IMAGINE - Some say I'm a dreamer . . .

As I come to the end of these four classes in the online teaching certification program, I can only look in amazement from whence I came and wistfully imagine what lies ahead.

I came into this adventure knowing that I knew enough about online learning to easily admit that I loved the concept and the dynamics of cyberspace. Cyber learning was designed for me. I love the freedom and mobility it affords, the open exchange of ideas with the largest diverse community of minds on earth at your fingertips and the up-to-date nature of the prospect of dynamic learning.
I was a child of the btc era (before the computer era) when the best information source we had was a dusty old set of the Encyclopedia Britannica and I happened to be one of those children who was always wondering about something---the “Cliff Claven” of my grammar school. Space travel was one of my fascinations and the information you found on the space program was outdated by the time the encyclopedia was published. You also couldn’t interact with the encyclopedia and ask it for additional information or different points of view. That was a stagnant, lifeless form of learning---outdated and overrated. Couple that with the fact that I was also a child of a remote, rural area and we couldn’t even get good television reception. My parents (by choice) decided we did not need a phone so my solace was in books and I was an insatiable reader but much of the topical information was also outdated in those tomes also.

Thus you can understand why from the first time I touched the keyboard on a computer and experienced the Internet, I knew that it was manna from Heaven---a natural boon for my insatiable curiosity---it was designed for people like me. Why it was like going from a horse and buggy to climbing on board the Challenger. Imagine that now when I want to know where the largest meteor struck on earth, what time it is in Pohnpei, the latest research on ALS or how long Thoreau spent at Walden Pond, I can find it in a moment’s notice. This is learning the way it was meant to be. To say that I was hooked is an understatement!!!

After having taken numerous online classes from the viewpoint of an online learner, I decided it was time to take the love of this medium one step further and imagine the potential of becoming an online instructor. Thus I enrolled in the online teaching certification program. How hard could that be-----WHO KNEW???

This certification program has successfully brought me to my knees more times than I care to recount. Along with that humbling realization came all of the other “quirky little issues that aren’t supposed to happen but occur with technology”. Around every corner on this continuum, I was confronted with new challenges, sometimes I found a bridge across the abyss and sometimes it seemed like I was being swallowed by a black hole. These times generally came around midnight when I had attempted to do something for the 44th time and still was unsuccessful---but if you can imagine it, I was still unwilling to give in to failure and admit defeat.

In spite of all of this my desire to move into online teaching has never wavered. The cyber world have become like an extra appendage. This is a revolutionary change in teaching. This medium is the unchartered wilderness of today’s academic world. We can only begin to imagine the possibilities. We have only seen the tip of the iceberg, much more lies still hidden from our narrow conceptualized view. Believe it if you can dream it.

And as that dreamer, I imagine a day when virtual reality becomes commonplace in the cyber classroom. I have already witnessed crossing the chasm of exchanging views with classmates on the other side of the world. Imagine how great those possibilities? I also see a time when printed textbooks will be as archaic as the slates students used in the one room classrooms of the past. Who wants to be stuck reading stagnant wording in an outdated text when real time changes are occurring everyday in everything from medicine to horticulture.

I also dream of the day when cyber learning will completely obliterate and bridge the digital learning divide for those in remote areas of third world countries. There will be so many more minds contributing solutions to the problems that face our world! Imagine the potential is limitless. The world is our oyster my friend.

I am a dreamer, but I have admittedly waded through some technical glitches---not enough memory----on the pc or in my cranium and I have hurled myself headlong into quagmires that I thought only existed in the Amazon jungle. I have been stumped, chumped and I’ve almost jumped (more than once) out of this program. I have seriously considered the fact that I might have some type of masochistic tendency that kept me consistently propelling myself forward. Granted sometimes, it has just been my own stupidity----wondering why I couldn’t see the text on a black blog page----duh when I had the font color set to black!! (That little gem only took me about ten minutes to figure out!) Sometimes it has been a case of “no ability----big task” and sometimes it has been just the newness of a concept that has caused me to stumble.

Quite honestly, if you can imagine I have been aggravated, deflated, irritated, flagellated, abated, berated, debated, infuriated, dated, agitated, eviscerated, negated, overrated, inundated, intimidated, humiliated, nauseated and animated but I have also been elated, elevated, ruminated, orchestrated, narrated, vacillated, venerated, titillated, orientated, saturated, sophisticated (?), vindicated, facilitated, fascinated and exhilarated just to name a few verbs that occur to me right now and I have persisted. I would tell any first semester student in this program that is just starting on this journey that they are in for quite a roller coaster ride. Every time you slowly have inched your way to a high vantage point and sigh with relief another precipice appears before you and you breathlessly go spirally downward and holding on for dear life and just about when you are ready to give up you are ascending upward again and enjoying the magnificent view along the way.

