OL 101 Blog - Muller

I found these last 4 weeks difficult for me - not because of the content, but because of time.  I did have a little difficulty with some of the technology, but nothing I couldn't handle.  But I was overwhelmed because of the timing aspect.  Maybe it's because I haven't been a "student" for quite a few years.  Maybe it's because these last couple weeks have been overwhelmingly busy both at school and at home.  Maybe it's because I'm not an organized student any longer!  I'm a very organized teacher...but being a student again was difficult. Regardless of all of that, I have learned so much from Rick and all of you!  I enjoyed reading your comments on everything, the questions you all posed and the thoughts that were created from all of that.  I welcome the new ideas and suggestions and will be putting many of them to use in my online course the next time around.  I will spend the remainder of the summer doing some editing to both my Learner'...

I had thought I was pretty technologically advanced....then we arrived at Week 3!  This was a little more difficult than I thought and honestly, it was because of time.  We ended our school year last Friday the 2nd, and I left on vacation for 3 days this week.  I've fallen behind and am trying to catch up and not feel overwhelmed.  But now I know exactly how some of my students feel, especially those that are not comfortable at all online. I'm not sure who made the comment in their blog, but I agree with whomever it was.  They stated that we, as teachers, have a wealth of activities to choose from.  But which is the best one for our students at that specific time?  I feel the same way with some of these tools we've been requested to use.  I guess time will tell! I also am teaching an online course through TCC while taking this class.  This is also our Week 3 and I've come to my first online hiccup.  I created a Database for my studen...

The new technology this week was definitely a challenge for me - and I'm normally one who catches on to new things pretty quickly.  I guess I can now say that I understand what some of my students go through - both kids and adults! I really liked VoiceThread and Screencast.  Audacity was okay once I figured out all that I needed to download.  But after doing the voice recording, I think I would almost rather take a video of myself rather than just hear my voice! I do think that I will definitely be using Screencast or a simple video recording to introduce any new Modules.  In my opinion, having my online students "see me" at the beginning of each week is almost a must.  This gives them more of a sense of community and I can now see how that will work. I also think offering the F2F lab session is a great idea.  I could not attend this week's with Rick, but possibly offering something like that via Skype might be feasible.  Or the students and I co...

When I was first asked to teach a new class at Trinity that would be online, I immediately jumped at the chance!  Then I was told that I would need to take "How to Teach Online" before actually doing it.  Then I was informed that the teaching of my new online class would begin only 1.5 weeks after starting the "How to Teach Online."  Imagine my anxiety! So here I am almost one week into taking the class, and 5 days out from teaching the class.  The writing of the Learner's Guide for my new course was easy.  I had guidelines and ideas, but how do I write easily understood instructions for people I probably wouldn't ever "see?"  So I started doing what I thought was best.  Then I received Rick's  Getting Started in OL101  and my heart sunk just a little.  I had incorporated what I thought were great ideas, readings and assignments.  I used Moodle databases, quizzes, assignments, links, etc.   But now how do I create a sense of ...