Wow, it's hard to believe how quickly these 5 weeks have passed. It certainly has been a busy time for me. I'm finishing up the DIY projects and plan to submit them this week for the "Becoming a Blended Learning Designer certificate http://www.ce.ucf.edu/Program/3501/Blendkit2014-Becoming-a-Blended-Learning-Designer/. I think it's a valuable exercise and has certainly made me really think though the construction of my class.
This week's reading really hit home, too. As a peer reviewer on Quality Matters, I've often thought the same thing about poking around inside an unpopulated course, I agree, it's kind of like looking at a house that has just been built, but that doesn't have any furniture in it. The rooms are there and you can visualize how they might be arranged, but until you have the furniture (the students and the instructor and the interactions that occur) you really don't know how it is going to work out. All the great whistles and bells of design don't mean a darn thing if the instructor and students are not engaged with one another and with the content. I also agree that student evaluations are somewhat helpful, but they are not the be-all, do-all that administrators like to use (at least at my school) to evaluate a course. I understand the FERPA concerns, but really they shouldn't be considered. A nice "visitation" to the online classroom could open up a great opportunity to see how the class is "really" working. I'm sure this is something that a lot of folks are concerned about - for sure at my institution, but I'd love the ability to open up my classes to "visitors" - instructors who are planning on creating an online learning environment and see how it can work.
Well, I need to get back to work on my DIY's and I've got a book on multivariate statistics calling my name, so good-bye BlendKit 2014 and "hello" to spending more time blogging about my research.
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