ETEC 565A Ronna's Reflections: Confessions of an Education Junkie

I found this exercise to be a bit more labour intensive than creating content and quizzes in Moodle! Even though I followed the instructions provided in the e-Learning Toolkit, I still had to “hunt and peck” a couple of times. Having sort of “winged” it through Moodle in a previous course, I am not entirely sure I would want to do that in WebCT/Vista. The layout and design is not as intuitive as Moodle. For instance, I like how Moodle is organized into two main functions: Resources and Activities. This lends itself to designing a simple, comprehensive, easy to understand course. WebCT/Vista may have more options and functionality than Moodle, but I say “less is more” in creating an online course – both for the student and the teacher. Although the WebCT/Vista practice site has a tab for both Course Content and Learning Modules, I think I would combine these (as ETEC 565 has). So, I recognize that not all options in WebCT/Vista must be utilized but I question its ease of use for teachers who find themselves having to create their own course. This was a great eye-opener for me in recognizing just how easy Moodle is!

I added a welcome web page and a discussion (forum) activity to my Moodle site following the instructions given in the ETEC 565 course site. Following the step-by-step instructions helped make these tasks very simple otherwise I felt that I would have spent a lot of time reading each and every option and the contents of their drop down boxes. While at first it seemed like there were many more options, and perhaps some unnecessary ones, when I compared it to D2L, it was indeed very much the same. Since I am used to D2L, I quickly look past the options that I do not use. The one thing that I did prefer about Moodle is the ability to grade discussions. This feature is not available in the LMS that I normally use. I also viewed some of the tutorials that are available such as how to create a quiz and how to use the gradebook and found them very helpful. I think they will help speed up (or flatten down?) my “learning curve” so I can definitely see myself taking advantage of many more online tutorials as I continue to build my course site.

I spent some time gathering information about several social media sites (Twitter, Facebook, Second Life, and YouTube) and their Terms of Service and Privacy Policies. I suppose the biggest surprise was the claim by most of the sites that although the user owns their posted content and materials, the site has the right to provide these materials to others – without notice or paying a fee. This is not the type of ownership that I am familiar with. For instance, I own a bicycle. If I ride my bicycle to the grocery store and park it in their lot, this does not give the grocery store the right to lend my bicycle to whomever they please. Also, if you terminate your service, many of the sites then own your material outright. Further to this, most of the sites also stipulate that the user is responsible for their own losses and may be responsible for the losses of other users! The site is NOT responsible for loss of your material or personal information. It seems to be a case of social media sites having their cake and eating it too (oops, Eating their cake and Having it too!).

So, would I promote the use of these sites to my students? Since I teach adult learners, my answer is “yes, with caution.” I would ensure that they too read the Terms of Service and Privacy policies very carefully! And, did you know, Facebook requires their users to be 13 years of age or older? I think I have to go “unfriend” a niece and nephew.

You can find details of where I plan to go with this project and what I plan to do under the tab entitiled “Flight Path.”

You WON!
Hmm… not the trip you were hoping for? Not everything is at it seems. Be careful out there!