The Finish Line

The end at last! Not that I haven't enjoyed learning new skills, but it feels like I'm crawling the last 50 years of a marathon to reach the finish line and finally earn the Certificate in Online Teaching. It has been a challenge. But when I think about where I started I really have come a long way. I had never logged onto an online class before starting Intro to Online Teaching and now I've designed a course!

There were several highlights in the series of classes starting with learning styles and education theories in the first course. As an adjunct journalism instructor my expertise is in writing news, not teaching it. But I was happy (relieved actually!) to learn that many of the activities and assessments I intuitively incorporated into my courses coincide nicely with the various learning styles and good educational practices.

In the second course I really enjoyed working with my team partner on our presentation about the importance of interaction and connectedness between the students and with the instructor. I'd never even opened Power Point until that lesson and quickly became addicted. I also came to appreciate Wimba classroom and plan to use it for guest lectures in my own course.

In the third course, I hated developing the design template. Yes, hated it. But I see the value and having one in place made the last class, Producing Digital Content, so much easier. In fact, everything in all the classes led nicely into the last class which was the ultimate in hands on learning. I am now trying to screw up the courage to propose Literary Journalism as an online course for Governors State University's communications department. I'm confident in the course I've developed, but still unsure of my own computer skills and my ability to assist students if they run into technological difficulties. But I'm going to take the plunge and move forward with the knowledge that GSU has a top notch online learning faculty that can help me if I run into problems.

But there are other important things I learned from this program, things that are less tangible. I now know that I can learn new skills. That may sound obvious, but learning how to teach online is something I never thought I'd ever want, need or be able to try. To be honest, I'd happily give up my cell phone and computer in order to live with fewer distractions. But I really love the idea of everyone having access to a college education, even if they work all day, have three young children and can't make it to campus two or three nights a week. Those folks are why I toiled, sweated, swore and tore my hair out for hours each week learning from my own mistakes how to give them the best online courses I can develop.

And now that I'm done I'll be happy to have a little free time and a social life again!

The Home Stretch

Here we go again. But this final semester of the Online Teaching and Learning certificate program is different than the rest. Rather than reading and learning about the practice and theory of teaching online, we'll actually be developing live lessons. It feels a bit daunting, but kind of exciting. All those articles, discussion posts, group projects and frustrations should come to fruition.

Notice I say "should." Although I'm more comfortable using the technology than at the start of this venture, I'm still not confident I can get it all to work! But I now know that the more time spent playing with the various programs the easier it becomes. As always, finding the playing time necessary to learn is a challenge. But it is vital to make time since developing online courses in journalism and/or political science may very well be my next career move. Tough to say where any of us journalists in transition will land as the news business continues to evolve and  devolve. But with all the changes in our field, it is vital to have up-to-date courses available for students. The online environment could be a great tool to help folks keep their skills on the cutting edge.

I don't expect to have a lot of fancy bells and whistles built into my class the first time out. I'd rather be able to run the course with confidence than live in fear that something will crash and I won't know how to handle the situation. Fortunately, I've found some excellent articles and videos to use. Now I just need to trust my teacher instincts and jump into the online environment. I know the first class won't be perfect. But just like a traditional course it can always be tweaked. We are always learning, whether teacher or student.

A struggle to the end

My frail and gravely ill mother finally agreed to come stay with us last week because she's so weak. Waiting for CT scans and biopsy results has made it difficult to focus on design considerations and constraints as Designing Online Courses comes to a close. But really, how is that any different than the rest of the semester?

For some reason design considerations have confounded me since Lesson 3. I have a feeling I'm making them more difficult than they really are. I initially struggled with writing learning objectives as well. But once I started considering each objective an extension of the phrase "By the end of the course I want my students to be able to..." they fell into place. No such catch phrase has risen for design considerations, however, so there seems to be no simplifying the concepts for me. Even the readings and supplemental materials from our consideration did not help.

Fortunately, other lessons and concepts were much easier to digest. Assessments seem to come naturally to me (just ask my students who took a grueling final last night in my face to face class!). And dealing with most learner issues isn't too difficult either. But I have yet to figure how to best teach interviewing skills to journalism students in an online class. Perhaps more importantly, how can I help them develop passion and curiosity for telling interesting stories about the world around them? Some would say those last two traits must be innate, but I believe a teacher can help students find their passion and channel their curiosity and energy. I don't think that being a good mentor has to be the purview of a face to face teacher either. But making those strong connections might be a little more challenging in the online environment.

I have mixed feelings about the peer reviews and groups in this course. I am a big fan of peer critiques and I certainly believe they helped me improve my final paper and, to a lesser extent, my drafts. But having to work the peer review group into a heavy mix of drafts, reading and life proved difficult this semester. I will be using a peer critique group in my online course. They will be run in a similar fashion to the story workshop format used in creative writing classes at Columbia College and the University of Iowa. Hopefully, I can find a way to work the groups into the course in a way that is more fun than work.

