Week 7 Snow/leap day!

What a blessing to have the chance to work from home today. I had time to actually read through the papers done by the four presenters at tomorrow's class as well as catch up on some cleaning and baking that needed to get done. (and if I don't do it, no one else will. They all like to eat banana bread and caramel rolls, but they refuse to learn how to make them.)
  I am amazed by the variety of projects everyone did. So far no duplicates and I learned from each one. I am glad I will get to work with Holly on the 'wiki' presentation. I would like to try this with our third graders. The teacher is technology teachable and this class is unusually bright and compliant - a good combination for a pilot project. I printed her paper to share with our administration and the teacher.
  I think I have at least nine blog posts this semester, but I will continue to post as I feel the need to record learning experiences and frustrations. The Twitter assignment has felt like work, but that is how you learn a new skill, by working at it. I like how I can check it on my iPhone.

Week 6 Before class

Just a word to say about Twitter: exhausting
I usually think of Twitter as something ephemeral and off the cuff; having an assigned tweeting schedule seemed forced. I am not sure how successful it is as a class communication tool. I had a lot of communication from some members of the class, and not very much if any from others. I can see it as an informal communication tool for groups, but I prefer texting on my phone for most informal messages.

Week 5 of Learning Online

I finally figured out what Dr Park meant about tabs on Twitter to find the resources shared. It is actually listed under her favorites. How do some of my classmates find time to tweet so much? I guess it is something like developing a habit. I have to think about what to tweet, decide if I have something worthy to say, find the device upon which to tweet, type it up and send it out. One minor annoyance is using the hash tag. Not so bad on a keyboard, but requires several layers of choosing keyboard on the iPhone.
From this week's readings, I am reminded of my favorite tool for online learning: my MacBook Pro. If I was not taking classes online for the Educational Media degree, I would probably not be using it right now. How sad, because I love my computer. It has been so easy to learn to use - intuitively easy. Lots of people who have notebook computers use some kind of wireless mouse, but the mouse pad on this MacBook is just fine. If only it could do laundry.

later weekend musings

Twitter is great, but the pressure to think of two tweets a day that relate to class and read through the potential of twenty something tweets can be uber-whelming. BTW-I am distracted by my new current read. Finished with Hunger Games for IM623, I had to purchase Catching Fire. Can't put it down without great effort and self-discipline. I mean the family does have to eat and I have company coming for an overnight tomorrow.

early weekend musings

I thought Twitter was going to be another of the Web 2.0 tools I would learn and quickly abandon; however, this could be a great way for a small group to communicate ideas quickly. I must share this at school. It is way more efficient than email.

Week 4 Just keeping track of ideas for Thursday night's discussion.

It seems like we have been talking a lot about learners and how they learn. With online learning, there is a new emphasis on collaborative learning that was not a part of the online learning of a few years ago. I took a class from the University of Iowa in 1998 that had a distance component. There was no collaborative learning at all. I have always preferred to work on my own. I am old enough that when I was in school, group work was rare and mainly used to put underachievers with high achievers so the former could actually pass. At least that is what it seemed like. This class is quite a turn around for me. I am on unexplored territory. I have studied learning theories, but it seems as if we are coming up with new paradigms for online learners. Technology has not only had an effect on learners, but on learning as well. I know I struggled for the last year to bring my own technology skills up to an acceptable level. It still feels like something I put on rather than being a natural part of me to find things on my computer, to make posts on my blog ( which I still do only as part of an IM assignment). I am a chalkboard person in a Smart board world.

Weekend was so busy, this had to wait until Monday before work

I like to get caught up with reading on Friday, but last week, after work, we headed to Duluth to be with our daughter and take her to her MRI at St Mary's hospital on Saturday morning. We got home in the afternoon on Saturday just in time to prepare for having a couple families over. I know this looks like bad timing, but we have been trying to get together for a couple months and I did not want to postpone yet again. That left Sunday afternoon to read a lot of articles. Here's what I have to figure out. We still have a reading assignments, but no writing required every other week. We are to use the blog reflections to talk about our struggles and questions about learning online. Where do we keep track of all the ideas we pick up in the asynchronous readings? I guess I will just start a word document to keep my notes organized as I read. There is no way I can remember all the finer points of eight readings plus 1-2 of my own for the bi-weekly discussions. I suppose that is one of the things about online learning to learn. Be self-directed. Figure out for yourself how to manage time and resources.

Week 4 Questions

One thing I am really wondering about in this class is the actual weekly due dates for posting our summaries and responses. Are we supposed to have the summary posted by 11:59 pm on Sunday because it is due on Monday or is it ok to have it done by 11:59pm on Monday? Same thing for responses - 11:59 pm on Tuesday or Wednesday?

I have put together a paper schedule of assignment due dates that includes both of my D2L classes. I need to add some personal intermediate deadlines for making progress on the final product. I really should work on the design document for the web page I am creating. I already have ideas for what I want to include. Besides this class, I have another D2L class, a one credit independent project and I need to work on the research for my starred paper. That will have lots of deadlines and time constraints I do not even know about yet. All this on top of working full time and having evening classes and activities puts homework on the weekends.  Thankfully, the every other week asynchronous class allows for time to catch up on reading and research.