18 Course reflection (Feb 23 -28)

I appreciate learning so much about blogs, wikis, embedding videos in a blog, the YouTube Common Craft videos, project based learning and the existence of software for managing academic projects such as Project Foundry. I also had not used TeacherTube and EduTube before. The course is a source of many important insights into using Web 2.0 tools and changing our online teaching environment. I am now thinking we are far behind where we should be. But we have made great progress in recent years and will continue to encourage change.

I was somewhat unsure of what to include in my blogs. I know it pertained to the topic of the week, but a rubric of blog expectations would be good.

A lot of anxiety associated with the course could be greatly reduced by posting a one document a summary of assignments that are numbered and associated with a specific week. If the assignment changes, you just need to update the assignment sheet.
For example:

Assignments for the Course

Week 1 (Jan. 1 - Jan. 8) <<<<< changed to Jan. 9 - 16 due to ice storms in NH
Text: Page 1-25
Review content in Week 1 wiki folder
Assignment #1: Blog topic - Project Based Learning
Assignment #2: Blog topic - Wikis


Week 2 (Jan. 9 - Jan. 16) <<<< changed to Jan. 17 - 24
Text: Pages 26-50
Review content in Week 2 wiki folder
Assignment #3: Blog topic - Social Networking
Assignment #4: Blog topic - Teaching in the Networked Classroom
Review content in Week 2 folder
Bill Strickland video <<<<< new addition


For Google docs, I suggest a clearer format for you and for the students - for example:


Week 1
Blog #1
Blog #2

Week 2
Blog #3
Blog #4

Have students clearly label their blogs so you can see which blogs are done easily and which week they relate to.

Also, I suggest you post a class roster, since people added their profiles, google reader, RSS, etc. at different times making it harder to know who was in the course.

The connectivity to other students was somewhat random. A structure would have created a less random set of interactions. For example, in week one all students should comment on Sharon Sabol's blog #1. In week 2, all students please comment on Allicat's blog #2. Anything similar that encourages a community of learners to interact together at the beginning is powerful.

The course content is very helpful and interesting. There is also a lot of anxiety searching for assignments in folders, changing weeks, changing assignments, etc. That is in addition to the anxiety of figuring out how to navigate through a lot of new technology. A clear structure that helps students navigate and understand better would enable people to focus on mastering the content rather than figuring out what to do, how to add tech tools, etc.

Creating a folder called Student Lounge and defining how to use it would be helpful. In that place students can discuss questions, helpful technology suggestions, and resolve many questions among themselves. Also, the instructor can post answers to frequently asked questions so that he/she is not emailing the same responses to different students. Plus a student lounge helps people in the course to interact directly with each other and help each other with anxiety provoking problems that are always part of downloading and using new technology.

Thank you Jeff and Kim. The content of the course is really interesting and helpful. Thanks for all your efforts and understanding during a term of so many disruptive storms.

P.S. The text is not user friendly. It's redundant, not presented very clearly and hard to retain..the writing is overly verbose, repetitive and the pictures are often more distracting than helpful. The concepts are good, but are not presented effectively. In contrast see Don't Make Me Think - A Common Sense Guide to Web Usability
The content is excellent and the presentation of that content is superior.