Course Improvements

Five Technically Speaking courses have been offered since the beginning of June, 2004. During these classes, students were asked to give comments and suggestions to make the courses better. Some of these comments may be found in the Students' Grades and Comments section of this website.

 

The following are improvements made for the Summer 2005 Session. We believe that these improvements will better the learning and comprehension of the students of these classes.

 

 

Improvement 1: Too Many Classes in One Week

Many students felt that having one class on a Monday and then having another on Tuesday and then another on a Thursday was too much for one to handle. To fix this, the maximum amount of classes per week for a single course are two days that are not next to each other. There will always be at least one day in between the classes.

 

Improvement 2: Course 2: Introduction to Microsoft Office Has More Time

Five programs--Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher, & FrontPage--are taught in five days while still giving an assessment and filling out comment forms. FrontPage was neglected and only taught for an hour and a half instead of three hours. This improvement allows FrontPage to have an entire three hours. There will also be time to correlate all five programs as well as giving an assessment and filling out comment forms. Instead of a 15-hour class, Course 2 has become an 18-hour class.

 

 

Improvement 3: More Hands-On Activities

Though the main function of Courses 1 and 2 are to introduce concepts and terminology, it has been a repeated request to add more interactive activities to the curriculum. More How-To's and Where-To-Go's have been created for Courses 1 and 2.

 

 

Improvement 4: More Homework to Work On

Though some people may not agree with the idea of more work to do on their own, some students like the idea of having hands-on activities to do at home and bring to class to show to other students. This concept would allow ideas to be exchanged between students and instructors alike. Though there will not be hours of "homework", hands-on activities will be more closely implemented into the classes.

 

 

Improvement 5: More Internet Resources

Students receive a special website that they can access and use for the duration of the class. This website includes classroom reinforcements, homework, Questions/Answers, and useful sites. More classroom reinforcements will be added as well as more useful websites for students to utilize for the duration of the Summer 2005 Session.