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3-2-1 Blast-off!

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This week has been a crunch time countdown. I launched my course yesterday. Coincidentally, I was in a pre-school class doing some interventions yesterday and the students created a rocket ship imaginative world during free play.  The teachers were great and ran with it for circle time. The days leading up to this course launch have felt like NASA preparing for a rocket launch. I've spent hours upon hours planning.  Many cups of coffee strategizing. So much thought and energy invested into one teaching method to only bravely decide later to scrap it.  For the better, this OL101 course has helped me revise and scrap some of my old ideas (including a group project from last year that I loved ).  On Saturday, my "Do Now" "Do Soon" and "Do Later" lists seemed too long to be able to accomplish by Thursday.  I could feel the pressure of the countdown.  [Three] I recorded a video introducing myself and the course.  [Two]  There's a virtual t...
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Technology-Wowza!

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Over the weekend I visited my parents to help them sort through the crawl space and clear out junk.  I walked in to find them surrounded by boxes and boxes of papers and books from their high school, college, and other much earlier eras.  I didn't know it on Saturday, but it was a foretelling of what was to come for myself. This week we're diving into some of the online teaching technology.  I'm teaching an online course this summer.  A few months ago I decided that I would "lecture" the majority of my course content via interviews and conversations with friends and professionals in the field.  I'm a big fan of podcasts and engage in a fair amount of professional development through them, so the idea inspired me.  I lined up the majority of my interviews for this week.  But would you have thunk that videos take SO MUCH ROOM on a (seven year old) laptop??? (please cue everyone with the eye rolls and "duh!")  Like my parents, I soon found myself s...
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Blind Spots and Commonsensicals

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As I've begun this online course, I"m discovering blindspots to the way I was conceptualizing my summer online course.  It's been a series of "Oh duh!" moments as I move through the readings and content.  Ideas that once I "see" them, they're just so commonsense! My initial approach to teaching online was "how can I make this interesting and engaging for students so that they feel like they have an interactive experience?"  Much of my online course experience was essentially independent study with a text, many quizzes, and a few exams.  As I'm beginning to engage in this Week 1 Module, I'm realizing that the learning community component where students feel supported by each other and safe to explore ideas, is a blind spot of mine.  It's something that I've been doing some focused work over the past year to develop in my face-to-face courses, but did not consider how to create that element in the online platform. Some of...
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