I have to say that so far so good is probably an understatement. Employment for the not so 20's generation has taken on quite a new look in the last ten to twenty years. Employers and Employee don't necessarily stay together for thirty years anymore.
Having the ability to take this course online provides a flexibility that makes it possible for me to continue with my education that would not be possible if I had to dedicate campus time for all of the classes. It allows me to juggle my schedule between three part-time jobs and family life. Next week I will be completely out of town so I was able to go online and complete all of my classwork ahead of time and not even miss a beat.
I have enjoyed the challenges of surfing and investigating technologies that I have heard about and said "Oh, I should try that " but alas have not. Now I can say " Oh yes, I've tried that" and have first hand knowledge as to whether in my never to be humble opinion it was great or not.
The first few lessons were challenging. RSS Feeds, and del.icio.us gave me the biggest fits. In working through the issues that I had with these downloads and uploads I learned a lot that I was able to transfer to some of the other lessons that made them virtually (pun intended) painless. .
The frustration level has been quite high at some points mostly because my attitude was that whatever it was I was doing should not be that hard, yet it just wasn't working. The collaboration between our classmates has definitely been the saving grace in those moments of highest frustration, even though I had to wait for a response. The waiting gives me time to reflect on what I have tried and what I have not tried.
I will definitely incorporate some of what we have learned in my professional work. I plan on starting a new blog to keep in touch with my Aviation Summer Camp students to let them know what is happening in the area that is related to aviation and share some of my adventures with them. We will also be using the Google my maps next year in Aviaiton Summer Camp as an enhancement to our navigation curriculum.
This seems to be a good first course for the Educational Technology program but it is hard to evaluate if it is a good first course because it is my first course and I have nothing to compare it to. I like the textbook. The history of Instructional Technology is definitely a good place to start. It also introduces many organizational systems and it is always good to have a sound organizational system in place before you start a project of any sort.
I leave you now for a week as we fly out to Oshkosh Airventure 2010 in our Cessna 172. We will be camping under the wing of the aircraft for the week. I will also be attending Teacher day at Airventure. The program relates aviation and science to high school curriculum. My daughter will be attending a program called WomenSoar. It is a program just for girls grades9-12. Check it out on the world wide web http://www.airventure.org/ .
The picture at the top of my blog is our campsite from years past. Below is a You tube video :EAA Promo
Enjoy, I know I will.
Blueskies and Sunshine
Ginger
Oshkosh Airventure camping
We all have the same amount of hours in a day. It's what we do with them that sets us apart.
3 comments:
Just by the appearance of your blog and the fact that you always have your post done before I do, made me think that you had no problems with all this technology. I really appreciated hearing not everything was easy for you either. Thanks so much for sharing.
Margie
That's interesting that you like the textbook. In my opinion, that was the weak part of the course. I did like reading chapter 22 since I found all of the information to be very practical. I wish the chapters had more examples of application of the ideas that it taught and were a little more detailed in some of the points that it made. I found the articles separate from the textbook to be more useful. However, I do agree with you that the flexibility of the course pacing (if you want to work ahead) is a strong point of the course. All of the technology applications had good documentation provided so it was easy to work independently on these assignments.
I agree with you about the online courses in this program. It was a MASSIVE selling point for me. I currently work two part time jobs and have a million side jobs I do; everything from selling books i pickup at garage sales on amazon, to computer work for people and networking for businesses. It is an interesting time period we live in and part of my goal over the next year is to start really looking for a job in Alaska, as it seems like there is a lot of opportunity for me in the Tech Director field and in Education. So I certainly agree and understand your position. I am glad you are in this course, your postings/comments have been wonderful and insightful.
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