My objectives: From this course I wish to learn the processes and theories concerning creation of an e-learning course and everything that is connected with it. I would like to use my knowledge with creating online courses for secondary school learners, and do it properly. Also I would like to test my management skills how well I can do with groupwork organizing and maintaining group spirits high during the course. I think I will take the responsibility of maintaining groupwork in order, and in other group-related management things. One more thing that I would like to add is that as a learner I would like to gain more experience in self-directed learning or time planning.
What resources will I need: I am going to use my learning blog on blogger, also pbwiki-based wiki as group-work-related environment. As most of use are skype users for online communication, I could gather the group within skype. I also need people for groupwork, but since the group was formulated during week 2 (and later newcomers joined the groups of their preference, there was no difficulty in gathering the members in one skype list). I will also need the course learning materials as well as additional internet sources to complete my goals. In order to practise with my own pupils, I will need them to participate, and from April, 5 to 9 I am going to practise the task of giving a proper e-course to them.
How will I do it: My strategy to achieve the objectives is to participate in all course activities and read all the materials related to the course. It is a bit difficult timewise, but still manageable. I will certainly follow the facilitator's blog and pass the news to group skype chat in order to maintain the group alert.
The order of my individual actions would first require getting acquainted with the materials as well as extra resources, and then reflecting upon them in my blog. Possibly reading other peoples' thoughts as well as discussing things with them via Skype or other IM sources, or commenting on them in their blogs.
The order of my groupwork activities is first getting acquainted with my fellow groupmates, then creating an environment for them, and asking them to join the collaborative process. Finally creating a unique product within our group that would please the participants.
What concerns practice with my students, then the order is building up a task list in the blog (we have used the blog before and they are aware of the address), and asking them to do their chores by a certain time. Also providing the information in eKool for those who are prone to finding excuses. I will give them the grading scale and the resources where they find extra material. Finally I will look through their posts (they have created their blogs and used them beforehand with my lesson) and reflect on their tasks. Finally I will create a test in order to assess their learned material.
Concerning time planning I intend to focus myself on my to-do-list more often and find time for schoolwork during busy weekdays of different chores. At least 1-2 hours for my schoolwork every two or three days should be OK.
Evaluation criteria: I think that I will understand if I was successful or not, when I have completed all my tasks that I intended to do during this course. Providing a successful e-learning experience for my learners would be a bonus, this is not the essential task that concerns this course, but of vital importance for my work.
Evaluation is based on my ability to create a meaningful and inspiring e-learning course for my secondary school pupils. This can be easily measured from the flow of the course flow and pupils' feedback.
Self-reflection: I think that the best evaluation criterium for my success would be my satisfaction. I also think that when I am able to do the rest of the tasks in time, that would be just perfect.
Reading and reflection:
I found some points in the text that reminded me of certain things. For example self-directed learning which is quite difficult to manage if you are not a full-time student, but a student with a job and a family to raise. I remember I quit one e-learning course because I had a contest to prepare, two jobs to keep and a child to raise. Fortunately this was not at all a university-related project, thus I could leave the course without any conscience-stricken feelings. Now school is my priority and I am trying to cope with my tasks in order to prove myself I am better this time (from the last university experience).
I know that there is a possibility to learn or induce in yourself a proper time-management system in order to do all the chores in time and leave some time for yourself as well. This would be the next e-course I would like to participate in.
I also (re-)learned that in order to create content in the web that is mashed together with other people's thoughts, a facilitator has to provide learners with multiple environments among which they could choose their perfect means. The learners should use tools that enable reading feeds and creating knowledge base in the community. It is inevitable that the learners learn well from using the means and this, in turn, gives to their overall knowledge base, and in the future helps them to be able to cope with using these skills in their workplaces or with different tasks.
The third vital thing that I learned this week (there are new things for me after all) was about personal contracts. This may be the best solution for self-guidance and time planning, after one has created the contract and "signed" it with him/herself. The contract has to be followed and always reviewed in case something has been forgotten. There is a possibility to make amendments and changes in the contract in case something pops up later, but the contract is a great means to keep you on track. Group contracts might be used in case the group is not cooperating or willing to cooperate.
2. Was there something you didn’t quite understand and want to know more about it?
I think the material was well understood.
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