CSED 7762 Journal #1

I am currently taking a course at Hamline University and am going to attempt my journaling for the class on this blog. I have reluctantly neglected the blog in the past and thought this would be a good time to start professionally blogging again. In my journals I will be reflecting on the course and my progress on a weekly basis. Here goes...

• OVERALL FEELING: I was relieved to see that the professors for this course had put a great deal of time and effort into the planning and preparation for the class. The last course I took in the certificate series was much less organized and coherent that this appears to be. I was able to talk with a couple of my classmates from the last course, who are also enrolled in 7762 and we are all feeling much the same way...VERY relieved by the thought put into the assignments and structure of the course. Still feel as though there is much to do in a short period of time, but as long as I am able to stay well....it should all be manageable.
• SMART CARDS: The only thing I really see as a roadblock for me at this point are the subjects of my assignments. I am in a position now where it is not quite clear who I am working more closely with: staff or students!? My smart card assignment will focus on helping staff solve a problem that plagues me on a daily, if not weekly, basis: Mapping a network drive. I am confident that this will be my focus for this assignment.
• WEBQUEST: The webquest assignment on the other hand is troubling me much more. Again, do I focus on a webquest used solely by students? OR Do I construct a webquest that will clear up some misunderstandings among staff as to what online learning is and the importance and growing enrollment in such alternative courses? I really like the idea of the staff that I am working with to read, learn about, and synthesize the information out there about the importance and growing appeal of online courses. I would also like them to construct an assignment that meets the elements of a good online course (one which students can complete independently). To me this might be the construction of their own webquest, jing video, screencast tutorial, etc. I believe that this would help them to understand what really goes into creating these courses and making them effective in student learning with higher level thinking. Thank goodness, also, for Questgarden. Up until Michael showed this to us, I was not quite sure how I was even going to construct a webquest!
• UbD and COLLABORATION: So far, in the course, I have appreciated the video support in UbD, something lacking from the last course. Much of our learning (we had all never dealt with UbD) was through readings in the UbD book and completion of worksheets. It has helped my understanding tremendously to see other educators voiced in the procedure at work and then processing it as a class.