Reflecting on Learning

"The only limit to our realization of

tomorrow will be our doubts of today."

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

I have come to the end of the class. I am deeply saddened. Why is it, I only enjoying a class when I am banging my head on a wall to accomplish the tasks at hand? I suppose it is the same personal traits that make me cry while watching commercials. I enjoyed my classmates and some of them will continue on to the next course on assessment with me. But my biggest problem will be saying goodbye to Jen as my instructor. She has challenged me and prodded me to achieve throughout the course. I am going to miss her.

I have tried to think of what things I might do better in my own course. Then I realized that one cannot mess with perfection. I loved the set up of the modules and the way Jen recreated the course as we went along, based on our common class needs. I enjoyed the challenges of reading the Boettcher material and applying it. And, I think I am a fan of Backward Design. I get the concept one hundred percent.

Since I like video, I might have included a few more of them along the way. I would try to get the group to present a bit more light hearted material as well. Having fun and laughing can go a long way to relieve stress and may help bind people together in a more cohesive group. But I suppose so does beer and wine and especially food.

The one thing I learned and pondered the most was, how much thought and designing goes into the creation of an online course. Each step an instructor takes during the course is also time consuming and thought provoking. Learning the different technologies are equally time consuming and yet, are very rewarding. The finished product is what matters in the end. If my learners have taken away as much information as the students in this class have, it has been a successful endeavor and one worth being extremely proud of.

I hope I will be as good an instructor as Jen and Norma have been. I want to develop the skills that help make my courses exciting, instructive and fun. Learning doesn't have to be difficult if one enjoys the final product and takes the time to laugh along the way. I am including the presentation I created at the end of this blog. I am also including one that still has me laughing. At the end of the video, the spirits are beginning to affect the students that were in the class…but it is the way college and university students have been behaving after finals for probably centuries.

So, I am saying goodbye to my classmates and Jen. Hello new learning opportunities this coming quarter at Bellevue College. My neighbors might frown on the explosion of fireworks at the end of this quarter. So, I just have to think of a new way to celebrate. Anyone for a good pub with music and cold beer? Ahhh...low calorie beer that is.

Putting it all Together

The course is slowly coming to an end. We have learned many new skills and developed the ability to put together an online course from beginning to end. We have read and absorbed the ten best practices for teaching on line as Boettcher and Conrad taught us in the readings. We have worked together to put information into the Diigo communications place we selected as students. We have commented on the presentations of our classmates and thought deeply about the material presented to us.

Finally, we have thought about and decided on a project or presentation. A presentation that will put all of the information we have gleaned over the past several weeks, into a polished, interesting video or Voice Thread, etc. Based on my classmates’ presentations in Diigo lately, I can safely say “we,” when talking about what we have done and learned.

Once our instructor Jen told us we would need to present 7 of the best practices of Boettcher in a video with a voice application, I thought deeply about the skills I would need to learn to do this. I started with a program named Jing. I asked the instructor for help, only to be told it was something I needed to explore on my own as part of this assignment. Wonderful! I download Jing and started to learn how it works.

My biggest problem was figuring out how to capture the screen and talk as I went through my substitute for a LMS system, Wikispaces. Several hours later, when I was still figuring out how to use Jing…I found myself contemplating using virtual anger applications, e.g. virtual pie throwing (like some videos I found on You Tube did) to vent on my unknowing, unsuspecting instructor. At this point, my husband (quietly sitting next to me working on his income taxes) in his uneducated wisdom told me…"now you know how your students will feel about you when they attempt their projects at the end of the course." Well, with that comment I found myself quickly reversing my negative thoughts and diving into the application with gusto, while wondering how someone who is not college or university educated gets right to the point before I do!

Alas, I managed to figure out how the application works and posted a video to You Tube. Two problems presented themselves: 1) how to bring the voice up on the microphone during the presentation; and 2) trying to figure out why my wide screen Windows 7 Touch Screen computer put only half a picture on the video. Sigh…once again, I began to resent technology and knew I had much to learn in the remaining week. Thankfully I have gotten acrylic nails so I cannot bite them while doing this project!

