How I Motivate Students in Online Courses

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I'm one of the many teachers who came to the online space after many years of working face-to-face. I taught face-to-face for about 10 years before I started teaching courses that were blended and subsequently 100% online. As a classroom teacher, I always knew that my job was to -

1) present the subject matter for students to learn (in my case it was computers, mathematics and business courses) AND
2) motivate students to invest in the course enough to succeed. 

Easy Use of Callouts for your Screenshots

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Last week, I was working on a print tutorial for a new class I am teaching in the fall semester. As I started using my callouts, I started thinking more about these little tools. So, I decided to write a little about them.
What are callouts? If you develop instructional materials, you'd know the answer.

Callouts are graphics with text, symbols or numbers that explain content. Most often, the content being explained is a graphic or some kind of illustration. Callouts consist of a shape containing some text and a pointer such as an arrow or line.

When I design instructional materials for publishing companies, I use callouts in teacher guides, student guides, on-screen lessons and in online assessments. When I teach courses online, my syllabus, rubrics and learning activities often contain callouts.

Yikes!...4 Teacher Mistakes to Avoid in Your Online Classes

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Have you ever had a "Yikes" moment in your teaching career? I had one in my very first semester of teaching over 25 years ago! I still remember it this day. I mistakenly gave material on an exam from a topic that I told students would not be on the exam. Yikes! Let's just say it was a small mutany. Even in my online teaching career (10 years in the making now), I've made blunders that I've had to "clean up" to avoid the mutany that inevitably follows.