Getting Started

Welcome to History 1110, Global History 1800-1945. This document provides a

comprehensive introduction to the course, its aims, the website, the various
learning activities, and their means of assessment. This document is specifically
designed to jump start students in the course and should be read before the
syllabus, which spells out more completely the class schedule and rules.
Synchronous vs Asynchronous Courses
This is a hybrid course with live videoconferencing on Zooms and also
asynchronous learning components. This means that you must attend the
Monday lecture and take the unit Test on the Thursday class every two weeks.
But you also have a lot of flexibility in terms of reading the assigned texts,
watching the lectures or selecting the learning activities you want to complete.
Online Learning vs. Traditional Lectures
This course is built upon 'active learning' principles. Active participation is
essential for online courses. While the digital medium is responsive to an
individual learner's needs, it can also foster impersonality by creating a gulf
between the student, the professor, and your peers.
Additionally, the flexibility of a learner-centred curriculum to study on your own
schedule creates a perverse incentive for students already inclined towards
procrastination. The course design counteracts this inclination through regularly
scheduled activities inside two week units that cannot be made up.
Digital technology has advanced considerably over the last decade. Additionally,
most students grew up with social media, unlike many professors who grew up in
the age of typewriters. Accordingly, students often feel more comfortable using
digital media to communicate and interact than their professors. However, any
university course is different from a Facebook group or messaging friends. We are
studying facts. You must express your ideas in fully written out, grammatically
correct sentences without slang. Class discussion revolves around arguments not
opinions. Students must research their position, validate their argument with
supporting facts and list their sources. You must also respect informal decorum.
Classes serve as a medium to passionately exchange ideas, not to troll or convert
others to your viewpoint.
To get the most out of this course we will all need to work together.
The first order of business is to familiarize students with the course design and the
Brightspace platform that serves as the gateway for your learning. The website
serves as;
 a repository for all content and assignments;
 a medium for communication and turning in assignments;
  a forum for collaboration.

Course Design
The website is laid out according to modular structure and in a straightforward
manner. This Getting Started module helps with that by featuring exercises that
will help you learn the structure of both the course and website. If you are really
lost, the best way to contact me is through email tboogaar@uottawa.ca.
Disorientation is normal during the first two weeks of an online class. After this
'feeling-out' period, however, you will grow more comfortable and appreciate how
the course structure is intuitively laid out and relatively user friendly. Accordingly,
your first order of business is to test-drive the course website. Explore all the nooks
and crannies in order to gain a better understanding of its basic layout and principal
features. This guide will help you in the process of getting acclimated.
Structure of Course Units
This course is divided into 6 units. Every unit officially begins on Monday at
11:30 AM, and ends two weeks later on Sunday at Midnight. Every unit has an
associated assignment due at the end of the unit. Over the course of the semester
you must complete 3 of 6 unit assignments.

Starts (11:30 Unit Assignment Due (11: 59 Unit Test (13:00-13:30)

AM) PM)
Unit 1 MON, Jan. 11 SUN, Jan. 24 (11:59 PM) THU Jan. 21
Unit 2 MON, Jan. 25 SUN, Feb. 7 (11:59 PM) THU Feb. 4
Unit 3 MON, Feb. 8 SUN, Mar. 1 (12:59 PM) THU, Feb. 25
Unit 4 MON, Mar. 1 SUN, Mar. 15 (12:59 PM) THU, Mar. 11
Unit 5 MON, Mar. 15 SUN, Mar. 29 (12:59 PM) THU, Mar. 25
Unit 6 MON, Mar. 29 SUN, Apr. 12 (12:59 PM) THU, April. 8
*Students must complete 3 of 6 unit assignments

