More observations on IT6140

While observing the course a few things I noticed.
In regards to blogging- it was interesting that during our presentation Dr. Zhang asked if we thought the blogs were used as strictly an assignment/something students HAD to do to get their points or if they were actually using them as tools. We all agreed that the blogs were definitely an assignment. As is evidenced by the drastic slow down of activity when there wasn’t a specific blog due. However, there were a few times that specific questions were asked and answered. This was especially true with technical questions. For example, the approach to using Dreamweaver in class was described as very constructivist – which had the students reading articles, watching tutorial type videos, and playing with the program. This highly annoyed many students and frustrated them. Dreamweaver is a pretty robust program and could be the focus of a whole semester course so when students ran into problems they used the blogs to vent and ask for help. The others reading their blogs were VERY helpful. I wish this interactivity was more common throughout the rest of the blogging instead of the simple “smiley face” messages (not that we don’t appreciate those too!)
I also found it interesting that some of the questions asked after our presentation were about group activities. Upon reflection, there weren’t any real groups for this course. That may be a specific strategy that Michael was trying to avoid, this being one of the first courses and online group activities tend to be a little more difficult – especially in an asynchronous environment.
Another issue brought up when telling the class about our experience was the issue of email. It is nice that Michael sends out email, but I don’t know if I would want to send out so many. For me it goes back to student responsibility – do I have to hold their hands every week to remind them to do their assignments? The assignments have already been provided, the timeline, and due dates already set up and communicated. It should be the student’s job to stay on top of managing their education. This is, for me the idea of push versus pull – I have already pushed the information out to the students, it is not up to me to pull them to each and every requirement.
This also relates to the way in which the information was given to students. The Assignments tab was empty – although there were assignments due. The information for each Unit was given in a single document with links and resources. This seemed very clumsy to work with. I will do this a little differently as I am setting up my course.
Overall, I have learned a lot of what I want to do, what I can do, and some different perspectives on why decisions have been made in online courses.
Thanx!!