Musings...

Thought I'd write a new post today. I'm enjoying the idea of a blog and am going to use it in one of my face to face courses this week. I have a small group assignment that I'm going to provide students. After giving them time to work on the assignment, I'm going to have them provide me with an electronic copy. I'll then preview it and post it on the blog for other class members to see and comment on. The final exam will come from the info contained in the blog. What do you think? I'd welcome any comments. Although it's a pretty easy use of a blog, it's my first attempt at using one in a classroom so I thought I'd go easy on myself. If you're interested, take a look at www.hoopersbclass.blogspot.com. Let me know what you think...

Reflections

So far I have enjoyed using the blogs. I can see that they are an easy to use, low cost mechanism for getting to know students. By posting their thoughts and experiences, faculty can follow and monitor the progress of individual students. In a face to face classroom environment, even though the students are in the same room as the teacher, s/he may not ever stand out or make any comments. I have a number of classes that are predominantly lecture format, with 40 to 60 students in them (on a good day). When I ask for comments, questions, etc. it’s always the same 4 or 5 students who have any. Many students are able to “hide” in a face to face environment.

By requiring students to post their thoughts in a blog, as we are doing now, it is possible to get input and feedback from all. That’s a revelation for me.

Hoop in LA

Partner interview

Here's the interview that Mary Hopple did...

Paul Hooper, the "Hoop" is a professor at Southern California University of Health Sciences. Hoop and I are also classmates in another online U Wisconsin-Stout course - "Instructional Design". Paul, getting a head start on the activities, choose me to be his "think-pair-share" partner because he recognized my name from the other course we were in. Me obsessing over an long assignment for the other course, missed Paul's initial email and when he sent me another, he was, rightly so, disappointed that I hadn't responded in a timely manner. Garnering a feel for "Hoop" from Instructional design threads, he is a man of few words, a "freeform" kind of guy, who may be feeling overwhelmed right now (I know I'm side-stepping it, to keep up!) as he commented in one string, "someone once said, 'I'm so far behind, I think I'm first'. I now know how they felt." I think perfectly understandable, because in my experience online courses take much more time to process, than F2F. Paul lives in Los Angeles, where he feels the public schools are lacking quality. He compliments the students from the Mid-West he has met in online courses and wonders what the difference is between the South-West and Mid-West in terms of quality education. "Hoop" hails from England, loves Fleetwood Mac....mine too! and enjoys a "nailbiting" Deadliest Catch episode.

Mary @ PA

Okay, I'm now apparently an official blogger. Let's see what this baby can do...