Module 6 -- Final brief reflection

Bolt 101 has been a great learning experience for me. Although I have taught a number of online courses in the master’s degree program at Dordt, I learned a lot through Bolt 101. My online courses were not as interactive, engaging, or well-structured as they could have been. Thanks to the many tools, discussions, ideas, and frameworks presented in Bolt 101, I feel much more prepared (and excited) to take another crack at teaching online again.

I also think many of the things from Bolt 101 will improve my F2F classroom teaching as well, particularly since the classes I currently teach are structured in longer weekly class times only one time per week. The pacing, structure, tools, and easy-to-follow tutorials from Bolt 101 provided me with a good framework for use in my own courses. Furthermore, since Bolt 101 was run in Canvas, there were a lot of inductive learning that occurred for me as I think of how I can continue to improve my use of Canvas. I love Canvas and now I can see how much more it can do thanks to Bolt 101.

BOLT Module 5

The phrase that has stuck with me for this module is “the difference between an online learning environment and an online learning community”. The environment is, in my mind, the easier part. Making videos, adapting materials using the awesome adaptations chart (Marsh, McFadden, & Price), and setting up the LMS are all fun technical things to do. I’ve often said I could get lost in Canvas for a day just having fun playing around and experimenting.

So setting up the environment is one thing, but actually creating an online community is quite another. I’ve had a lot of bumps and bruises on this front from my online teaching experience….some bruises which may not have even healed yet J. I think the general guidelines from Worchester Polytechnic Institute are very helpful for getting started with building online community. Their framework gives focus to the types of community and interaction one wants in a given class or module. This helps create intentional types of interaction that foster multiple modes of interaction within a learning outcome. I’m eager to use this framework of learner-to-content, learner-to-learner, and learner-to-instructor as I continue to rework my online course. I think it will help build a more intentional community while deepening learning at the same time.

I am concerned about building community because there is a wondering by some, as noted in one of the readings for this week, if the personality of a faculty instructor could be minimized so other faculty would feel comfortable teaching the course. This concerns me a lot! Our online courses, if truly building community, should reflect our personality and who we are as instructors.

Module 4: Strategies and Tactics

BOLT Module 4: Strategies and Tactics

This week’s readings, videos, and lesson elements got me rethinking a lot about how I have taught my online courses in the past and what I might do differently in the future. The whole blogging thing makes me feel like I need to formulate my response in a nice publishable manner since it is a public response, but I’m going to resist the urge to write, edit, and then polish my response and just jot down what’s on my mind in relation to this week’s module…and not even look back to edit…we’ll see how this goes:

·        Social presence – lots of good stuff on this topic this week. One of the most awkward parts I’ve found about teaching online, particularly in the live settings, was if I was the only one present. Yes, my students would respond when prompted, a few would even ask questions in the chat box (I use GoToMeeting for live class sessions), but I also knew that my students were using a private chat function during class presentations of mine, their peers, and/or guest presenters.

·         “Are you there?” – teaching an online “live” class via webcams has been a challenge. The bandwidth doesn’t allow for everyone to have their webcams up so I don’t know if my students are really there or not. Sure, their connection shows that they are connected to the class meeting, but are they really there? I’ve had everything from crying kids in the background to someone busy doing dishes while “in class”. These challenges are obviously only for those live meetings, but I also wonder how “present” are students during the asynchronous class meetings. I’ve asked many a question to webcams of empty rooms…or to rooms where the students are not remotely paying attention. The tools and strategies in BOLT are definitely designed to be much more engaging to students and to force them to participate through more structured learning activities. I like that!

·         Blindfolding discussions – I have had mixed success with this. I like the intent, but my graduate students often hate this function, particularly the students who are less sure of themselves. In these cases, I have found that putting all these less confident students in the same group and then blindfolding it has actually worked best. My less confident students seem to work better in a group of their own and their concern of being intimidated by the “smarter” folks in the class is reduced. I wonder if there is a way in Canvas to have small groups do their own small group blindfolded discussions but still, after they have posted, to also read other groups’ discussions. This would be a great way to differentiate small groups but still learn from the larger group.

·         Video – I like how Dave uses different backgrounds, postures, and locations for his videos. This is a personal way to do video that I would definitely use the next time I teach online.