Can you imagine that my passion for the potential that lies over the next cyber horizon has still never waned? With this fourth class, the real clarity with all of the bells and whistles finally just started to kick in recently. The pieces of the mental puzzle of class four’s technology overload is just starting to come together in my mind.

Yet despite all of the gnashing of teeth, I still have an unswerving desire to see what is around the next bend in this road. How will the dynamics change next? What new innovation will pop up this year? New software, always new software and new opportunities and new and faster computer speeds, better audio visual opportunities, better communication mediums---imagine the opportunity to incorporate better technologies in a basic course to flesh it out and make it more engaging for cyber learners? Look how far the last ten years have brought us and we have only just begun. Can you imagine?

Beyond all of this are all of the people I have coalesced with in cyber classes, many of whom have my deepest admiration. I particularly admire those instructors who are willing to take that risk and move from the comfort of being the sage on the stage on ground for years to the novice guide on the side online. I have seen many of them struggle with the transition, but they have stayed the course and are working hard to become a part of the new order. Instructors who are willing to move out of their comfort zone and meet the needs of a budding new generation of learners instead of try to dismiss the obvious.

I also would be remiss without mentioning the great ONTL instructors. Imagine that I literally never met any of my instructors in person until I was well into my third class, but they were always available to me when I was having seemingly insurmountable problems. Kudos in particular to Jan Engle----she was always there giving me words of encouragement and spurring me forward when I was feeling defeated and unsure of my abilities. Kudos also to Jan for designing such an exemplary series of classes---the honors her work has received are well deserved. Who cannot ultimately prosper with such great role models?

I know that I am still in the infancy stages as an online instructor, but I am truly amazed at what I have learned in just four short terms---everything from a myriad of new technologies to a wealth of information on effective pedagogy and everything else imaginable in between.

Granted this series of classes is not for “sissies”, and I would be a liar if I did not say that this has been the most frustrating series of classes that I have ever taken. Those without patience and tenacity need not apply. But for those who persevere, there is so much to appreciate and so many exciting reasons to imagine what lie in the future. I am already anxious to gain more skills and move from building my meager cyber learning cottage toward constructing cyber learning cathedrals.

For all of my optimism you may say I’m a dreamer, but I am not the only one . . . (using Imagine by J. Lennon)
Just------
Imagine there's no textbooks
It's easy if you try
No desks to seat us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Joining to solve the earth’s ills...

Imagine there's no third world countries
It isn't hard to do
No one’s thoughts unheeded
And no exclusion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday the cyber world will be this
And the global world will be as one

Imagine no lack of learning opportunities
I wonder if you can
No need for physical boundaries
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing with each other in a cyber world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday the cyber world will be this
And the global village will live as one

Where Is She??

Winter languishes and lingers into March
Her long, icy tentacles cling to the pines for dear life
The crystalline strands of her hair hang from the gables
She clutches at the landscape refusing to leave
No dance, no sounds, no warm breath of the first days of spring are evident
No birds are harkening the maiden’s arrival
No kaleidoscope of color is evidenced from the crocuses that must force their way through
The whitewash winter has wrought
Frigid winds still snap at the sunrise
Warning spring that winter is not ready for retreat
Even though
The woodpile has waned
The car is chalked with salt
The lake is still glassed over
And the crows scavenge for the last kernels of last year’s crop beneath the snow
Where is the fair maiden lingering?
Why does she not even tease us with one day of her warmth?
No wave of robins returned
No cats curled in the sun on the porch
No gaggle of geese on the lake
No redwing blackbird calls at dusk
Just ashen white silence
Where is she? Has the maiden forsaken us this year?

C. Schrage

Something tells me there will always be a new boulder in the road to climb over . . .

THE BUZZ ON CLASS IV IS . . .

"Aerodynamically the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumblebee doesn't know that so it goes on flying anyway."------Mary Kay Ash

I have to admit I feel very simpatico with the bumble bee. When I started this series of courses, I really was not “aerodynamically” suited for this environment. I had never taught an online class and knew very little about pedagogy or learning objectives, let alone designing a course. I had had quite a bit of experience as an online student and I had definite opinions about what I liked and disliked about my online courses, but that did not give me the tools or any where with-all to be an online instructor.

