Final Reflections

Well, I am towards the end of this class and I must say it has been an interesting and manageable experience. Although I was not excited about the class overall at the beginning, I have to say that I did learn some new areas in IT especially with Online Facilitation. My experience with facilitation was not as involving but it was a huge part of class that kept me interested and motivated although the assignment as an actual facilitator was not. We did have an opportunity to discuss our Facilitator experiences in class and found that some assignments were more involving than other. Although different, I did find that you can learn just as much by observing than being involved. I did understand that because this was a fairly new practice with the IT program, more barriers were involved such as online instructor not wanted interference in a sense, online instructors not understanding the goals of the facilitator, having enough instructors to match the number of facilitators requested and the challenges the students acceptance of a facilitator. In thinking deeper, although I know that the facilitation is new, I might have maybe waited another semester before including to better sell for a lack of words, pilot, test, and develop the concept, meaning and practice to the not only the instructor involved but the students and facilitator just as well. It seems to be a work in progress and experience is the best teacher but I think the overall meaning and expectation are a little grey for most. Again, piloting the program and selling if first might be a little easier.

The overall class did give me details as it related to online practice and facilitation. What I might have changed would be to have a portion of the class required to be online and include the facilitation practice online just as well. I think this would a give a feel for an online experience overall. The class seemed to be a bit long to fit all information necessary and required for this class. The class setting wasn't bad and I can see where the attempt was made to meet all of the objectives, but it did get rather lengthy. The projects were good learning experiences and the instructor was very knowledgeable of the subject. I think that only thing that might have fallen a little short was the reading, but at the same time they we very informative and can be used a collective reference guide.
As this class develops, I can see the IT program getting stronger which is a critical need. I hope is does just that. There is need for change just as there are changes with IT overall. I hope the program continues in its efforts to keep up.

The Team

We were given another assignment in class to work in teams and put together a paper and presentation on our FITs experiences, plans of changes, additions, and modification for an online instructor. I have to say this was somewhat interests because everyone in the group had different experience but seem to have parallel experiences as it relates to the student and somewhat different experiences working the instructor.
Personally, my experience as a Facilitator with the class I was involved in focused on the assignment of Mobile Learning. There were 2 students in the group on being more involved than the other. In a nutshell, the instructor posed questioned for discussion related to this topic requiring feedback amongst each other and what I found, feedback from other peers from other groups. One of the original 2 in my group responded regularly while the other person took a while. I tried my luck to get involved in the discussion by adding a little feedback of the topic and at the same give awareness of my presence and somewhat of an introduction of myself. Although the student knew from the instructor that I would be involved as a Facilitator, I didn't want to interrupt the instructor's overall objects for the student in the class. I didn't want to be a little more involving, therefore I also post question with my discussion to trigger more feedback. There wasn't a response at the beginning literally no feedback at all from on the group member. Eventually, she did post but only discussed feedback from questioned given the instructor. I did a little observing for a while to get a feel of how the tone was being set. I posted another question eventually and directed them directly to the student..Example-”what are your views on this situation John Doe". That actually prompted feedback but nothing more than that. The instructor eventually posted another question not only did my group give immediate feedback but so did other in other groups. I thought that this was pretty interested because it seemed that the students were doing just enough and only what was asked of the instructor. There was no real exciting interactivity for learning besides Collaborative along with visual presentation through PowerPoint. This class actually reminded me of a graduate level class with a very boring theoretical boring type of instructor. My question is where was the interactive learning for this online course? It really didn't seem that the instructor put together the class for online at all. Personally, I think that I would have our facilitation involvement throughout the whole class to aid in a deeper development of the instructor’s online teaching process. We were already in a facilitation class and learning as we were going about specifics of online teaching so why not.
Wow, think I really got off of the subject the Team Project of our FITS assignments.
Well, we have posted our paper and presentation on Blackboard and will be presenting it tonight. Two of the people in the group received feedback and discussion with the instructor while the other did not which includes me. Two of the group member that did get feedback from the instructor was based from asking too many question to their students in the group and let another student know that her involvement was in a since "too" involving. As the facilitation relates to the students all of did receive at some sort of involvement with them.
Our assignment as a team wasn't that difficult or too intense because none of us were that involving with our groups. Individually we gave our interpretation the facilitation process assignment and put it together when we met collectively. Paying more attention to details at toward the submittal on Bb, more discussion and modification were made. In addition and as of today we way and decided that more changes need to made, therefore we will be revising our paper for final submittal after the presentation tonight.
Until then......check in on the next post...

Special Topic and Online Facilitation

Hello Again,

I am checking in again with my class status information. This seems so formal but I guess I have to get use in a sense to be a little informal and comfortable with blogging online. It is easier if I didn't know anyone had access to my information but then again, for what, I am not giving any private information right.....

