Jul
01
2009
The Three Principles of Effective Online Pedagogy was a great eye-opener for me. Not having a teaching background, it helped steer me in a direction. This is the first course that I have taken, that we have had to change the subject of the discussion posts. I think this is an excellent idea. It makes a student think and it is a lot easier to find a post. Reading through 20 or so posts a week can get confusing and at times overwhelming. I can’t tell you how many times in my other classes that I have started to read something and had to stop in my tracks. Trying to go back and find the post was a nightmare. Now, I can easily recall a previous discussion message. It is much easier to look at the title of something rather than click inside each discussion thread/post to find what you were looking for or to pick up where you left off. I love the idea that Pelz shares with instructors about spending 30-45 minutes a day reading their students discussion posts (Pelz, 2004). By doing this on a daily basis, it makes reading discussion posts manageable.
One area I am not too sure of is having students grade their own work or others. I am not sure how effective this is. I tend to be hard on myself, plus I don’t want my classmates/instructor to think that I am always giving myself high grades, so I tend to grade lower. I also have a hard time grading others as I always feel bad. Unfortunately, I always feel bad in a situation where I have to rate/critique others. Don’t get me wrong, I am not afraid to speak my mind sometimes. When I am anonymous, I tend to maybe critique a little more, but I still have that guilt feeling. I guess it is just my personality.
The other day I decided to “Google” Managing Discussion Posts for Instructors and I found a great article. The article is called Generating and Facilitating Engaging and Effective Online Discussions. I found the tips to be quite helpful. Some of the tips are the same that we read in different articles, but there were a few new things. I think I may include the questions that are under Words of Wisdom.
(3)
Jun
02
2009
Wow, the first week of class flew by. Where did the time go? Well, I finally understand Twitter and VoiceThread. Lately, I have been hearing a lot about Twitter, but never really understood its purpose. In a way, it reminds me of Instant Messenger (IM)/an away message. I have only posted a handful of messages (or tweets as I have been hearing people say), but I look forward to adding more throughout the semester. I have been enjoying reading everyone’s Twitter messages. Congratulations to Jessica!
I think VoiceThread was my biggest dilemma last week. Even though I have a degree in Instructional Technology and work with technology on a daily basis, I could not figure out how to respond to Alex’s questions. I spent a good amount of time trying to figure it out on my own. I figured out how to download a profile picture, but I couldn’t figure out how to post a comment or record my voice. I went as far as even recording my voice on Audacity and trying to upload it, but no such luck. I then searched on Goggle and read through the Help Guide, but this didn’t really help either. I was missing a key component, but couldn’t figure it out. On Friday night, I finally posted a message on the bulletin board begging for help. Alex quickly came to the rescue. She was very kind and provided me with YouTube videos on using VoiceThread. I viewed a few of them, but still could not figure it out. When I was watching the videos, I noticed that the presenters had an option to comment and record. Unfortunately, I did not have these options. I was a part of the group, but for some reason didn’t have this access. So, keeping this in the back of my mind, I decided to go back to my e-mail account and look at Alex’s e-mail invitation to VoiceThread. I clicked on the image and this time it finally worked. I now had the option to record and comment. It was a very exciting moment. I knew that this program couldn’t be too had to figure out, but not having these options made it a bit difficult to understand.
Every day, I am feeling more and more confident with Moodle. This is my first time using this Learning Management System (LMS). I love it as it provides more options than Blackboard. I have been discussing my course, Preparing for an Interview (I may change the title of the course), with my colleagues as I have never taught before. I am looking forward to creating activities and content for my course.
(4)
