Building and designing an e-learning course has been one of the most challenging assignments I have done as of yet in the MET program. When I was first looked at the assignment, I honestly didn’t think that it would be as difficult of a task as it was. However, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to work with an amazing partner to help accomplish this assignment. I feel that it was super important to collaborate with a colleague when designing the Global Citizenship program as were both able to bring important ideas to the table. The most difficult part of the assignment was creating a well designed unit that had well defined course goals and that was free of ambiguity. As the course would target grade six and grade seven students, it was essential that it was well planned and extremely clear and concise. I feel that this process took a long time to perfect and it was necessary to walk through the course multiple times and think proactively about any questions or concerns students may have when accessing the learning materials. I was thoroughly happy with the choice we made in using Moodle. Although the platform took a while to learn and perfect, once you understood the basics, it was fairly easy to use. I am hoping that I can use this course in the future but have realized that it will take a lot longer to create than I initially thought.

Working on assignment two was a huge eye opener for me. I knew going into the assignment that creating an online course would be a difficult task. However, until now, I didn’t realize how difficult it is to create a well designed course that is pedagogically sound and user friendly. A lot of time needs to be dedicated to the front-end of the course creation. In my opinion, creating an online course is far more difficult than creating a unit in a face-to-face classroom. One of the main reasons I think this is that as an educator in a traditional classroom, when I teach a unit and something isn’t necessarily working, I can change and adapt what I am doing on the spot. In a face-to-face setting, I have the ability to instantly experience how students are connecting and relating to the material and activities. However, in online courses, an educator does not necessarily receive that immediate feedback. Therefore, everything has to be carefully planned and each aspect of the course needs to be executed effectively the first time it is presented. 

I found the most difficult task in the entire project was deciding how and where, on the LMS, the students would perform particular tasks like engaging in discussions, checking in on assignment progress, completing their assignments and sharing their work. Engaging in these tasks online requires careful planning and every possible roadblock needs to be anticipated.

I had such a positive experience working alongside my peer to create this project.  We each started the project with different goals but we were able to collaborate and merge both sets of goals into the final product. As this is a course I would one day like to teach, it was extremely beneficial to work alongside a colleague who could provide feedback and a whole new set of creative ideas that I had not thought of on my own.

This particular group assignment was one of the most positive collaborative assignments that I have been involved in thus far. Our assignment ran smoothly and all members fully participated in each aspect of the assignment. This was the first time that I had actually worked on an assignment without using a program like Google Hangouts or Skype to facilitate discussion. We started a Google Doc with an outline of the assignment. From there, each group member added comments to each section asynchronously. The group planned a synchronous meeting time where we would edit the entire document. One of the group members had a brilliant idea to color code the different sections of the assignment which made it extremely easy to refer to a particular paragraph while editing. Once a paragraph was done and everyone approved, we turned the text to black font. I have to admit, I was a bit skeptical on doing the entire assignment without meeting via video or a conference call. However, it worked out quite well. It is quite impressive to see the end product using only Google Docs.

Wow, what an experience! I have never been on the producing side of WordPress. Instead, I have always been a consumer of the product.  Learning how to successfully create an actual WordPress site has given me the opportunity to understand how the platform works internally. After exploring the platform, I have realized the complexities associated with creating a website that is designed well, easy to navigate and visually pleasing. From this experience, I can definitely see myself using a platform such as this in my career as an educator.

My name is Brittany Reid and I welcome you to join me on my journey in discovering and experimenting with various learning technologies.