Week 1 of the course

We've finished the first week of our course, and I have been very happy about the discussions on Nicenet so far. Almost all of the 28 participants have posted at least once, and most people have posted more than once and on more than one topic. They are responding thoughtfully to the questions/prompts and to each other, which is wonderful. This feels more and more like a real learning community.

My role as the teacher/facilitator this week has been largely focused on getting everyone successfully logged in and started. I've also been reading all the posts to see that the discussions are moving along in productive directions. There's been very little for me to add to the discussions most of the time, since the teachers are doing so well themselves. It helps a lot to have a group of seasoned distance ed veterans in the class.

The topics this coming week, creating a reflective blog and writing learning objectives, should also be very productive. At least some (perhaps many or most) of the teachers have written learning objectives in other courses. The format we'll use here is a bit different, but I think it's clear and easy to understand. We'll link objectives and rubrics later, since they should be two sides of the same coin.

Come to think of it, I need to go back to the website and add the learning objectives for this week. Like this blog, the learning objectives for this course are modeling what I'd like to see participants do in the course. Once the teachers read the reading, the ABCD model will make more sense to them. People often mistake it for a simple list rather than a memory aid - Audience, Behavior, Condition, Degree.

I'm hoping everyone will be able to create a blog successfully on Blogger. Next, of course, is the harder part - creating the content for a good reflective blog. I'm practicing too, with this blog.

--Deborah