It’s been a little while since catching up on the blog……..

A number of things have been happening over these last couple of months, ranging from being quite ill and struggling with working full time, study etc it all hit the brick wall in utter frustrations.

Currently doing battle with the flu yet keeping the head off the pillow for the present.

Had a group project to do in the multimedia cluster for the course just recently.

This proved to be a huge learning curve.

First off the world of cyber space makes life so much easier to contact and interact with people, although the down side of this is that people now days assume you have received information without any request for a confirmation.

This is what happened with attempting to be part of this group activity.  I had not received any emails, group information or time line activities.  This was indeed very frustrating.  What happen in the end was doing a search to find the good old fashion phone number and called another student to find out what was going on.

I did manage to do a catch up and contribute to the group activity. 

From this experience I have learned a great deal and now have developed some new strategies which will be implemented into elearning environments.  Hence students will not have to go through the huge dramas/ frustrations I have just recently experienced.

Not everyone has the latest / greatest computer systems, or the technical skills to decipher the cyber world when they just don’t work.  This has been another area that I have come to understand.

From a student point when doing on line studies things needs to be kept simple and this need to be kept in mind for those instructional designers that create the programs.

No doubt by now you can; gather from my own frustrations I have come up with a lot of strategies/ concepts that will be kept in mind when doing online programs in the future.  This I would hope will reduce the number of frustrations encountered while experiencing this amazing world of learning through E-Learning.  

Well what next…. Busy working on the assessment 7, so close to being complete in this cluster it has been a challenging journey.

These last couples of weeks have brought home the frustrations in attempting to achieve things in this course.  

The greatest frustration - COMMUNICATION.

o        Emails seem to get eaten up in cyber space.

1.      They don’t arrive at all to the inbox then discover one is supposed to be doing activities / assignments, but alas have no idea of what one is to do or be done due to having not got an email. 

Just like this past week – organised to be online for chats Monday & Wednesday nights but guess what?  There was no one, phoned the facilitator, but no phones were answered, left message, got no response. 

Didn’t get any notification about Chats not happening.

2.      Rare to get feedback – it’s hard at times when all one needs is some clarity about something.  Sit send off emails but alas on occasions get no response.  You guessed it!! it usually happens when I need an answer or clarity to something to be able to get a task in before a deadline. Just must be Murphy’s Law.

o        Phone call communication

I can relate to how busy people can be. 

Yet when you need to simply clarify something or trying to work things out at times it’s easier to do it by phone, BUT it’s so frustrating when you are unable to reach the person you need to talk too. 

You phone all the numbers leave messages & often end up playing phone tag, then you simply get to the point of just giving up as the track record starts to show you can’t reach people.  So hence you start adding up the $$$ of what it’s costing in trying to communicate, and then go why bother?  You don’t get to talk to the people you need too and at times messages left just don’t get answers any way.

As to the group activities we are too achieve!!! This is almost laughable if it wasn’t so important to the competences of the course.  I ask you just how can you communicate with others if they have no contactable avenues.  Oh you go!!! Communicate with the course facilitator……… this was done months ago & just recently………. Still have no contactable means to members of the groups one is supposed to be part of.  Just chalk it up to another FRUSTRATION.

Then add into the melting pot of things the site which is accessed to find all the assessments etc….. it’s now becoming slower & slower to open pages & do things like upload assignments etc.  Clocking over 30 seconds or more & my computer system is only new, how frustrating it must be for others as well!!!.

From all of this I have now a long list of things to implement in place so these factors don’t happen in courses I facilitate.  

It is a challenge indeed. 

Using Technology

Still playing behind the scenes with the CS3 Abobe.  It has been challenges with just receiving a CD in the mail, then having a list of assessments which say create this!!!!  First one has had to learn how to “drive” the list of programs on this CD.  “Oh dear” one goes amongst other choice words of a descriptive nature in just how to navigate around these…. So doing a search to find manuals of “HELP” and video’s which in some cases show how it’s done but forgets the why of one sets out to ‘play’.  Then in desperation one heads off to the book shops in search of instructional books only to find there is very few if any about the CS3 suit.   Then one gets side tracked in the amazing array of computer books on the shelves. 