For me, the most important takeaway from this class will be the design template. As much as I dislike filling out forms, mapping out a course and making sure the objectives, activities and assessments are all aligned has been invaluable. I think I'm going to start using the design template for all the classes I teach, whether online or face to face.

Now if only there was a design template for handling life's biggest challenges.

A new nemesis

I've progressed from being confounded by technology to being done in by "practice," "plan," "propose" and other dull words associated with learning objectives.  It's not that I don't understand learning objectives, I'm just having trouble writing them properly. The purpose of learning objectives is to specifically describe what you want the student to learn by the end of a certain lesson or class. What do I want my students to be able to do or understand by the end of this lesson? It's a key question to ask as a course is developed online or face to face. Without knowing the objectives the teacher can flounder needlessly and the students will get frustrated with a lack of direction.

But do they have to be written with such specific wording and boring verbs? It reminds me of my sophomore composition class in high school which required a tedious and overly detailed outline with points deducted if you put your name on the wrong side of the page. I've never done well with such rigid rules and I think that's what's happened with my learning objective difficulties.

Boring verbs aside, I find Bloom's Taxonomy helpful as I develop my first online course. The progression from knowledge to evaluation was especially helpful when coming up with activities to support the lesson and enhance learning. And the steps to design different activities between students, the instructor and the information has also been good to learn. As someone who never had teaching courses in college, it's great to find out I've been on the right track in my classes. But it also gets me thinking about ways to improve my online and in person teaching

But it has been a challenge to map out every single bit of reading and each activity right from the start of a class. I always enjoy putting together the syllabus for my face to face journalism classes. But I will admit I sometimes don't have all the activities for a class figured out until a week before. This leaves me a lot of flexibility to react to the latest news. But that fluidity can make it stressful since I'm a part-time teacher and my full-time professional writing life is often hectic. If I don't have everything mapped out well in advance things sometimes don't come together until the last minute and I don't think that is best for teaching or learning. So all the work ahead of an online class could be freeing and less stressful in the long run.

I've decided to approach my course development as if it were a knitting project. The learning objectives are like the basic knit and purl stitches. They are the building blocks and there isn't a whole lot of creativity that goes into a single knit stitch or a learning objective verb. The overall template for the class is akin to the knitting pattern and that's where the creativity really shines. The finished project is a student who has hopefully learned something from my class. Now if only I could get the sweater currently on my knitting needles to go together as easily as a week's lesson.

Two down, two to go

I may regret saying this, but after struggling through the first two classes in Governor State University's online teaching certificate I'm feeling a lot more confident heading into the third course which focuses on design. Not sure where this new found jauntiness is coming from, but having the summer off from taking classes and just getting back from my first two-week vacation in more than 20 years probably helps. In addition, I am now basically working one job instead of two and that really assists the psyche (if not the pocketbook).

But more importantly,I experienced a real turning point during the second class when I had to facilitate a week's lesson. The proverbial light bulb went on as I realized that even though it is online it really is all about teaching. And I already know how to teach! Suddenly instead of fighting the technology I realized it is a tool for teaching, not a brick wall to blast through.

That said, I fully expect to have some moments of panic in the third class. I consider myself warned since our teacher told us up front this is the most demanding course in the program. As if the other two classes were a cake walk! The first hurdle is learning the new Blackboard system. So far so good though, since it actually seems a little easier than the old course management system (Note the progress here, the old Vickie would have been railing against the change).

I'm hoping my experience in developing traditional courses will translate seamlessly to this design course. I recently spent some time putting together a literary journalism course that was canceled due to low enrollment. I plan to use that for my final project. I think it could translate well to the online environment and perhaps that will be the right place to offer the course. The previous two courses made me more conscious of the different learning styles so I've already tried to incorporate them into the course. The biggest challenge will be developing online activites to support the learning. Making that transition will be interesting and I'm looking forward to applying the theories we've learned and my own teaching style to this new technology.

How's that for a new attitude? Now here's hoping I can keep up!

Getting there...

As the title of the post indicates, I finally feel like I'm starting to "get" online teaching. Facilitating a week really helped me reach that point. As I mentioned in the previous post, the trepidation felt prior to facilitating for a week was far worse than the reality. I think we were all a little nervous going in, but for me the nerves were compounded by a firm belief that I would be the one to crash the entire global Blackboard system in the midst of our Wimba lecture.

