Extension
Hello Harvard Extension School students (and potential students)!
This page contains some useful administrative information for students enrolled in the Harvard Extension School section of our course.
Course Dates
This course will follow the Harvard Law School semester schedule instead of the usual Harvard Extension School schedule. As a result, the first class will occur a week earlier than the rest of the Harvard Extension School courses during the week of September 11th. Please return to this site by September 11th to receive instructions on how to begin the course. The course will be completed by December 9th.
With a few exceptions participation in the course will follow a fairly simple schedule:
- Once each week you will watch a lecture video that was taped earlier in the week when it was given to the Harvard Law School section of the class. These videos take about 48 hours to produce after the lecture happens, so they will be available on the Lecture Videos page of this site either on Wednesday or Thursday afternoons.
- After watching the lecture video and doing the associated reading, you will do a journal entry each week using the Moodle courseware available on the Moodle page of the website. These journals will be a 250-500 word response to the lecture and readings for the week. We will be grading these on a simple check+, check, check-, not submitted grading scheme according to how well you engage the course material and demonstrate your understanding of the issues for the week
- Once each week you will have an activity in Second Life. These activities will generally occur on Thursday evenings. When the entire class meets together the meetings will take place at 9pm EST on Thursdays. When you meet in smaller groups these meetings will be for one hour time segments on either Wednesday evenings between 8-11pm EST or Thursday evening between 8-11pm. You will be signing up for a time that works well for your schedule and you will be expected to be available during that time throughout the semester.
- You will have weekly assignments to do individually or together with a group of students that will either take place in Second Life or through this course website. These may entail finding additional time to spend in Second Life.
We have already set particular dates on which your attendance will be required in Second Life. Please make sure that your schedule is clear and you will be able to attend a meeting in Second Life for the following dates and times:
- Thursday September 21, 9-11pm EST
- Thursday September 28, 9-10pm EST
- Wednesday or Thursday, October 4-5. 9-11pm EST. Details TBD.
- Wednesday or Thursday, October 25-26. 9-11pm EST. Details TBD.
- Thursday, November 16. 9-11pm EST.
- Thursday, December 7. 9-11pm EST.
Remember that in addition to these times you will be expected to be available for a once-a-week meeting with your small group in Second Life. These meeting times will be scheduled for either Wednesday or Thursday evenings. When we do large group activities all together you will not have small group meetings that week.
Second Life
As you may have gathered elsewhere on the website, participation for Extension School students will take place largely in a 3D virtual world called Second Life. We don’t expect you to know anything about it before the course begins, but we do expect you to learn it and become comfortable with it quickly. We strongly recommend that you get a sense of what it will be like by viewing our Second Life tutorial video and getting started in Second Life yourself by following the steps in that video. If you start now, you will have already completed your first week’s assignment before the class begins!
Second Life Tutorial Video
|
Synchronous Participation (that is, required attendance at specific times):
For this course we will be asking you to engage in group work with fellow students as well as some meetings with the entire class. Even though the course is a distance education course, this means that there will be certain times when you will have to be available in order to satisfy the requirements of the course. Because of the possibility of having students in many different time zones, we have tried to choose these times to be convenient for the largest number of people. Unfortunately, it may mean that the course is not appropriate for students who have conflicting time commitments. If you are not sure about whether your schedule will be a problem, feel free to email Rebecca Nesson at rnesson@cyber.law.harvard.edu.
We reserve the right to schedule required class meetings on Wednesday and Thursday evenings at any time between 8:30 and 11pm, EST. For your additional group work, we encourage you to also be available on some Tuesday evenings at the same time.
To get an idea of when the required events will occur, they are marked on the course syllabus using a green background. However, these dates may change so please do not rely on them in making your decision.
Course Work
For this course you can expect to have an average of 5-7 hours of work per week, including class meeting times. The course work will consist of viewing lectures, participating in class dicussion, and completing group and individual written work and work that is expressed through other media such as audio, video, or oral presentation in Second Life.
Grading for the course will be equally weighted between participation and quality of submitted work. We recognize that a large part of the challenge of this course will be in learning to use new technologies and exploring their capabilities. We wish to strongly reward those who engage thoroughly with the course experience. That is why your participation in the class will make up such a large proportion of your course grade.
You will have various weekly assignments for the course. Usually you will have one journal entry and one other assignment to complete each week. As the course progresses the assignments will frequently be related to your group project which will be your final project for the course. The combination of your assignment grades and your project grade will determine your final grade for the course. To reiterate what we said above, the key to doing well in this class is to participate actively, consistently, and enthusiastically. We are, above all, interested in making this exciting experiment with Second Life turn out well for all of us.
