How do you teach speech at an online university? Capella recently answered that question with a bold and unique course offering, SPC1000 - Public Speaking. Despite the fact that first class of learners in this new course were spread across globe-the instructor in North Dakota, one learner in Alaska, and yet another on a military base in Slovakia-all were able to give speeches and watch the work of their peers, both synchronously and asynchronously, using Web cams, headsets, Breeze meeting rooms (conferencing technology), and Capella's online course room. All readings are provided as MP3 audio files that can be downloaded onto another device. Learners can listen to the material via their computer, in their car, or on their iPod, if needed. PDF text was also provided for learners who wanted to read or print materials. But the readings are just a portion of the 100 instructional media pieces that make SPC1000 a rich and diverse learning environment. These media pieces include Flash-based Flash cards, quizzes, videos of famous speeches, and even on online speech outliner tool so learners can see the text outline the speaker is following for their speech.