While this structure allows you considerable flexibility in terms of your schedule,
you should keep the following rules of thumb in mind;
 Don’t procrastinate and leave your assignments until right before the
deadline. Rushing is not conducive to mastering material or performing well.
 Some enrolled students have full-time jobs or heavy course loads. Although
you must be present for the Monday lectures and the Thursday tests,
otherwise this course structure is flexible and facilitates students doing the
bulk of their work over the weekends.
 Students cannot unplug from the course for two weeks because it is built
around firm deadlines that must be met. If you have a conference or busy
 work week coming, however, you can work ahead one week or direct your
attention to another priority.
 You cannot generally turn assignments in late. This will result in a zero for
that learning activity.
 If you have a vacation, hockey match or conference during the semester, you
can work one week ahead for most of the learning activities, however, you
would still need to check in for the tests.
 If you are seriously ill, injured or otherwise incapacitated and likely to miss
more than a week, check with the professor. An alternative research essay
assignment might be provided, but given that the course is built around
active learning and firm deadlines missing four tests will result in an
incomplete (EIN).
 Although discussions are collaborative exercises, you are always marked
based on your individual contributions. Tests and blogs also provide for
personalized assessments of you learning outcomes and students are not
allowed to collaborate on those.
Introduction to the Course Units
Each of the six ‘units’ of this course features a standard format and is designed to
take the average student 14 hours to complete (7 hours/week). Note that this is a
rough estimate. For individual students the completion time ranges from 5-12
hours. The time it takes to complete a unit depends on the skills you acquired in
secondary school, your level of concentration and your grade ambition. Obviously,
students investing more time in research, study and collaboration perform better.
Those taking shortcuts will make mistakes, fail to adequately master the material
or attain a module’s learning objectives. Every unit also features a comprehensive
test on the second Thursday that measures your knowledge of all the unit materials.
Given this course design, it is difficult to fail the class if you don’t miss any
assignments. Given multiple assignments and prompt feedback, students can track
their progress, take remedial measures and control their grade outcomes if they so
chose. At the same time, earning an “A” will require most students to invest more
than the seven hours a week.
Each unit has five folders: the overview that introduces the unit, three separate
learning modules that focus on Unit subthemes, and the capstone that features a
short video summary, glossary of key terms and contains a link to a unit test that
objectively assesses your mastery of the unit’s contents.
Example of a Course Unit’s Structure
 a. Texts and Learning Objectives: This module explains the learning
objectives and links the texts affiliated with the unit.
b. PPTs for live Lectures over Zoom
c. Asynchronous Lecture Capsules (YouTube and Brightspace)
Course Texts: The main textbook is Tom Boogaart, At the Global Turn. Other
course readings are integrated in the learning modules which offer links to primary
sources, documentaries and scholarly sources by means of the University of
Ottawa Library Portal. If this is your first time using the University of Ottawa
Library Portal to access scholarly sources, please go to: Course Documents and
watch the: Tutorial on Accessing Scholarly Sources. To access digital sources
under license you must be an official student in good standing and logged in to
your University of Ottawa Account. If you need help logging onto Brightspace or
the Library website, please contact the help desk using this link .
The linked videos are mostly documentary excerpts linked from YouTube. Most
originated from the BBC, PBS, and the History Channel. They tend to present the
past in a quite dramatic fashion for a television audience (along with occasional
small errors). The instructor does not necessarily agree with all the views
expressed in these documentaries. In some specific cases the linked source is a
work of propaganda referenced to expose students to a particular point of view, or
for the purposes of stimulating critical interpretation.
Unit Assignment (every unit)
Learning activities are short essays (roughly 2 pages) that are designed to allow
you to go into greater depth for particular topics. Students can access the Unit
Assignment Folder to consult all six learning activities and select the ones that they
wish to complete. Please note that they do have firm deadlines. Students
Adapting your Bright Space Settings
You can customize your Bright Space alerts to fit your preferences. If you keep the
default settings in place your email will get spammed with auto-generated
messages. Whenever I correct a typo it will send you an email warning. In practice
the system may generate so many messages that you will tend to disregard it. For
this reason, I recommend that you switch off all alerts except for announcements. I
use the announcement tool to keep in touch and communicate time-sensitive
information. Some students also like to keep the assignment deadline notifications,
even though most assignments are due at 11:59 Sunday. That is fine; you should
adapt the settings in a way that suits you. However, because Brightspace has about
10 different ways to set up a deadline for an assignment, sometimes the system will
send out a false alert. Be aware, that in the case of any discrepancy the syllabus
features the correct due dates for assignments.
Ice-Breaker Assignment: To help launch you into the course the following bonus
assignment has been created that will familiarize you with the website, its structure
and tools.
Task 1: Use the left navigation menu to find the Course Documents Folder that
contains the syllabus.
Task 2: From the top menu select “Announcements” to find the professor’s
welcome message.

Task 3: Also, from the top menu select Grades. Scroll down and find the UNIT 5
test. Note that before you complete an upcoming assignment it is a
zero or temporarily an “F” until it is graded.

