Beginning eLearning with Joy-9/21/2010

I am beginning my eLearning experience at Bellevue College, in Bellevue, Washington.  I am working on a certificate in eLearning.  This is my first experience with a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE).  As I work toward enriching my teaching skills, I hope to create an online course. 

I would like to begin this journey into the Virtual Learning Environment with the following excerpts from Daniel Haughian, (2000), written in a book called, Be Proud of All You've Achieved: Poems on the Meaning of Success, (9th printing, p.43) Boulder, Colorado: SPS Studios Inc.:

     Before you lies a journey we all must travel.  A journey whose length is not as important as the footprints   you will leave behind for others to follow.  A journey that has many paths, and the one that you choose will decide the course your life will take.  You can opt for the easy and well-trodden road, or you can venture down the one rarely traveled... And whichever road you choose to walk, let it show that a good and noble person passed this way..., because the footprints you made in this life showed you walked in the footsteps of love.

My great passion is the field of Criminal Justice studies.  I work as a volunteer in a shelter for survivors of  domestic violence and/or abuse.  The question has been asked whether the violence toward women in a domestic situation, or even a man for that matter, is a social problem or a Criminal Justice problem.  I hope to build my course around that question.

I am equally interested in healthcare and political science issues.  Somewhere in the eLearning journey, I hope to be able to plan classes online in all three areas.  I believe you must have a passion for learning and teaching.  I believe you must have a passion for following the rules of the trade as well.  Maybe one day, someone will write about me, that a "good and noble person passed this way."