Then don’t forget the other technology one needs to become familiar with for this Diploma of E-Learning like create a “blog” – never heard of it …. Yet find it amazing the sorts of things that people write about on the net.  So another learning curve in creating a blog, just need to remember that one has to add things to it each week…. Oooops must add it to the list of activities.  As for MSN – messenger of which I’m familiar with.  Have had the opportunity of making some new friends, Pam & I have nutted out a few issues in relation to this course.

Visual design/website design

So you get a CD – CS3 Adobe suite in the mail.  Woo hoo one goes at last it’s here then go to shock horror…. Besides the computer rebuild, hassles with trying to load the program, what a nightmare.  Yet it’s up & happening.  Then to discover it’s all a foreign lingo and the help then leads one off into multi pages of explanations of mumbo jumbo….. The on line manuals are just as helpful & confusing not to mention the videos of which provide the step by step but seem to forget to add just why or what one did that for…. So back to the drawing board and lets just press buttons to see what happens….. Oh dash forgot which sequence I did that as it looks great to then press another & it all becomes a scene from a horror movie…. Isn’t the delete button great?  Oh one forgot that when the CD arrived one was to create these amazing assignments as well…  Just had to figure out how to drive it first.  Then one remembers that the course mentioned about 8 hours a week study, have decided that wasn’t for me it must be for those students who are wiz’s at multimedia.   After many hours of pressing buttons in Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Photoshop, Flash to mention some have managed to create a basic website.  Yep I’m quiet proud to have accomplished what I did.  Then go look at other students sites and the ‘jaw drops’ oh dear (###) yeap sure need to do some more work.  Hence this area is an on going exploration of discovery and mastering these CS3 programs.

Instructional design

Have begun the Educational side of this course due to my unusual circumstances, I’ll be working with 2 businesses to meet the competencies for the Diploma.  This is a great opportunity but alas it sure has its challenges.   Being able to coordinate things when the key people you need to communicate with have extremely busy schedules is requiring a lot of patience and coming up with solutions to be able to meet the schedule time table of assignments due dates.  So have been doing a lot of research.  There is an amazing amount of information to be found. Along with different ideas as to just how instructional design is best done.  Have also discovered that there are different views as to how relevant E-Learning is & its validness to meet some learning outcomes.   Now just need to be able to put all the research into categories so it can all be found again & used. 

E-learning methodologies

Now this was an interesting journey discovering all the different views of just what are E-Learning methodologies…...

There are many views yet from what I have found there is a common thread that explains it all, just different words used depending on the background of the individuals posting the information.

http://bdld.blogspot.com/2004/12/elearning-methodology.html

This site has some interesting concepts about E-Learning Methodologies. 

The e-learner

As an e-learner I have come to discover a number of things I have noted and found solutions so it wouldn’t repeat with my up coming students.  As frustrating as it’s been at times such as not getting response to emails, emails just simply not arriving, been ‘eaten in cyber space’ hence having no ideas as to just what one should be doing,  floundering in no mans land has all added to the journey of e-learning.  Although this may seem to be in the negative I have taken these points & solutions to be added into programs when designing courses.  So from my frustrations I have developed and learned so much to date & the journey hasn’t finished yet.

Virtual communities

The ‘fun’ of virtual communities…. There are so many varieties and tools in this field.  As I’ve been exploring have come to the conclusion there is a place for them in the e-learning environment.  Yet in saying this I also believe that there are certain ones which suit certain e-learning environments but not appropriate for others. 

There is an amazing array that comes up when doing a search on Google.   Shall continue to “play” in this area to see what else I can find in the travels of research.

The Chats

During the chat last evening a number of things were covered.  It was a tad frustrating with the slowness of the chat tool… just something else to add to the memory bank and putting chat room listing together.  They need to be operating so that students don’t become frustrated or just leave the session.  So even though there was the hick up it served a purpose.

Some of the activities relate to the up coming Group facilitation project.   I must admit I know I’m in a group which I’ve still not managed to contact nor do I have any idea of what one is supposed to be doing….. That cyber space gremlin must be eating emails, request the details but alas still hasn’t arrived.   Ah another solution for the further – have students set up receipt requests on their emails, then they will know that the facilitator of the course has received their emails.  This can also be applied for the facilitator so they are notified that the email has been received by the student.

 Cheers for now