Howdy
to all on-line government students from your ole "Online Professor"
Welcome to my online American Federal Government class. We are kinda bursting
at the seams, but I'm glad you made it into the class. You will discover that
all of the
tools that you will need for this course are on my web site. You will not need
to refer to
the online Government section on the RSU Website for anything. You may wish to
"Bookmark" or place a link to my website on your desktop so that you
can go directly
to it during this semester. Spend as much time as you can banging around on my
site until
you have a good idea where everything is, especially the Work Schedule and its
Calendar.
You will be hearing from me a lot, especially at first, so keep an eye peeled
for my e-mails.
We need to make sure that we can communicate with each other via the Internet,
so please
send me a "howdy" message as soon as you can, so that I will know if
you are with me.
If you don't receive a reply back from me on all messages within about 48 hours,
(usually
in minutes or hours) something is wrong. Call me on the phone, come by my office
(303
Prep Hall), throw a brick at the building, or try another e-mail system. (E-mail
to
rutledge@garyrutledge.com is by
far the best way to contact me, not the RSU faculty
email address) Notify me immediately if you have any communication problems. I
post
problems and suggestions on the "Announcements" page. (Click on my web
site garyrutledge.
com, then American Federal government, then Work Schedule, then Announcements
for
the online course) If I get email back as undeliverable to your email account, I
will post
your name there.
Tell me about yourself in about 50 words (never a penalty for writing too much).
Tell me about
your goals, experiences, likes, or dislikes? Tell me about your family or
anything you want to talk about.
As for me, I have a beautiful wife with whom I spend most of my time. We are
raising our
20-year-old granddaughter, and we have 8 year old grandson that visits several
times a week.
You might hear about my family from time to time because I am at that age that I
bore people
to death with countless personal stories. I fly a Mooney airplane, ride a Harley
Softail, drive an
old 'Vette Stingray, and have had three separate careers in computers, jet
aircraft, and now
higher education. I have degrees from TCC, OSU, OU, TU. My Ph.D is from OSU.
We have a lot of work to do in this course, and I hope you don't get discouraged
in the beginning. It gets easier as we go along. I will not pay too much
attention to the due dates of assignments during the first week or so because
there is a lot of stuff to read (like this rambling letter) and it may throw you
behind a little.
Please send me the first Web Assignments (wrap-ups, memos, little essays,
papers, or whatever
you want to call them) as soon as you can so that I can read and grade them and
give you some
idea what you can expect grade-wise. Be sure that each one is at least a couple
of pages in
length. (About 550 words) Web assignments should always be submitted to me with
the web
assignment link provided for that assignment in the Work Schedule. Write about
the subject of
each web assignment in context of your own experience, summarize the information
from the
book, and if necessary fall back on the lecture notes found on my website. (In
PowerPoint and
text)
You can work ahead, but I would like for you to finish each unit of work before
moving to the
next. We follow the same schedule as RSU's traditional classes. Our course ends
at the same
time as other courses with midterm and final assignments and exams being due at
the same time. Follow the calendar on the work schedule page of my Web Site for
all due dates. THIS IS THE BIBLE! EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ASSIGNMENTS
AND DUE
DATES IS ON THE WORK SCHEDULE PAGE. Open each unit of work on or before the
due date on the calendar and go right down the list of learning tool links,
clicking on each one,
and doing the reading, threads, writing assignments and quizzes.
You will find the syllabus on my website at:
(http://www.garyrutledge.com)
Look under government, then under syllabus, then online syllabus. It would be a
good idea to
print out the syllabus and this letter and keep them handy for future reference.
In addition to
getting a quick reply from me after any e-mail that you send, as you submit web
assignments
and take quizzes, you should get confirmations in a few seconds after submitting
an assignment
or quiz.
I will be sending information pretty often and covering some of the technical
aspects of the
course for a while as we get things sorted out. The web assignment system and
the Internet
are pretty reliable, but sometimes bad stuff happens. Keep a back up of all
written work on your
computer just in case something unexpected happens. I will back up everything on
my end too.
As soon as possible, take the Pre-test (link is at the top of the first unit of
work). There is no
grade for the pretest and no preparation is necessary. It is only used to
confirm that your pen
number and password are working and to give me an idea of where we are as a
class as we
begin the study of government.
I will publish grades on my website every 24 hours (except for the threaded
discussions which
take a little longer) in order for you to see how you stand at any given time.
You can go to the
grade page on my web and find a summary of your grades with a letter grade
representing the
work that you have done up to that point. Your grades will be found next to your
personal ID
Number. At the top of each column is an abbreviated description of that item.
(PL W = Political
Landscape Web Assignment, PL Q = Political Landscape Quiz, ConW = Constitution
Web
Assignment, ConQ = Constitution Q, etc.) If a grade does not appear within a day
or two after
you submit the assignment, e-mail me at: rutledge@garyrutledge.com
Grades will appear on the grade page pretty much in the order that they were
assigned. (Pretty
simple Huh) If you do not wish to have your grades on my personal website, you
may let me
know and I will not make them available on an Internet basis. Speaking of
grades, this course
tends to have pretty high grades for those that do all the assignments. I hope
you will get into
the routine of this course and give it your all. Those that finish, tend to have
better outcomes
than in my traditional in-classroom classes. Test scores also indicate that they
learn more too.
You will notice that web assignment pages and quizzes are linked on the work
schedule page in
each unit of work for your convenience. You can (and probably should) still
prepare your
assignments with your word processor and copy and paste them into the web
assignment text
box just as if you were copying them into the text of e-mail. I know this messes
up your pretty
margins and formatting, but that's ok for the stuff you will be sending to me. I
am much more
interested in the content than anything else. As long as you start out with the
required number of
pages (about 550 words) for each web assignment, (at least 2 pages, double
spaced, 1 inch
margins) don't be concerned with how small it appears after the web assignment
pages converts
your text to HTML.
The midterm quiz and the final quiz are linked just like regular unit quizzes.
*All quizzes are open book and have no time limit, as long as they are completed
on or before the due date.
* The work schedule should allow you to simply click on the appropriate unit of
work and work
down through each of the learning tools and then do the assignments at the
bottom of the page.
If you have any difficulties, just email me at:
rutledge@garyrutledge.com
In fact, use this address for all communications with me. *Send no email with an
attachment.
* No email with an attachment will be opened. (Too dangerous) By the way, have
you noticed?
No proctored exams or testing centers. Well that should get us going. Don't have
a heart attack
at the reading assignments, web assignments, and quizzes. Once you get into the
rhythm of the
course, it really becomes easy. Don't forget! I am as close as your e-mail. I
usually check my
mail several times a day.
I will be sending your ID Number and Password in the next few hours so keep an
eye peeled
and save it for the rest of the course. These items will be sent to your RSU
E-mail address.
Send me that “Howdy” e-mail and tell me a little about yourself. Sit back
and get ready to learn a bunch of stuff and have fun at the same time. This is
going to go by so fast you won't believe it.
Have a super semester,