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.