Self-selected blog 2

The Big City

Like a country girl having her first experience in the big city, who is rendered speechless by its wonders, my first experience with being a student in an online class is somewhat similar. While I have taught online in the past, I have never been a student in an online class. Like our country girl, this city girl was unsure if she was ready to take on a new challenge. As the course progressed, I became a bit more comfortable with the unfamiliar. I wouldn't say that I became less awed at those who did the assignments with ease.

During the time I spent on the course I have had the opportunity to review a number of educational resources that had potential for use in the nursing classes that I teach. Actually, I could use all of them to make the classes more interesting and interactive. I have been introduced to blogs, wimba, and wikis. It was during the last assignment, annotated bibs on wiki, that I found Youtube. I thought that Youtube was only a social networking site. I was led to the site through working on my wiki. Surprisingly, as I have blogged previously the material that I found was really appropriate for nursing physical assessment. The videos were especially useful and appropriate. They would easily integrate with other class material.

Two other thoughts: I will search for nursing research class material on the site and see if there are any useful items. Also, working on wiki made me realize that this is a good way to build a community of learners. This is a phrase that when I began the course, I had no idea as to its meaning.

Blogging was the hardest assignment. I kept getting confused as to what blog was due when. I also had no clue as to what "live" meant for blog urls. I now know. I initially thought the class would blog each other. I even put some text to communicate with the class. This did not happen.

The portfolio assignment was confusing at first. I initially tried to use a wiki for my portfolio as suggested. Unfortunately, because of my inexperience, I thought that the ads on the left hand menu were links for the portfolio pages. They were to other vendors of e-portfolios. I tried this for three or four times, gave up and decided to use livetext. This worked out better, and I was able to create the pages that I needed and do the reflective essay on the first page as required.

The learning theories and instructinal strategies were helpful, in that they lended clarity to a topic that I was already studying for a certification examination. Even though I had had courses in educational philosphy in graduate school, it was a real help to update my knowledge. The videos and articles were informative and enhanced the learning modules.

The "Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education" was a good review of materials I had been given by our instructional designer to use for creating my own online class. I also used them with the students in the nursing teaching certificate program. Reading the article on implementing the Seven Principles using online technology and the accompanying assignment gave me my first acquaintance with principles of good online instruction.

Summary:

In general, there were appropriate and meaningful lecturettes. The online resources given by the instructor for each lecturette were prodigious. I still need to look and re-look at them. While the course required a lot of time and work the outcome was satisfying as I added to my armementerium for useful resources in my own online classes. The country girl is becoming more of a city girl, although she is not quite there.