Anyway, I gave my presentation about a week ago and it went pretty good at least I think. I get so involved in trying to perfect things that sometimes I loose focus and that almost most happened with my presentation on "Blended Learning". The PowerPoint of my presentation is as follows: (Just Click on the Link or cut and paste this in the your we browser address box).. http://blackboard.wayne.edu/courses/1/IT_7130_0709_001/db/_1195125_1/Blended%20Learning%20Presentation.ppt?bsession=45806336&bsession_str=session_id=45806336,user_id_pk1=246092,user_id_sos_id_pk2=1,one_time_token=

Considering the time that I spent on putting the presentation together using various technologies it was too bad. I did have some technical issues even with trying to be as prepared as possible but those are some things that you have to deal with the best way that you can for productive teaching and learning. You should always have a back up plan and in most case with teaching, it usually good old fashion hard copy and/or the traditional stand up teaching style of teaching. This is why I chose the topic of "Blended Learning". We use it all of the time and don't really realized it from using PowerPoint with presentation, Video presentations, web casts presentation and event an outside speaker to come in and give a talk. These are all forms of "Blended Learning". When you get the use more technology assistance with learning as I did with my presentation such as Audience Response Keypad and an example of Video Conferencing/Web casting, technical difficulties should definitely be considered with planning. Check out my PowerPoint presentation and you might be able to see for yourself. With all things considered, I think that it went well overall.

At the Midway point in class

Hello to my class and everyone who is reading this bog entry. Evidently it has been a while sense my last post but you know how we can get sometimes: lazy, forgetful, last minute or just plain careless. Of course I would none of those but I will say that it is better late than never and good thing happen to those who wait. :-).

My focus with this entry is on my current class status to date that has actually been interesting in the sense that is has really kept me busy, more than I expected. It has also been really helpful and beneficial toward the enhancement and development of various projects with my job. One of those projects focus on Continuing Medical Learning through Video and Web casting media. This is is part of my job that has a focus area of Distance Education. With this class and the subject of "Blended learning", Instructional Technology Learning Styles, Online Media and attention to Social Communication related to the Web, I have a deeper vision and design detail related to my job assignments. I have been more involving with integrating various Medias with my projects for an outcomes base towards efficiency and quality of learning. An example of what I have worked on is at the following web address. Check it out and tell me what you think. http://www.med.wayne.edu/cme/newCMEwebpages/publichealthonline_new.htm Focus on the construction of the site but definitely concentrate on the Video. Give me some feedback of what you think.

Also as another part of a project in the class, I have been given the responsibility to be an Online Facilitator of an online class. I do like the title but with what I had to do, I really didn't feel as important as the title gives. Pretty much I monitor a group on a discussion board that gave feedback and discussion to a particular subject area, "Mobile learning". The instructor posted questions related to this topic and supposedly discussion was collaborated between 3 people. I found it to be challenging because not all responded it seems until it was absolutely necessary. I found it quite interested to monitor this and event tried to trigger feedback myself by adding my own related questions but it just seemed like I was just another ignored post. I thought that my assignment as facilitator would be more involving but at the same time, this was a learning experience as a new facilitator so I didn't mind as much. I am hoping to learn more and get more involved an Online Facilitator.

Well folks, until next time....

First Reflection

I took it for granted that this course would be just another required course that would would be none challenging for me but it is turning out to be just the opposite. The name of the course itself, "Facilitation of Online and Face-to-face Learning" which gave some attention but after reading the course description, the first 2 weeks of class, and the class readings, I found the class to be not just challenging but surprisingly involving. Based on what I learned thus far there is a lot involved with online learning/"E-tivities". Compared to the traditional style of teaching and learning, E-tivities gives a more blended style of learning involving a traditional style base of learning. In comparison, your traditional teacher/instructor is your facilitator online but seeming having a lot more involvement not limited to technical, cultural, team oriented, networking and collaborating environments. In addition, most of the development of E-tivities are based from previous learning experiences. Just with an Instructional Design development model, there is also a base model to use when designing E-tivities which is very useful. This model is based on 5 stages which work collaboratively and build as you go through your development and design. What stands out to me is that you can't really go the next state unless you really have the previous down packaged. The first stage deals with identification of new participants. The second stage involves really getting to know who you are working with and interacting among each. Exchanging of information is the focus of the third stage. The forth stage is more detailed collaboration and stage 5 is ultimately putting it all together as one whole e-learning activity. This model overall initiates teaching and learning, promoting a structure of stages of learning and continuous involvement. Because of the multi-task way of teaching and learning relating to the way I work, I have further interest in this class by learning more to enhance my expertise towards developing E-activities. I am actually looking forward to getting more involved with the next stage of this class.

Hello

Hello All,

I think that this might be an interesting class and looking foward to working with all of you. It is a little tough getting back into the swing of things as far as school work but I will be ok.

See you all in class tomorrow.

LaCema