·         Tip #1 to others – Make an FAQ link on your site. This greatly reduces the number of questions you will get from your online students! In fact, I now do the same for all my classes and find that the FAQ section saves me a lot of time.

·         Tip #2 to others – make tutorials for common tasks. It’s well worth your time up front! I have wasted countless hours answering the same question time and time again until I finally learned that taking 10-15 minutes to craft a simple tutorial video saved me hours and hours in the long run.

·         Tip #3 – DITCH THE HEADSET! I don’t know about you, but I can’t stand wearing a headset. My ears get sweaty (I know, kind of gross!) after wearing it for too long and I feel like I’m in a cave. I also don’t like being tethered to my computer. Buy a ClearOne Chat 50 speaker phone. It’s well worth the $90 investment. This thing works GREAT! All you do is plug it into your computer and it works as an external microphone and speaker. It picks up audio clearly from 20-25 feet away, so you can even wander around a room and still speak and hear clearly.

I really want to go back and read what I just wrote to see if anything I wrote sounds dumb or includes really back grammar/usage…but I’m going to resist and hit “Publish” before I change my mind…

Module 3: Dr. Who

I took my first online class in my M.A. program about 15 years ago from a professor whom I will refer to as Dr. Who. Online learning was a new thing. Web-CT (basically Blackboard) was fairly new and the ability to take a class online was exciting to me. Not only could I learn at my own pace—so I thought going in—I also didn’t have to spend 3-hours a day driving to/from class. I could put this time into my homework. Well…things didn’t turn out as expected. Let’s just say that Dr. Who could have used BOLT training! I literally had ONE communication from this professor during the entire course. The first week of class he sent me an introductory email and that was it. I kept reading, posting assignments, posting discussions, etc. throughout the course but no response or feedback was ever given. Every time my wife asked me how I was doing in the course I replied. “No news is good news, right?” I had no idea how I had done in the course until I received my grade report from the Registrar’s Office in the mail which showed I got an “A” in the course.

So why do I share this story? Because it is incredible how far online learning has come in the last fifteen years. It is exciting to see what can be accomplished in an online environment not just to teach fully online classes, but also to strengthen face-to-face classes. This is where my deepest excitement lies, in seeing how these new tools can help me improve both my F2F instruction and my online instruction.

Module 2

I’ll pass on Today’s Meet. I have used it effectively when I can monitor student responses to a guest speaker, but I think it’s difficult to use when I am presenting or leading in some way. Maybe I’m just too particular that I want to see/hear what EVERYONE thinks…and Today’s Meet is frustrating this way since comments can come in so fast and furious that it’s hard to keep up reading them, much less processing and synthesizing the themes of the responses.

The statement that struck me most this week was Lane’s comment (from Insidious Pedagogy) that “It’s important to make a distinction between a teacher experienced in instruction, and one experienced in using the Web to instruct.” So true! I think, actually I know, this has been my biggest frustration with teaching online. I am effective as a F2F teacher and I feel experience continues to help me grow as a teacher in the classroom, but doing the same thing online is frustrating. But that’s the point, right? It’s NOT the same thing! Yes, it’s teaching and learning, but the environment is not the same and so I need to learn new pedagogies in order to help my online learners engage and learn and deep levels. That’s the GREAT part about teaching, I’m always learning new pedagogies and content right along with my student learners.

Change is Hard

The world of education is changing at an increasingly rapid pace. Exponential by many measures. Change is affecting all areas of education: students, parents, policymakers, teachers, administrators, employers, and more. More change means more work, it's hard, but it also opens up new ideas, research, and conversations about learning. I get excited by change. It fuels my initial ideas and keeps me going...at least for a while...until the barriers start to come up.

Tony Bates states that "to change is more work. You've got to be trained; you've got to learn new things; you've got to do things that you've never done before." For me this is a double-edged sword of excitement and fear. As I share in my online graduate classes where I teach about change leadership, change requires admitting what you don't know and giving up what you do know. This puts one in a very vulnerable place...a place I am at right now. Having successfully taught multiple online graduate courses in a blended model, I thought I was gaining some proficiency as an online instructor. After reading chapter 1 of Smith's Conquering the Content, however, I would say I have a lot to learn! There is a lot I don't know about teaching online and some of what I do know needs to be tossed out. Change is hard...but the possibilities are exciting.