A or B above. Please respond that
you recieved the email from Blackboard.
3. Start reading the first several
chapters of the text book and correlate that with the Topic 1: Introduction to Environmental
Issues Outline.
Before you start please check the following two links.
Requirements for the Lecture On-Line
Discussion
Method to list references
and citations.
Respond to three of the questions as listed in the Topic 1
in the Elmhurst Wiki as part of the weekly Lecture On-Line Discussion.
Blackboard
Page:
This will bring you to the Elmhurst Blackboard Log-on page. Click
on User Login. Log in using your Elmhurst
ID and password. Next you should see the page with your name,
a mid section with announcements, and on the right side a list
of My courses - a list of all of your Blackboard courses. Then
Click on Chemistry: CHM 110. This brings you to the CHM 110 course
page for Blackboard. THIS IS NOT THE MAIN STARTING POINT FOR THE
COURSE. This is the reporting place for your work after you have
completed your work and research.
Directions to use Blackboard Discussion
Board
4. Download Quicktime for Windows. In the topics, issues,
and labs, I have given brief 3-5 minutes audios on the topic or
lab as a little orientationi to that topic or lab. You can go
to topic 1 and test the audio to see if you should download Quicktime.
If you do not have Quicktime on your computer, here is the
link to downloead Quicktime:
QuickTime
for Windows
Optional, but highly recommended activities to get a head
start.
5. Look through the materials list for the home lab so
that you will be ready to do that the second week.
List of Chemicals for the Home Labs
Lab Supplies in a Baggie: include
the following items: simple thermometer and candle for lab 2 &
3; pH papers for lab 4. Please pick up during first class orientation
period. If you did not get a baggie with the
above supplies give me a mailing address and I will send you one
or stop by my office.
6. Start working on the Pre-lab
# 1 as that is needed right away for the second week.
7. You might also browse through some of the other labs as
these require a longer term effort to collect some of the materials
or data. In particular look at Special
Assignment - Topic 6 (you need to keep track of gasoline usage,
electric and natural gas bills); Lab
# 4 Part II. Requires the measurement of pH of rain or snow
samples); Pre-lab # 5 (You
need to find water bills); finally Pre-lab
# 6 (You need to measure amounts of solid waste and recycling
materials;
I hope that this list is not to formidable for you!