What have you learned that you did not know before?

What have you learned that you did not know before?

I did not know that an online course could be so interactive, but I learned it can from the presentation, “what works” and from my experience participating in the class. From my prior experience at my College working with teachers who teach online I see them using such a small portion of what online learning can be. They use the basics like read this article and write this paper or take this quiz. Which feels like they are just dumping their traditional class into the online environment without any changes. There are some discussions but nothing like what is occurring in this class. Even from my experience taking traditional classrooms we never had this level of discussion and participation as we do in this course.

Even providing something simple like “your next step”, and a detailed overview at the start of each module,  can have a strong impact. Assuming nothing, we do not know if a student coming into our online class has been there before, has tech knowledge, and will be able to figure out the in’s and out’s of the online system you are using in a timely manner. By directing the student to start here, where to go next, how to proceed at the start of each module, we as teachers can speed this up. Assuming nothing, a student who is not tech savvy can have a hard time locating all the content in an online course. I am tech savvy and teach teachers how to use online teaching technology yet it took me a minute to figure out the moodle system. Instead of poking around in the dark for where to begin after reading the orientation documents, the teacher should point students where to go.


Rob Piorkoski did a great job in his course with providing the students with information even supplying them with guides to learn about the audio recording tools he will have them use. Just like Professor Pickett also supplied us with guides to learn how to use the tools we used, like voicethread and diigo. 

The angle system we have on our campus has a section called learning modules where all the work is housed. Being a new online student this terminology does not seem obvious as the place to begin your coursework. So we recommend the faculty use the announcement feature, which is located front and center on the homepage of the course, to direct the students to go into the learning modules to begin their work.

Something that was talked about in all the readings for module 2 that I did kind of understand but was drilled In much stronger was the idea of providing course information documents to make the student aware of everything, in a type of orientation way. To let them know up front exactly what they are in for as far as readings, the schedule of readings (for example 2 per week), how the teacher will assess the readings, with a strong rubric to show the student the exact quality of the work they must submit to obtain an A, B or C grade in the course, and even providing examples of what you expect the work to look like. This works at the start of the class as an overview of the entire course, and in each individual module, to overview what will be done in each module. When we handed in our assignment from module one, our course info and course profile documents Professor Pickett provided us with sample documents of what our would should look like.

Another way we can find out from the professor what type of things they are looking for, as a student in an online course, is to be able to read the professors critique of your peers work. Many professors at my College keep their analysis private, just between the one student who submitted the work and the Professor. In this course it’s out in the open, for the most part. I doubt Professor Pickett would chew out a student via a public critique. But the point of this, as John Seely points out in youtube speech is to enhance, and amplify the learning process of everyone in the course.

When I am critiqued on my work in a private manner, I have one experience, of one single student, learning and growing in a course. But when I can experience everyone in my course, learning and growing and being critiqued I have immediately expanded my experience and my learning.

This idea has been a strong point of module two for me and I will definitely be implementing this in my online course.

Another idea that I had about online courses even though I have never taken one is that they were self paced. Professor Pickett points out in the what works presentation that that is not the case, or doesn’t have to be. In our online class I would say we have a blend. We are given a two week time period to finish the work for each module which sounds self paced, but there are parameters. 1. Your first discussion post must be within 72 hours of the opening of the Module. 2. Your work and participation must be spread out over the two week period you cannot submit all your work in the last few days of the module being opened. So the student has flexibility that fits in with the idea of asynchronous learning, yet its not a free for all. The student is guided and directed by the teacher.

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