Online Teaching & Learning

If you are registered for a fully online course, please check your GCC email account. Important information concerning your online course(s) will be sent to this email account. Information on how to access your GCC email account can be found under “Pages > Student Resources” to the right of this area.

All fully online courses run on the Blackboard Course Management System. Information on how to access Blackboard can also be found under the “Student Resources” section.  In addition to the email that was sent to your GCC email account, the faculty member teaching the course(s) may either call you, send you a letter of introduction to the course, or both.

What is an Online Course?

Online Courses require access to a computer with an Internet connection, preferably high speed or DSL connection. Some courses may have additional technical and software requirements.

Fully Online Courses provide content and instruction via the Internet. All course material is available online. Students communicate with the instructor and their classmates through tools available through a Learning Management Systems, such as Blackboard, or through email and other web-based tools.

Fall 2008 Online Courses at GCC

BIO 195-E Human Anatomy and Physiology I – Beth Erviti

(SEPARATE LAB TIMES ON CAMPIUS; CONSULT COURSE CATALOG)

CIS 150-B Programming Principles and Concepts - Doug Wilkins

CIS 180-A Network Workstation Administration – Robert Schilling

ENG 103-4 English Composition I: Purposes and Technique of Prose – Aileen Jones

ENG 105-B English Composition I: The Impact of Language – Stephen Poulin

ENG 114-A English Composition II: Literature and Creative Writing – Wendy Barnes

ENG 224-A Technology and Literature – Christine Monahan

HFW 103-2 Principles of Health and Well-Being – Kathy O’Connell

POL 101-2 American Politics – Jason LaRose

PSY 101-I Principles of Psychology- Anne Wiley

PSY 217-C Human Growth and Development – John Tierney

SOC 101-E Principles of Sociology – Greg Vouros

Note: Some of these online courses may require on-campus meetings. Please check the course catalog at http://catalog.gcc.mass.edu for the dates, location and times of these meetings.

If are registered for a fully online class this summer, your course will be available for you to access through our Blackboard Learning Management System the first day of classes.

Summer Session I - classes run from May 21st through July 9th;
Summer Session II - classes run from July 14th through August 28th.

Information on how to log into Blackboard is available under “Pages > Student Resources” at the top right of this site.
Access Blackboard

A number of students have lost content or been unable to access content stored on their flash drives. This generally happens when flash drives are removed from the USB ports without following the steps outlined below.

1. Instead, double-click on the Remove Hardware icon located in the System Tray in the bottom right of the screen next to the clock; the “Safely Remove Hardware” window appears.

2. Select “USB Mass Storage Device” and click “Stop”
   

3. “Stop a Hardware device” window appears;
   Select the storage device that matches your flash drive (in the case of the devices distributed by the college, “USB Flash Disk USB Device”)
   

4. A message saying it is safe to remove the flash drive from the port will appear.
   

5. Click the “X” in the top right corner of the balloon to close the message. You may remove your flash drive.

Flash Drive Removal

Please make certain you are using the most current version of JAVA.  The link to JAVA website can be found under plugins.

If you are experiencing trouble with Blackboard or your GCC email account, please verify that your computer has the current versions of plugins and additional software needed to run these two applications.

Scroll down to “Important” located on the right of the page and click on the link “Blackboard System Test.” If you have green lights by each of the applications listed, your computer is set to run Blackboard and your email applications effectively. However, should a red light appear next to one of the application names, click on the link next to the application which will bring you to the site where you can down load the latest version of the required application.

Also, note that links to sites for key plugins are available just below the “Blackboard System Test” button.

If you are still experiencing difficulty, please contact our help desk, Webhelp, at webhelp@gcc.mass.edu.  Tell Webhelp who you are, what you are trying to do, and provide the name of the class and faculty member teaching the class.

If you are experiencing trouble accessing Blackboard after following the steps outlined on the handout available under “Student Resources,” email Michelle at barthelemym@gcc.mass.edu.

Links to commonly required plug-ins are now available through this site. They are listed in the menu to the right.
If there is a plug-in, reader, player you would like to see added to this list, let us know.