0.2 — Course syllabus, calendar and scheduling your own course events Copy
A. Download and Read the Syllabus
We’ve provided a number of supports to ensure your success throughout this course. Among these are the Course Syllabus and Course Schedule. Together, these two supports explain the scope and sequence of the course, offering specific dates and deadlines you should note in your personal calendar. We strongly suggest that you download and review this document now. You might consider printing it to make it easier to access it at any time.
Click the following link to download this document: Course Syllabus and Schedule
B. Mark Events and Due Dates on Your Calendar
Planning ahead by maintaining a personal calendar is essential strategy for success in an online course. We want to model for you this practice, and have added all of the synchronous meetings and assignment due dates for this course to the course Calendar. You can access the course Calendar in more than one way. Please watch the following short tutorial on the Calendar and how you can use it to 1) see all course events and due dates and 2) add your own items that only you can see. Click the “Full Screen” icon in the bottom right of the video player for optimal viewing of this tutorial. Note that all dates and files referenced are from the 2017 CLASSRoad STARTalk program, but the functioning of the Calendar is the same this year.
Now that you understand how to use the Calendar, remember that you will add your own items to this Calendar as the course progresses.
C. Meeting With a Language Specialist This Week
In the previous section, you learned how to access the Calendar and how to add your own items to the calendar. Now, it’s time for you to select a time for a brief meeting with one of the Course Language Specialists. We call this an “Open Swim” meeting since anyone can drop into any available session. In addition to a set agenda, it is also a time for you to ask questions about Adobe Connect and the Course Schedule. There are two primary goals for this meeting:
- Getting to know one of the language specialists, and
- Learning a little about the synchronous web conferencing tool you will use throughout this course, Adobe Connect.
There are three Language Specialists in this course who will support your success.
Penny Causarano – Chinese Language Specialist
Hajar Shakhali– Persian Language Specialist
David Briggs – Arabic Language Specialist
Each speaks a different language, but for many of the meetings you’ll have with them, it doesn’t matter if you sign up to meet with a Language Specialist who speaks your language.
During this Orientation week, the language specialists are offering two “Open Swim” opportunities in order to facilitate your success during the course. Each session has the same focus and you are required to attend one of them. You may choose to attend either session. The schedule appears below with all times listed in Pacific Time:
| Date | Time (Pacific Time) | Language Specialist |
| Tuesday, June 4th | 6 pm – 7:00 pm | David Briggs |
| Thursday, June 6th | 5 pm – 6:00 pm | Hajar Shakhali |
| Thursday, June 6th | 6 pm – 7:00 pm | Penny Causarano |
Before you choose which Open Swim session you will attend with a Language Specialist, please verify the Time Zone from where you are participating, i.e., Pacific Time, Mountain Time, Central Time, Eastern Time. This is an essential task since all due date times in the Calendar also depend on knowing where you are located. If you are not certain of your time zone, nor how it relates to Pacific Time, consult the following resource: WorldTimebuddy.com (Links to an external site.)
If you haven’t already done so, please verify your Time Zone now as demonstrated in the “Course Layout Tour” video located at the bottom of the section: 0.1 How This Course Is Organized
Note that you will attend our Open Swim sessions in our Adobe Connect virtual room. When it is time for the the Open Swim session you have selected, you will be able to access the virtual room here: http://bit.ly/CRACroom
To continue
Once you’ve complete Parts A, B, and C of this section, click the “Next” button to continue to the next section 0.3 Technology Set Up and Support.