Observations

It was good to hear about LMS from Trevor. He obviously did some research. Interestingly enough, the research shows some of the same things we already know – some faculty will use technology to varying degrees, peers influence adoption, support has to available, and younger faculty are more likely to use technology. Hopefully with the data to prove this, more universities will provide the necessary supports.

Although I pretty much forgot to turn in the peer evaluation, I think it is a great idea to offer the peer evaluations, especially, in an anonymous way. Trevor will get the feedback and no one will feel exposed. This way Trevor (and subsequent presenters) will receive valuable comments and be able to improve. I always find the comments on my instructor evaluations very helpful.

One of the topics we discussed in Trevor’s discussion activity at the end was some of the pros/cons of Bb. Our group said that the uniformity of most Bb sites made the interface very boring. I then read on my 7150 course site how the students were bothered by the fact that the use of Bb was different from other courses. They expected the content to differ but the basic interface to be the same. They found it distracting for things not to match up exactly. It’s funny how point of view can vary.
There also seems to be a few technical problems – files repeated in different menus, electronic versions of articles jumbled, etc.
I would assume that this being their 7th class, their 4th semester, a lot of these problems would be worked out.
It appears that there aren’t a whole lot of “meaningful” posts - a lot of “me too”, “I had the same problem”, etc. and the discussion thread dies as soon as Dr. Guerra posts. This ties in directly to the idea of when should the facilitator step in – too early and the post dies – too late and students are frustrated.

It was interesting to see how the groups were created (self selection) and how some took the lead, while other groups have just been formed.

As I read more into the reflections, the posts got more meaningful and really insightful. However, I am not seeing a lot of responses nor a lot of interaction, except, of course, from the instructor. She seems to answer or respond to most if not all posts – what a lot of work for her!! According to the record of viewed posts, not a lot of students are reading the posts either, at least not deep into the thread. I am also not seeing any personality – I would expect that these people somewhat know each other. No one is giving another student “a hard time”, there aren’t any jokes, and there isn’t any banter – how boring!! I couldn’t participate that way – maybe I am too much of a smart ass.

It also struck me that the initial post was made on the 8th, and there were no responses until the 15th and then ran through the 21st (it may be a short window that they are expected to post in and I missed those directions), but it seems so long in between initial request and adding content. Also it drove me nuts that they rarely changed the title (including the instructor/facilitator) – so I didn’t know what the message contained.

Of course, being a lurker, I don’t really know the rules or the interaction yet!! I’ll keep observing