Week 3...

So I have to admit that I didn't realize how difficult it was to facilitate an online presentation or class. There is so much to prepare for that it can become quite overwhelming.

I am really happy to have been challenged to create a synchronous and asynchronous discussion for this week because it has taught me so much! I feel like a really am beginning to understand elluminate more from an educators perspective and less from a learners perspective. I also feel like I am growing even more comfortable with doing the facilitating. I am not "afraid" to speak in large groups, but did have an eye opening experience trying to create the synchronous presentation. I found that preparing an online discussion for a class is very demanding. I have to have everything ready to go and also have back up ideas for extra time and student questions. Although these challenges face us in the traditional face to face classroom too, I have learned how to do this without even thinking about it in my classroom. For instance, I have visual aids I can grab out of a cabinet or I can do a live demonstration (remember I'm an art teacher...this is a daily routine). I really don't have these luxuries online and have to learn new ones.

So, my biggest "ah ha"moment was that no matter how well you know your content you also have to know the platform for presenting just as well. I definitely need to continue learning online teaching strategies!

something new from week 2!!

The biggest thing I learned this week was when you hve online classes with group work, weather can shut things down pretty quick!! Our group ran into some weather related issues (severe weather on Sunday) but dont worry everything turned out okay.

This made me think about how technology has its pros and cons. For instance, this situation was a first a con. We couldn't all meet when we wanted to because the storm was reaching us all at different times, but we could quickly solve the problem and do some asynchronous work until we could all collaborate together again. So, although the storm hindered us initially, being able to collaborate both synchronously and asynchronously we were able to weather the storm and finish our presentation!

Online Facilitation: Taming the World of Online Learning

Week one was great! I learned so much already and am really excited to continue to learn how to faciliate a real online course. I always "knew" that teaching online would be different just like learning online was but never thought about all the little details that really are important. For instance, writing the welcome or initial contact email was a little bit more complicated than I thought it would be. I struggled with how much information I should be including and exactly what information I needed to include. I did not want to create a lengthy letter that is overwhelming yet wanted to provide a well thought out and informative letter at the same it. Another awesome thing we did this week was learning about some of the features Elluminate has as a moderator. The tutiorial we did in class was really helpful and it was nice to see it from a different perspective. I also really liked the activities about synchronous and asynchronous learning on brainhoney. The discussion threads were great to read through and it helped "sum up" what we did in class. I liked that we had to reflect on our class and provide real examples of how these strategies were being used.