Jen Boisvert’s Blog

So, in less than one week the site admin area of Edublogs changed. It threw me for a loop, but I like the design a lot better. It is easier to navigate. Well, anyway onto my experiences over the last week. So here we go…

The past week has been a bit crazy, but it is slowly getting better. I am very pleased with my course and am very excited about it. I have shown a few people the layout and content of the course and they really liked it. They said it was simple, had a nice layout, and was not overwhelming. this was one of my goals, keeping it clean and to the point. I have been in some online classes where it is overwhelming and it tended to loose my interest. I brainstormed with a few people on some discussion question topics and they gave me some excellent ideas. It took awhile to come up with a few of the discussion questions, but after hours of brainstorming, they finally came to me. I came up with ideas earlier, but I wasn’t pleased with them. I just didn’t want to throw something up there for the sake of having a discussion question. I wanted to have meaning, be thought provoking, and really tie into the content. I am still stuck on the last discussion question though, Final Interview.   I want to use a case study, but I can’t find anything I really like. So, I am going to continue to to search for one or create a case study of my own. Just a few minutes ago Jess responded to my Part 1 of this blog, apparently she is going through the same thing with discussion questions. I am glad I am not going through this alone.

Creating the tutorials, the video Microsoft PowerPoint presentation, and Seesmic introduction was a bit challenging and a bit frustrating.  I have created a great number of tutorials and recordings, but for reason technology was not on my side.  Last Thursday, I decided to stay late after work and work on my recordings. It was quiet and I had the technology needed to create the tutorials and video. I created my PowerPoint presentation and tried to create record with Camtashia and it wouldn’t allow me to. A few weeks back, we got hit with a virus and it seemed to wipe away my Camtashia add-ins. The other problem was that I couldn’t get Camtashia to work properly. I haven’t used the program in a couple weeks so I didn’t realize that the bug plagued Camtashia. I then tried to use another program Adobe Captivate but was unsuccessful with that. I went through recorded my whole presentation to only find out that it didn’t record my voice. So by this point, I decided OK it is time to leave. I then went home and tried to record my Seesmic presentation which only led me to another roadblock. Everything seem to record fine, but when I went to play it back I could only hear audio but could not see myself. So I decided to give up on technology for the night. Luckily, I went back in on Sunday and my Seesmic video (both voice and video) were there. What a relief!

Besides the discussion, I have to update my checklist and my grading rubrics. But other than that, I am all set. Yeah!!! I can’t believe this course is almost over. Where did the time go? I have enjoyed this course and I can’t wait to get every one’s feedback.

Garrison’s article was very interesting and as I was going through the article I was thinking about my course. I particularly enjoyed reading about Social Presence. In an online course, an instructors presence is extremely important. In my course, I tried to create a welcoming and encouraging community. I am using instant messenger, the bulletin board, and a video and written introduction message to get through to my students. In their first discussion question, I allowed them to Google me (you will have to visit my course to see the activity). I tried to stress throughout the different modules that we are all working together and that we will get through it. I really like how Alex has created a welcoming environment in our course and I hope I have done the same in mind. I feel very comfortable in our classroom and am not afraid to ask a question. Classroom community is very, very important in an online course as all of the interaction takes place behind a computer screen unlike a traditional classroom where it takes place in a face to face setting.

Garrison also discusses social presence and learning activities (Garrison, 2007). In all of the modules I try to have them interact with each other where it be through a discussion question or assignment activity like Seesmic. In Module 8, I am having them create a video and interact with a classmate. They will be asking each other interview questions and then responding back to them. After they complete the question and response video, they will need to critique their partners responses. I am looking forward to viewing their videos.

Talk to you soon!

Jen (3)

The article “Do Online Students Dream of Electric Teachers” by Jason Scorza, made me think about the participating in the discussion board as a student and as an instructor. An online classroom environment doesn’t allow you to see an instructor or classmate’s non-verbal cues (Scorza, 2005). I have always wondered what their initial response (see their facial expressions) is when someone reads one of my post(s). In one of the discussion posts within this module, one of my classmates asks this same question. How can I tell if students are grasping this information or what their initial reaction to an assignment is? I have asked myself this question many times. Can I determine if they understand or are struggling with an assignment by the tone of their submission? Or, by how much time they are spending in the course? Would adding emotions to a post be helpful (like you can in Facebook or Instant Messenger) or conducting a survey (1-2 questions) at the end of each module be effective? All of these may send a signal, but how can I really determine if a student is connecting to the information?

The article by Alex, “A Series of Unfortunate Events and How to Avoid Them,” really put course design into perspective for me. There are a ton of factors that you need to keep in mind when designing a course. This holds true for traditional and non-traditional courses. You really have to “Assume Nothing” when you design a course (Pickett, 2008). Two areas that I want to focus on in great detail is making sure that the discussion questions are meaningful and creating a warm classroom environment. I have been in online classrooms where I felt like the only reason why we are participating in the discussion boards is to get a grade. The discussion questions did not allow for critical thinking and they didn’t have much to do with what we were learning. I barely took anything away from them and I think my classmates didn’t take anything away from them as well. When I design my discussion questions, my focus is to make students want to participate. Instead of just posting a question and having students respond, I am going to incorporate different activities such as case studies and having them look things up. The more a student can become engaged, the more they will participate in the discussion board. Lastly, I hope to create a learning environment that is warm and inviting. Once again, I have been in a classroom setting where I felt like I was out there all by myself. I did not like the way this felt and I don’t want my students to feel this way either. Seeing that I have been in their shoes, I know what they are going through. A positive, caring personality sets the tone for the course (I have to say Alex has done this in this course). I want my students to know that I am there. At work and in the classroom, I always try to think from a student perspective.

I have to say, I love the discussion questions that Alex came up with for this Module. The questions on the discussion board are questions that I have always thought about but never knew who to ask or how to go about getting an answer for them. Teaching doesn’t come with a manual or an answer key. I brainstorm a lot with my colleagues, but sometimes we have the same questions and no one to turn to for answers. In all of the graduate courses that I have taken, this is the first course that has actually allowed me to address some of the questions. In addition, these are questions that are practical and that I am faced with on a daily basis. It is nice to see that my classmates have some of the same questions that I have had. It is nice to be able to work with each other and explore different options.

Last week I ordered the textbook that I want to use in my course, “Interviewing: Principles and Practice” by Charles Stewart and William Cash. I decided to use an older edition as it would be cheaper for students. Textbooks can be expensive. I used this textbook, well an older edition, when I took a traditional class similar to what I want to design. This textbook has come in handy several times when I was going through the interviewing process.

So far in my course, I have created links to my Course Information. I decided to put it in Module 1 so students can easily find it. There are only a few links that I am still working on finishing up such as policies, syllabi, and the rubric under grading. As time progresses and I begin to develop my course more, I can then complete these documents.

I look forward to the next module and working on developing my course in more detail.

Pickett, A. (2006). A series of unfortunate online events and how to avoid them. Suny Learning Network. p. 1-12.

Scorza, J.A. (2005). Do online students dream of electric teachers? JALN. 9(2). p. 45-52.

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