Week 2 Relection

Week 2 reflection- September 29, 2007

I am both anxious and excited for the course to begin. There is a tremendous amount of work simply because I still find that tech tools don’t always work the way I want them to and lots of time gets spent to accomplish small tasksJ

What strikes me the most this week is the use of D2L from the instructor’s side. It seems to be very user friendly and has lots of tools that as a student I took for granted and didn’t really think about how the sections of each page were developed. The tracking tools for participation and for assignment seem really clear cut and intuitive. The tool for setting up discussions is also something I would appreciate trying to use, even if only for my own learning rather than public viewing.

Seeing the entire structure of a course in D2L makes me begin to understand just how much work designing and implementing a course is. As a student I guess I could only handle little bits at a time so I didn’t let myself fully realize how much information was included. But here I can easily see the big picture and once again as a teacher I am trying to see how you determine how to break down those huge sources of information relating to a curriculum into modules that can be manageable chunks of learning for your intended student population. And of course those age old questions of how do I really establish rapport and interaction? How much interjection is too much? Not enough? Just right? (It sounds like GoldilocksJ)

This experience will be invaluable in helping me find through practical experience just how to navigate my way through those questions as well as all the others that will arise throughout the class. I know I’ll make lots of mistakes but I also know myself well enough to know I will learn from them and that will make me a better teacher.