Jen has taught me during this course to take deep breaths and count virtual sheep in my mind, while I try to chill. Lately, while working on the project and taking deep breaths, I find myself counting virtual bottles of low calorie beer. Oh well, this too will pass. All this stress while starting a demanding new full time job; losing one pound a week on Weight Watchers; working on the Eastside Domestic Violence crisis line from 7-12 PM Sunday evenings; going to gigs and practicing with my band; fighting the state UI office, who unfairly ruled I quit a job that nearly took away my ability to work at my Bellevue College job or any other job for that matter. Okay, why wasn’t I born independently wealthy? Better yet, why did I go for a Political Science Ph.d, instead of going full time to law school and becoming an employment law attorney?

So stay tuned blog readers…my presentation will appear in my next blog. Until then, I have had my hair colored again and it turned out horrible and had it cut and it looks awful. That is what I get for asking for a Lisa Rinna look and hair cut. Luckily I can wear a wig during our last class for this course scheduled on the 22nd of March. I will be the one taking all the deep breaths and counting quietly, with my eyes closed in a gray or platinum wig.

Great video on how to use You Tube in your course.

Meeting Online Course Quality Standards

This week we learned how to view and incorporate Quality Standards for online course design.  There are many different ways to approach this requirement.  I was particularly impressed with peer reviews from the institution your may be teaching in.  At some future date, I hope to enter into a one-on-one independent study with someone familiar with online course design.  I want to develop my course from beginning to end with the help of the instructor.   Whether I will be given this opportunity remains to be seen.  However, I think it is an important component of this certification process.   

One reason I would want this to be my last component of the eLearning Certificate, is the need for critical feedback from an online instructor or instructors.  I am including a video at the end of this blog post that shows how well this feedback has worked for course designing instructors.  I don’t believe you can teach online without knowing how your course meets state and even federal guidelines.  If I am going to take the time to construct an online course, I want to know it is giving my learners their monies worth.  I want to know it is a quality incorporated design.

Students in community and technical colleges are often given a set of skills to apply to the outside work world.  For example, my husband went to a local technical college to learn CNC (Computer Numeric Control) skills.  He was interested in making parts by programming and designing parts using the computer.  He received very high marks for completing the course and had years of experience at Boeing, in experimental aircraft as a flight test sheet metal mechanic.  During the years he worked for Boeing he had to read blueprints and often craft parts that would work, from the engineers design.

The sad part of this experience was he was unable to find a job in that field because he did not have the experience required at the time, in the CNC field.  So, instead of using these new skills, at which he excelled (even to the point of correcting the mistakes in his textbook), he never worked in that the CNC field and lost the edge on his skills.  In fact, needing to work he accepted a job driving a truck for a tent manufacturer.  When they finally put him in to a fabric cutting position, five years later, using the computer, the military withdrew their contract and he was laid off.  He was doing that job for only six months and was excelling.  Today one year later, he is working in a warehouse as a temporary worker.

My point is this, giving my student the skills to do the job they hope to do in the future is not the end of the learning process.  Not only do I want the students to learn the skills, understand the concepts; but I hope they will learn how to get the job they are being educated to do.  If this means they may have to accept an internship in that area, so be it.  This should be available to them.  Lack of experience is the biggest hurdle many students face, once out of the learning program.

Designing the learning program is critical.  So is building into the design a way to help learners get the job they want.   Anything less is a waste of the federal, state and local community’s money, not to mention the learner’s money!  The big question for the instructor or designer is: How can my class help this learner secure the position they are seeking?  What skills do they need and how can I help them get these skills?  It may be we as designers may need to re-educate the colleges and institutions that hire us.  No learner or student should, after spending thousands of dollars at an institution, be left with an eduation that doesn't help them secure the employment they have trained or been educated for.

The Video is from Chemeteka Community College in Salem, Oregon.

This video has been added for terminology and fun!