E-Learning For Educators-FA07-901C
Week 1 – Reflection

I have been extremely impressed with the orientation process at UofW for online students – the student support, administration and faculty are all on the same page and I have had a seamless beginning to the 2 online classes I am taking. I only wish my institution was in the same league. The orientation here was clearly best practices!

The course set up is excellent and I love the ability to overview the class and begin early. Like my colleagues, time is tight and the ability to access the course readings, look at the schedule and plan the module activities has been a real stress reducer.


Most useful activities – the ice breaker, the social bookmarking (see below) and the readings. I love to meet people and the discussion board interaction was great – I always am impressed with the diversity of colleagues I meet online and the variety of backgrounds that come together.

THANK YOU so much for the social bookmarking / del.icio.us activity. A number of my colleagues have urged me to do this for some time and, of course, I haven’t – until now. This is great and I know I have just scratched the surface. One of the things I missed about the old Netscape browser was the roaming access that, in essence, allowed me to access my bookmarks and other material from any computer. Now it is back and I am soooooo happy. I understand there is a great deal more functionality to this de.icio.us and I plan to investigate, but now I have my beloved bookmarks from any computer. This was worth the entire course.

The readings – very, very provocative. The 9 myths and 9 constraints I forwarded to my dept. chair, perhaps he will be a tad more sympathetic to my online instruction and try to refrain from loading online courses at MCC up to 50 students per section. (we started years ago – 1995 with 15 online students and over the years this has inched up from 18 to 20 to 22 and currently 25 with a proposal for 50) Interesting what a financial crisis can do to otherwise level headed and thoughtful educators.

The Lessons Learned I forwarded to a colleague who teaches online – she models many of the best practices in described in the facilitator section. The Student checklist I forwarded to our director of distance learning, I think MCC might consider developing a student checklist based upon this set of best practice suggestions for online learners.

The first week earned a 9 out of 10, if this was Survivor in Cyberspace, I would not have been voted off the cyberspace.

Greg