Tuesday Morning Anxiety......

As I mentioned at our Saturday meeting, Evrim and I tend to be on a little different schedule for our class. We do the weekly video the Thursday before the week starts and thus by Tuesday, it seems that we should be well into the week. Thus, I have a tendency to get a little nervous when I check our class on Tuesday morning. I am usually anxious to see activity starting up and evidence that our assignments and discussion topics made sense to you. I was especially nervous for this, my first Tuesday morning check.

You will now need to picture me sitting at my computer smiling as I have just visited four nicely structured discussions that are all off to a good start. I observe different and effective leadership styles in each group, focused comments including specific references to our readings and incorporating other resources, and some lively interchange. Already on Tuesday morning, I notice one group leader (Kim) hanging out in other groups.

I look forward to the development of our discussions this week as we work to understand (and construct!) definitions of constructivist learning theory and its relevance to our work with technology and to define and consider the needs of a new generation of learners.

And thanks for addressing my Tuesday morning anxiety!

We are up and running!

We had our first face to face class meeting Saturday, August 21 at ISU with four students participating at a distance (Samy, Cheryl, Kim and Erin). We actually started before classes officially start at ISU (August 23), so we are already ahead of the game.

Our first meeting included four goals: meet each other, learn about course expectations, learn about the theoretical base for the class and have some fun. I think we did OK in all four areas, but the students are the ones who can comment on that. I find that these face to face meetings are very important to me as I work to connect with each student and establish a base for a relationship that will grow in our work together over the semester.

Highlights of the day included Crystal's ability to identify each student by name at the end of our day together, the interaction with the "old people" at lunch, Dennis's introduction to some Ipad apps, and the beginning of some interesting Logo experiences.

Our connections with the four distance students were not perfect, but all four hung in there with us. We will work to make these connections a bit more seamless the next time around.

I think that our Facebook entries this week will help with our relationship building and we already have interesting posts from Kim, Carrie, Dennis and Doug. I look forward to the posts and pictures from others this week.