Week 24 – POTCERT

Thank you POT leaders for sharing your knowledge & expertise!!!!!

 Week 1: 

This post was an introductory post in which I shared a little bit about myself and talked about my excitement for online learning!  It was fun to look back and remember that enthusiasm.  I still have it today 🙂

Week 2: 

This week we organized a getting started chart.  I have noticed that my vision has changed a bit, but I continue to like my initial thoughts on course organization and believe I will keep it this way.  I may not incorporate everything listed into each week’s activities, but the general outline will stay the same.

Week 3:

This week I fully developed a lesson plan in week 23’s post.  My guiding force continues to be the SLOs and the textbook.  I shared my initial documents with some of my colleagues and received invaluable feedback.  This week was the starting point for my course design.

Week 4: 

This post is INVALUABLE and I must re-read it as I develop my online class this summer.  I have great ideas in here!  The question is whether I will be able to reach all my goals in my first class.  My guess is that it will be a work in progress and will be continually evolving as I gain more experience in the online teaching world.

Week 5:

Looking back on this post makes me smile.  Why? You ask…  because I have so much of this already done!  Halelulyah! I have created many of this documents that will just need to be uploaded to Bb and posted.  Exciting!

Week 6:

Ha ha!  This week reminds me of the difficulties I had posting a video in WordPress.  Ah-hem, I never quite learned how to do it because I had the same problem in last weeks post.  I have read the tutorial and followed everything to the tee and it still doesn’t work!  This is a good lesson for me.  I will know how frustrated my students feel when they can’t get something right!

Now, anyone out there want to sit me down and help me with this??

Week 7:

I got lots of good feedback on this week’s post.  Namely, the texting issue.  I am going to poll my students to see if they would like to receive communications via text or e-mail.  What will be important and challenging is the way I choose to build community.

Week 8:

Hey!  I met a goal from this week’s post and I didn’t even take myself out for a glass of vino!  Ha!  I stated using BB’s gradebook this semester and boy is it easy!  Shoulda done that semesters ago… but MTG served it’s purpose for the last 10 years ha!  Using voice threads for sure next semester!!!!!

Week 9:

I posted this question in this post:

Do students have to have Diigo accounts in order to see my notes?   Or can I share a special url with them?

Does anyone know the answer to this?  I want to use Diigo for sure next semester.

Week 10:

By re-reading this post, I was reminded to not just throw something up on my Bb site without knowing and reviewing “Why” I am doing it.  I also need a rubric for commenting.  I must say I wasn’t a very good at commenting in the class.  I just didn’t know what to say so often.  This will be invaluable experience for me as an instructor when my students come back telling me the same thing 🙂

Week 11:

A valuable lesson on copy writing.  Guess what ?  I haven;t changed my practices a bit!  I’m still “stealing” images from all over the web.  This was a good reminder to get it together!

Week 12:

This was the half way mark when I revisited the last 11 posts.  Most of my views have stayed the same, but with a little more knowledge under my belt this time.  I must say that going back and blogging about each post is invaluable!  I wonder if any of my colleagues have their students go back and view their beginning posts?  It would be great for studnets to see how their language skills have evolved!

Week 13:

In this post we annotated photos on Flickr.  When I clicked on my link it asked me for my user name and password!  Anyone sick to their stomach about all the damn user names and passwords we have to remember??????  Just read my finger print for goodness sake!  Anyway, will use Flickr for my class.  The idea I have is placing a photo on Bb and having students “chat” about it.  I’ll place little notes on it to engage/spark conversation.

Week 14:

I like the slideshare idea quite a bit, but my PPT didn’t upload correctly and all of the spacing was off.  It looked terrible. Also, the colors were changed on many of the slides.  I’ll have to continue to play with that site.  Can I just say I looked awful in my eyejot?  haha!  I will be using this great software to e-mail students.  Maybe weekly??  To start out each week of the course??  Oooh cool idea!

Week 15:

This was by far the heaviest week in the program.  Potheads:  you might consider spreading this out over various weeks….  this post took my 8+ hours to complete.  Just sayin…  I loved eveything we learned in this week’s material.  Surveys are used in my f2f classes to see how students are doing.  The brain is cool software, don’t know how much I will use it, but love the concept.  Prezis rock!  I have made and copied and modified many since I learned about them.  So thanks!!

Week 16: 

This post rocks!  It’s ready to go on to my Bb site.  All I have to do is link a few more items and we’re ready to go!  Love!

Week 17:

This post is perfect for me. When I’m setting up my class, I will revisit this post to remember all of these tidbits of information.  It also reminded me to e-mail Louis to get her syllabus.  Doing that now…

Week 18:

This is another invaluable post that I will revisit when creating my class this summer.  So many great time saving tips I learned this week!

Week 19:

This weeks post made me think quite a bit.  The first thing I have decided to do next semester is require an on ground midterm and final.  These will be mandatory and held on Saturday mornings.  I know this will limit my audience to local people, but this is the way it has to be for now.  I will be rallying for a proctoring center as I move forward as an online instructor.

Students will also be required to attend a mandatory orientation session which will also be held on ground on the Saturday before the semester starts, but they will have the option of joining virtually through Elluminate.   This post has got the ball rolling for me in various ways!

Week 20:

This week was more of a “think” week for me.  I’m assuming that was the point…  ah!  can’t get much passed this genius!!  🙂  I did enjoy taking a blast to the past and remembering how history always repeats itself, sometime wearing a different mask.  This was refreshing to review and see with inspirational lecturers.

Week 21: 

This was a great review of instructivism, constructivism, and connectivism for me.  It helped me to look into myself and put things into perspective.  Plus, I got to read some comments from colleagues that I missed somewhere along the way!

Week 22:

I enjoyed reading about sharing.  That’s what our POT team is doing with us right now!  If they weren’t inclined to share their knowledge with us and put together this awesome program, we wouldn’t be here learning right now.  So thanks guys!  I will return the favor…  In fact that is already happening, a dean at my college asked me to put together an online teaching workshop for fall FLEX week.  🙂

I also ranted in this post and I’m glad I got that off my chest!

Week 23:

This week helped me to put together some documents for my class and share them with you all.  I also e-mailed them around to various colleagues to get their feedback!  I got so much wonderful feedback and I am so excited to get my course started.  I need to wait until the semester ends because I’m up to my eyeballs in work!

Overall Reflection:

This has been a wonderful learning journey for me.  The best parts were experimenting with all of the web 2.0 tools, listening to experienced colleagues share their experience and tips, and finally having the chance to put them all together to create usable documents for my online class.

I love the stress free environment that allows you to post late and catch up along the way.

I needed to make better comments….  that’s my own fault!

I’ll be back in the fall to help mentor other newbies!  I’ll probably be buried in work, but I’ll make it happen 🙂

Thanks again for the great opportunity & experience, you’ll never know how much I truly appreciate the thoughtfullness that went into this certificate program.