Improvements

I really like the idea of adding more recordings to the class. There were some stories that I really struggled through. I think that having a recording so I could hear it first, would have been beneficial. I also think having the recordings as an extra credit assignment is a great idea. That way students can hear different voices, as well as the students recording can have some fun putting pizzazz in the stories.

The video tutorials might also be beneficial to students. I know there were a lot of things that I messed up on throughout my stories and some happened in almost every one (comma splices, etc). I also never completely understood the active and passive verbs, so maybe a video explaining those might be helpful as well.

Since you have mentioned videos, maybe having a video that sort of explains what the semester is going to entail would be something students might like. I know at the beginning of the semester trying to navigate through what seemed to be a million different pages, trying to make sure I set everything up properly or didn't miss something, was a little overwhelming. There were a lot of words on a lot of different pages and that was something that worried me. Once I got the hang out the class, it wasn't too bad. My thoughts are doing the screencast, as you mentioned, and showing students how to navigate through the online course as well as showing how to set up the blogs and whatnot. It might be a lot of extra work, but for me, having it showed to me would have been easier than figuring it out on my own.