Welcome Back!
May 30th, 2010 by Michele Brannon-Hamilton
Welcome back to my educational technology blog! I’m currently taking courses in research methods and business ventures. It’s week four and I’m finally starting to grasp the new concepts and course design. We’re using the learning management system (LMS), Blackboard Vista, for the research course which I’ve become quite familiar with since these are my 7th and 8th courses. However, our ventures course takes place in a blog which is a new experience.
Although I’m familiar with the layout and design of blogs because of my time here, it’s a different experience taking a course through a blog. My first challenge was following the course chats. In our LMS, we could follow various discussions and threads with ease. In the blog, posts are organized by tags and categories. Each new post is added by date. I found it confusing until our instructor suggested we use an RRS reader to help us figure out which posts we had read. I’m now using Google Reader which does help you differentiate between the old and new but it doesn’t sort posts by subject so I’m back to trying to read via the blog itself. I’m 400 posts behind but I’m hopeful that I will catch up! I will keep you posted.
Michelle, I am reading your blog as a great example for my etec 511 course. Just wondering, why haven’t you continued blogging? And how was your experience teaching online?
I hope you continue to write in this medium as your work is exemplary.
Hi Catherine
Thank you so much for your comment. You have inspired me to start writing again. Ironically, I wrote a paper in ETEC 500 about blogging. While researching, I discovered that many, if not most people, have difficulty maintaining a blog. I stopped because I’m so busy between work and taking these courses that I ran out of time. However, I’m now in ETEC 590 working on my final ePortfolio. I was going to add things as I develop them but I think instead, I will use this blog to reflect on my experience creating the final ePortfolio. Reflection is part of ETEC 590. Also, I’ll try to add information about my online teaching.
Thank you again for taking the time to read my blog. How did you find it? Good luck with your blog. Let me know if I can help you in any way.
Michele
Michelle, I found your blog while taking Etec 565 with you and again it was brought up as an example of good blogging in Etec 511.
Great to have been an inspiration. I too like to blog and really have had trouble keeping it up. I am hoping to resume my good habits shortly.