IT 5660 Unit 7 Blog Entry

During Unit 6 (Sept. 21 – Sept. 27), we were supposed to

• write a blog entry
• read Chapter 4 in E-Learning by Design by William Horton and an article about formative evaluation
• explore and post in Delicious
• continue working on our team’s webinar proposal
• participate in a discussion about Chapter 3 of Horton’s book
• post the URL of a favorite YouTube video
• complete the reflective survey

My “aha” moment actually came the week before on Sept. 17 at a social gathering for Red Rocks English faculty.  I mentioned to some of the other adjunct faculty that I’m requiring students in my ENG 122 classes (and ENG 1020 at Metro) to create Delicious accounts to keep track of the websites they find in the course of their research this semester.  None of the three instructors I was talking to had heard of Delicious.  This would be a good subject for a professional development session.

I’ve had a Delicious account since Nov. 19, 2006, and as of today, I have 1414 bookmarks.  I probably spend too much time with it, but, it’s proved invaluable to me in keeping track of sites I want to use for my classes and my own professional development.  (As I’ve written before, though, I’m not thrilled with the recent changes.)  This semester I created a wiki where I’m collecting research-related resources and having students write reviews of search engines, metacrawlers, and directories.  I couldn’t have done it without the bookmarks I’d saved on Delicious.

IT 5660 Unit 6 Blog Entry

During Unit 5 (Sept. 14 – Sept. 20), I

• wrote a blog entry about Unit 4
• read Chapter 3 of E-Learning by Design to be discussed in Unit 6
• completed our team agreement with members of our webinar team
• started working on a proposal for the webinar
• participated in a discussion of Chapter 2 of E-Learning by Design
• posted my “favorite” urban legend
• completed the weekly reflective survey

I also had to find a new webinar to “attend” so I could critique it.  The one I originally registered for was rescheduled for the end of October, too late for this assignment.  One of the instructors helped me find another one that fit my schedule.  It was on a software package that allows people to keep track of books, articles, etc., that they find during their research and, apparently, create bibliographies.  I doubt I could ever afford it.  Also, I don’t really trust a computer to get it right.

If I hadn’t taken the time to put this information into this post, I don’t know that I’d remember what I did because I’ve had so much going on.

We’ve made a good start on our webinar proposal, which is due a week from today.  The hardest part is deciding what we should cover about Second Life in 30 to 45 minutes.  That doesn’t seem like a lot of time.

I believe I’ve mentioned this before, but a lot of what Horton covers in his book seems to be common sense, but it’s nice to have it all collected somewhere.

IT 5660 Unit 5 Blog Entry

This week I’m supposed to write about what I learned in Unit 4 (Sept. 7 – Sept. 13).  During the week, I

• read Chapter 2 of E-Learning by Design for the week that’s just ending
• wrote a blog entry about Unit 3
• identified a webinar to attend and critique
• selected my top three preferences of a topic for a webinar we’ll be developing this semester
• discussed how our instructors are using the common instructional values they identified in the course
• started working with members of my webinar team to develop an agreement for how we’ll work together
• found a song on Songza that I like
• completed the weekly reflection survey

I had a hard time finding a webinar to attend.  The week was particularly busy because I was hired on Tuesday to teach a class that started on Friday, so I didn’t start looking for a webinar until toward the end of the week.  Then I finally had to settle for one on the differences between Excel 2007 and earlier versions because none of the more interesting ones were scheduled when I could attend.  (Then this week, during Unit 5, I was notified that the webinar I registered for was cancelled, so I had to find another one.)

To be honest, I’m not sure how often I would have occasion to hold a webinar in my online classes.  Most students register for online classes because traditional classes don’t fit their schedules.  Trying to meet everyone’s schedule for a synchronous session is difficult if not impossible.  Just this week, I held a last-minute chat session for my online class because people were struggling with writing search strings, and I think only four people showed up.

One thing I wanted to learn this fall was how to create a podcast because other people do them.  However, I’ve never listened to a podcast (or watched a webcast) because they take up so much time.  I can read much faster than anyone can talk, and I can do it on my schedule.

My top three choices for a topic for the webinar we’ll be developing were

1. Second Life
2. Ning
3. wikis

I ended up on the Second Life team.  I think I was the only one who listed it has his or her first choice.  I finally decided that, with everything else I have going on this semester, I should pick something I know well.

I was concerned about getting our team agreement done on time because we didn’t find out which teams we were on until Thursday, Sept. 11, and the agreement was due on Tuesday, Sept. 16.  One member of our group did a lot of the work to make sure we got it done on time.  We’re going to use a wiki for our project, and we’ll meet in Second Life or a Connect meeting room.

I’m worried some about the webinar because I don’t think I can run both Second Life and Connect at the same time on my computer.  (Running anything else with Second Life makes both programs really slow.)  There may be a way to work around it by using both my PC and my laptop if I can get them both on the internet at the same time.  I could be in Second Life doing a demonstration perhaps while one of my teammates shows my avatar (and his or hers) on her desktop.

I hope I can get all of the major assignments done for the class and keep up with everything else I have to do.  (I don’t want to let my teammates down.)  I know I didn’t complete all the posts I was supposed to make in the discussion this week.

IT 5660 Unit 4 Blog Entry

For Unit 3, we were supposed to have read Chapters 8 and 9 in E-Learning by Design by William Horton.  During that week (Aug. 31 – Sept. 6), I

• participated in a group discussion to determine common instructional values based on “best learning experiences” we related during the first week of the course
• created a recording using Adobe Connect
• participated in a discussion about the reading assignment from Horton
• created a Picassohead
• completed the weekly survey

I learned several things during the week:

• Adobe Connect is not intuitive.  I thought I was pretty good with new technology, but I had a hard time figuring out how to complete the assigned recording.
• I value different instructional strategies than some of my group members, particularly the ones who, I think, are certified teachers.  For example, I don’t consider everyday application of what is learned to be important or even relevant in a lot of subject areas.  (I do think it’s important to apply or practice what is learned, but it’s not always possible to apply things to everyday life.)  Some people might consider me to be a snob, but I think that the “less appliable” subjects are the more important ones (like literature, philosophy, art, physics, astronomy, etc.) because they go beyond our everyday lives.
• I thought that most of what Horton discussed in Chapter 8 about making ”Strategic Decisions” was common sense.
• The Mr. Picassohead activity was interesting, but I didn’t like the limited options for creating our drawings.  I already knew that I don’t care much for modern art.

IT 5660 Blog Entries

This fall I’m retaking IT 5660 through the University of Colorado at Denver.  I originally took the class two years ago and got an A in it.  At the time, the name of the class was Developing Educational Websites; now it’s called Designing and Teaching in eLearning Environments.  IT 5660 is the first class in CU-Denver’s certificate program in Designing eLearning Environments and its master’s program in eLearning Design and Implementation.

After completing IT 5660 two years ago, I decided to withdraw from the program.  Now I want to finish it to increase my employability and, hopefully, my income.  I’m currently trying to decide whether or not to apply to the master’s program.

For the class, I have to make weeily blog entries starting this week to reflect on the lessons I learned in the previous unit.