Task 4: Click on the Announcements from the top menu. Click “Notifications” to
adjust your Brightspace alerts. The default mode generates out an email for any
change to the site. I recommend limiting the notifications to Announcements and
the Grade and Quiz notifications.
Task 5: Update your profile picture. Click on your name in the top left in order to
access your profile page. Now push on the Change Profile Picture icon to upload a
profile image. Students have different ideas about what is appropriate for the
profile picture. Most people prefer profiles that obscure the details of their face.
Others prefer an avatar. You can for example chose an historical figure from the
twentieth century. It is really up to you, but please update your profile picture in
some way. It is very important in terms of personalizing and remembering your
interaction on the discussion board. Also, you will receive a bonus point for
updating your profile picture.
Task 6: From the top menu click the Class Progress Tab. After you complete a unit
test it will give you the correct answer for any question that you missed.
Task 7: In the Getting Started Folder click on the Ice Breaker Assignment. Answer
the question: Why are you here? Click on REPLY to THREAD to provide a brief
overview of why you enrolled in the course. Complete your post by clicking on the
blue POST button. This will earn you two bonus points.
Please note the tools that you have available in the discussion forum.
 Option 1: When you push “Post” your text is appended in sequence under
the thread.
 Option 2: You can add an attachment like an illustration or data table to
your post.
 Option 3: You can respond to a particular post or section of the post by
using the Add Original Post Text function.
 Option 4: The top menu bar inside the text box enables you to change the
font and size of your text, as well as enabling you to bold, italicize or
underline it.
Task 8: Using at least seven of the categories from the model below, post your
greeting card in the Ice Breaker Forum. At the end of the week mix with your
peers and reply to at least two student cards displaying your wit or sense of
humor. (2 bonus points)

Name Thomas Boucher

Hometown Oconomowoc
What TV Show Should I binge to Game of Thrones
weather the COVID-19 Crisis
Most annoying celebrity: Too many to list!
'Third World' country that you Uzbekistan, Bangladesh, and
would most like to visit, but have more….
not:
Which world leader would win a Not Putin. . .
UFC ultimate cage match (don’t be
sexist)?
How will history remember you?  No idea… hopefully for one of
my achievements but I highly
doubt it…
If you were empowered to I have no idea…
annihilate any color on the
spectrum which one would it be and
why?
What is the dirtiest job you have
ever done?
What is your pet peeve; what peer
behaviour annoys you like really a
lot?
Why are you taking this course?
If you could be born in any year
from 1800-1945 what would you
chose?
What was better about our world in  Bell bottoms
1800 than today?
Which 19th century historical
figure would make the best reality
TV subject? :
The world is vast-if you could live
in one city in the world where
would it be?
What quality makes you
dangerous?
What song will you chose for our
end of the year Zoom Karaoke
contest?
Favorite season in Ottawa?
Best dive bar around Campus?
 Quality inspection at
McCain’s Foods. Especially
the clean-ups!
 Unnecessary sounds whilst
eating, most chewing sounds…
or just incredibly disorganised
people!
I was missing an elective…
 I was born in 1993… I guess I
would choose any year in either
the 70s or 80s.
Rasputin? Maybe…
 Drummondville, QC
You are about to find out when
we debate whether the hippies
were really revolutionaries
OK I am dropping this course
right now. . .
Trick question there is only
summer and winter.
I am practicing social
distancing (wink)
Why are you taking an online Everyone is taking online
course? courses now, lecture halls are
like so 70ish.
Share your Covid-19 shelter in
place horror story:
What is the most beautiful place in
the world that you have discovered
so far?
What was the most embarrassing
moment in your life?
Will your standard of living be
higher than that of your parents?
Little known personal fact:
Name one thing where you stand in
agreement with Donald Trump.
If you had to describe your
generation in one word, what would
it be?
What aspect of online learning do
you hate the most and what could
professors do about it?
If you were to dedicate your life to
one single cause what would it be?
What scares you most about Covid-
19?
What is your favorite recipe that
your Mom makes?
What is the worst thing about the
University of Ottawa?
What worries you most about
taking this class?
 What is your biggest personal bias?
Favorite Netflix series nobody
knows about?
Which character in Lord of the
Rings do you most resemble?
What is the best thing about being
Canadian?
Favorite drink? Vodka Chai Cappuccino!
Describe the perfect date.
Will Facebook exist in 20 years? Hopefully our civilization will
have advanced.

Congratulations, you have completed the Getting Started module. Having

completed the tasks above, you should now have acquired a basic familiarity with
the course and the website. For further help go to the Course Documents folder.
In addition to the syllabus there are other help documents that go in to greater
depth in terms of various aspects of the course. Also feel free to email me
tboogaar@uottawa.ca with any questions.