Alas, no such calamity occurred and the presentation went off without a techno glitch. I had taken the lead on preparing the Powerpoint, starting a couple weeks ahead of time with the research and designing of the presentation. I mention this timetable because I rarely have much time to work ahead. But this was not an effort to be put off until the last minute. As a novice at Powerpoint I knew it would take time. The hours started adding up, however, when I started gussying up the design of the pages. Ultimately, I decided a clean simple page is best with easy to read text and minimal graphics for a little visual eye candy. It's easy to get caught up in the endless possibilities and bog down the page. Resist the temptation.

I also strongly recommend open and frequent communication with your facilitation partner (if you have one) since two heads can be better than one. As a professional writer I tend to work alone in my head too much so it was good to work with someone else for a change. I was tempted at one point to "cheat" and try to meet in person. But since she lives hundreds of miles away that was not possible so the temptation passed.

My only disappointment in facilitating was the lack of interaction or "spark" with the students who attended our lecture. We built a few ice breaker exercises into our presentation but they didn't elicit much reaction. Of course, you don't always hit a home run in a face to face class either but I hope in the future I can infuse a little more energy into a group presentation.

I think I was most surprised by the discussion posts during facilitation week. I honestly did not expect to enjoy the reading and posting as much as I did. But we really have an intelligent and interesting group in our class and I learned a lot from them and got some great ideas. I suspect the same could be true for any online teacher. I did realize toward the end of my facilitation class that it would be better if my responses were occasionally questions or suggestions to draw out more responses from folks rather than simple comments. But just like the Wimba lecture, it will take some practice to develop a teaching style that functions like more of a guide.

When I started this learning adventure I was luke warm to the technology but wanting to offer opportunities to a wider array of students. Now I'm starting to really warm up to the genre and enjoy it! The one thing I do find surprising is the time necessary to really develop and run a successful class. I never thought online teaching was easier than tradition classroom teaching. But I could easily see it taking over someone's life if personal parameters aren't established from the outset. Otherwise you could be checking and posting all day every day and creating elaborate Powerpoint slide shows for lectures. And we haven't even touched on the time necessary to develop a course with syllabus and all the supporting materials yet. But just as time management is critical for students, it is essential for the teacher. We all need balance.

The joys of facilitating

When it comes to facilitating a class, the anticipation is definitely worse than the reality. I actually enjoyed facilitating a lot and was glad to have picked building community, an aspect of online teaching I find most challenging and relevant. Studies have shown that building a sense of community within a course really helps students succeed in the online environment and I hope we helped demonstrate that during our week. I especially liked pulling together the synchronous Wimba presentation.  From the first time I attended a live Wimba discussion in the intro class, I have really been fascinated by it. Not only does it help bring the class together, but you have a chance to branch out from the routine of reading and discussion posts.

As part of the facilitation, I prepared my very first Power Point presentation. What fun! Although it's not necessarily a skill taught in the course, it's an important step for me to learn new programs and technology. Although my teammate and I received positive feedback on our presentation and discussion responses, I can't help but feel that in our presentation I was still in "sage on the stage" mode. It will be a real challenge to transition to being a "guide on the side." I felt that the discussion post responses allowed me to offer guidance and feedback, but as soon as I had a class in the Wimba session it felt very similar to lecturing in front of a live class. I don't think taking a leadership role is a bad thing, necessarily, but in an environment where the student has taken ownership of his or her learning it's not really necessary. I'll be working on shedding that habit in the coming months.

The other challenge we have addressed is competencies and keeping up with the eJones when it comes to training. Staying current on the trends in my own field of journalism is tough enough these days. But staying abreast of the trends in technology and online teaching seems impossible. I believe it is a case where you do the best you can. Authors in our readings stressed the importance of learning your own university's learning management system and trying new things periodically. I will do that, but I do not plan to pull  my hair out learning every new program that comes along. That would be a certain path to an ulcer.

As an aside, however, I wonder specifically how adjunct faculty can keep up. Some schools offer training or funding for staff development for adjuncts. Others do not. I've read that adjuncts teach about 50 percent of the courses at American universities these days (yes, it's true!). With the growth of online courses I believe this trend will only increase in the future. Hopefully, schools will increase funding for training for adjuncts to make sure students in online courses have access to the most current and relevant information and technology. Although working with this new technology is tough for me, I really want my future online students to have access to the same quality of information that other students have across the country whether I'm an adjunct or a full-time faculty member. I'm glad GSU has made a commitment to training adjuncts with the scholarship for the certificate program.

 Which brings me to the current bane of my existence - HTML. Surely, there has got to be an easier way to make web sites and course content look good! My brain feels so full that the HTML lessons are not sinking in and I'm struggling. I suspect there are ways to simply type in what you want and the underlying HTML code magically appears. If no one has invented that program yet, I'm going to figure it out and give Steve Jobs and Bill Gates a run for their money. Then I'll be able to afford all the ongoing training I need to keep up with all the new technology!