I felt very intimidated by my peers with a litany of teaching experience when I entered class one. How could I possibly hope to soar with so much to learn? It seemed improbable to say the least. “To bee or not to bee?” that was the question as I started the cyber journey through the certificate program. I readily admit there have been moments of indescribable exhilaration and moments of extreme frustration as I have bumbled(Notice a pattern in the word usage here?) and stumbled my way through this series of class experiences.

I was horrified by the prospect of leading the class in a synchronous session in Class II and I had heard horror stories about the difficulty of the design process in Class III. Through all of the trials I have experienced, I just kept these buzz words(can’t help myself now) in my head----YOU CAN DO THIS-----ROME WAS NOT BUILT IN A DAY. The fear I once had for my fellow classmates became admiration and I also realized how much I was gaining from reading and listening to their own personal tribulations. The instructors also were more than willing to assist me and recount the solutions they had found for their own sticky online classroom issues and experiences. Every time I have felt overwhelmed or uncertain I have just made a beeline to my teacher or a fellow classmate for clarification.

Now, I find myself standing on the precipice of assuming a new flight pattern for class IV---the final class in this series. I look back at the first three classes and contemplate all that I have gained and I look forward confident that this class will also be a great learning experience for me. Ideas are swarming in my head. I look forward to learning how to properly actually generate my first online workshop for our student population. I look forward to learning about many new and unfamiliar tools and technologies that will help me to “flesh out” my class in a positive and inviting manner. I am very aware of my novice status in these endeavors and I am also aware that creating a viable workshop will be an ongoing, dynamic endeavor that will be continuous long after this series of classes is completed as I continue to comb the web for new modalities.

However, I can promise you that you will hear more from me in the future because I have been “stung” with a passion for the cyber environment since the first day I entered the realm and I will not be content to just hover on the fringes. I intend to keep humming along, choosing to focus on the flowers and remaining undaunted by any weeds that may spring up along the way. All in all, I expect this to be one “honey” of an experience----(you must excuse me I did not start out intending to drone on and on) AND even though I may not be aerodynamically correct for this endeavor I will make up for those shortcomings with my passionate feelings for cyber learning/teaching. So "BEE-WARE" cyber world because here I come!

Struggling to Compose My Own Symphony for Cyber Learning

It is the wee hours of the morning, the house is quiet and the white glom of the full hunter moon is shining in through the windows. I have been quietly sitting in the shadow of the moonlight reflecting on the journey I have taken during the course of this series of online teaching classes.

Before this class I was content to be an attentive member of the online audience, content to listen and learn as the melodious strains of harmony from the orchestration of good online instruction floated past my ears and engaged all of my senses. I recognized the beauty of the music of effective cyber teaching/learning when all of the sounds of the instruments are brought together in a near perfect balance by the conductor/teacher.

I have listened and learned from many different maestros of the online environment, all the time constructing my own melody of learning in the recesses of my mind. This music I wish to create for interpretation by a potential audience of students haunts my mind now day and night. It must evoke emotion yet elicit learning. It must strike a chord with the listeners that will spirit them forward long after the performance has stopped.

When I came to this third cyber class, I was asked to move from my comfortable seat in the audience and step onto the platform, assume the podium and pick up the baton to conduct the orchestration of my very first original composition ---my own symphony of cyber learning. As I now stand on the podium, I know that as conductor I have been given access to all of the complements of a successful orchestra. The resources, the technological tools, the able assistance of the maestro and the knowledge that I have gained from others while listening from my seat in the audience are all freely available and await the movement of my baton.

My role has changed from attentive listener to that of creative conductor/teacher. The tools are all here as I look out from the orchestra pit, but it is now my job to take all of the potential that lies before me and conduct the varied instruments so that their tones flow together into something harmonious that is pleasing and meaningful to my ultimate audience, the students.

Although I have a clear impression in my mind of the melody that I want to produce/teach, I have struggled these few weeks with getting the right mix of “brass to woodwinds”. I have learned the importance of not letting the percussion section overpower the sweet soft strains of the strings and take over the orchestration. I have learned that the music must envelop and seep into the listening audience without being harsh or unpleasant to their ears. It must not be out of tune with the listener. It must not be too sharp or too FLAT.

In order for the music/design to be synchronous a delicate balance must be struck. It is up to me to meld the beauty of the individual instruments and to conduct and create the light and shadow of the music I wish for them to produce. It is up to me to build in the pianissimos and the fortissimos. I must create the crescendos as I use my baton to direct the elements. How to take all of the complexities of the instruments and mold them into something that is simple enough to be easily comprehended?

The ultimate ambition as conductor is to be the conduit that allows the music/design, to become the bridge between the instruments of the orchestra (the knowledge) and the minds and hearts of the audience (the students) so that the ultimate goal---learning, can occur.

As the conduit, I have also struggled (of my own volition) to compose my own original score instead of trying to conduct someone else’s work. This has made my role more harrowing, but I know my own heart and I would never be satisfied if I did not learn to successfully compose and conduct my own unique score.

A score that has now been struck and restruck as I endlessly try to create that elusive piece of music that my audience will identify with and respond to; and that can evoke some of the same emotions that I feel when those same electrifying strains of online learning echo and play over and over in my own mind. I struggle to create harmony from what at times has been chaotic cacophony.

Every note must be examined because although it may show promise on paper, it may not translate to the ears of the audience when played. If I as composer/conductor cannot convey the possibility of the feelings that the music is meant to exude to the audience why should I be allowed to stand on the podium? What will be gained from the experience for the student? Could all potential passion and love of this medium be lost with one sour note?

What good is the talent of the orchestra if the conductor does not bring out the best of it? What worth if the composer does not give them an exceptional score to play? The music means nothing if it is dissonant and no one is enticed to listen to it.

Thus it is as I sit tonight in the moonlight looking across the cerulean landscape reflecting on the place on the cyber road of online instruction where I stand. I am midway between “useless noise” and vibrant melody as I continue to rescore the bars before me. I know that a place on the podium is earned and I would not covet that position were it not so.

I also know that I can create music for this realm and that I must successfully transform it into a symphony of learning for the masses. Parts of the score that I have committed to paper are quite good and other parts are nothing but incomprehensible bits of noise. I knew from the outset that this task would not be easy and that great compositions that unite the composer/conductor, the orchestra and the audience would not just leap to and from the paper, at least not for me.

I could lay down the baton and walk away content to assume a plush seat back in the audience, except for the fact that the symphony still lives in my mind, the orchestra awaits my direction, an eager audience stands in the wings---and there is always a place in this vast cyber realm for a new composer/conductor to create his/her own interpretation of the potential beauty and value of online learning.

With the morning light, there will come a new opportunity and a fresh new perspective on the task before me. I will once again humbly bow to the audience, look to the orchestra, raise my baton and resume work on my symphony. I venture forth confident that I can become a credible conductor who can convey the potential through the music. The dream is that those that listen will hear a harmonious score of all of the instruments and the audience will produce their own interpretation of the melody they hear, and create their own lyrics for what they perceive.

I am just the conductor; I can only raise my baton and do my best to orchestrate the instruments (elements of online instruction) and attempt to create a connection through my music. Music that can make the invisible visible. . . The shear magic of music that can draw an awaiting audience as it has me deeper and deeper into the aura created by the distant sweet strains I have heard of the unlimited potential for learning that permeates this realm.

The elements are all laid bare here before me; and that ethereal melody still resonates in my head, if I can only coax the fragile notes onto the paper . . .

Postscript to this entry: This was a metaphorical interpretation of how I have felt about learning to design online courses. This has been a challenging task for me. In the beginning I had difficulty writing good, clear learning objectives. These two links were helpful to me:
Learning Objectives:
http://www.oucom.ohiou.edu/FD/writingobjectives.pdf
http://www.med.fsu.edu/education/FacultyDevelopment/objectives.asp
I also had issues regarding making good choices for interactivity in the course. It is very easy to try to over deliver and over promise. I love some of the new technologies

http://c4lpt.co.uk/recommended/index.html

and am anxious to try to employ them. However, I have worked hard to tone down this early design and rely on the “kiss” method. (Rome was not built in a day!) This link was helpful for me in that regard:
http://innovateonline.info/pdf/vol1_issue2/Guidelines_for_Establishing_Interactivity_in_Online_Courses.pdf
For me, the able assistance of my instructor and fellow classmates was the most helpful. Their support was appreciated and buoyed me up when I was struggling. This link was also a good one:
http://www.designingforlearning.info/services/writing/conrad.htm
I was able to see the brilliance in the design of some of the more seasoned members of the class. I was also able to see the advantages of using a textbook (although I still wish to be able to successfully design courses without the use of a textbook also). I have not lost any of the passion for cyber instruction and I am confident that with time and experience I will be a competent instructor, if for no other reason than that passion that I have for this medium. I will ultimately be able to orchestrate an online class with aplomb and I am anxious to assume the baton!