Tuesday, September 3, 2013

To mooc, or not to mooc... that is the question...

It's been a while since I last posted to this blog even though it is supposed to be all about education!  So, to get started again, apparently a prod in the form of a mooc is what it takes.

This mooc is about How to Teach Online and since I work in the online world every day, it seemed like a good idea to actively look for and participate in this topic.

For those who do not know me, Hello! I'm Angela and I'm and Instructional Designer.  It's a job that I love even though there are occasional terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad days.  Fortunately, several family members and friends remind me that some days are like that, even in Australia!

If you follow these ramblings, you will watch and learn about my mooc journey and I hope you enjoy it as much as I expect to!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

G'day from Hawaii!

Glad you have chosen to engage with the How to Teach Online MOOC. I'm also dusting off my blog and restarting with renewed energy. Looking forward to the journey.

Anonymous said...

Hi Angela,

Are you living in Australia? I'd love to visit there one day. What kind of instructional design do you do? Are you teaching online as well?

Best regards

Unknown said...

Nice to meet you Angela. I am interested to hear that you are an instructional designer. What exactly does that involve? Where I work in HE we have IT specialists who do the programming end of things, learning technologists who work with academics to help them use relevant technologies and then they (the academics) design courses and create online materials. Does an instructional designer design the course or the platform?

Angela said...

Iriseley - thanks for the welcome! It's been a while since I blogged so will have to reestablish a habit! Best wishes to you as well.

Angela said...

nbeckie, no, I actually live in south central Kansas in a VERY small town and drive 50 miles to my office each day. At this point, I have listened to TONS of audio books. Thank goodness for the Kansas Public Library System and audio books!

Although Australia is on my list of places I would love to visit, I've never been there. Any references to Australia are probably related to the children's book "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day" which refers to my personal frustration level (which is frequently dependent on the time of the school year since first of semester time is usually fraught with technical difficulties...).

Angela said...

Anne Hole, in my job as an Instructional Designer, I am an administrator on the learning management system for our school, but I do not program any of the system. Frequently, I am part of a troubleshooting team but mostly I help online instructors learn how to use the system, advise them on the best tools to use for what they want to do and create learning objects for students. We also answer a LOT of technical questions for students as well as instructors and we do a lot of training. For example, today I'm at a high school where we have about 200 seniors enrolled in dual credit courses and I'm taking them through an orientation to how to use the online systems. Many hats!

Unknown said...

Hello from North Idaho. I'm Candace Johnston and I teach a online courses at North Idaho College. I am not a super fan of blogging but I encourage my students to enter well directed discussions and they of course go all sorts of directions. Like you I hope to reinforce skill and take on new info that will help my learning and facilitate improvement that will foster better education for those in my classes. Good luck to you. I don't like the need to sign in to this place and that just to leave one comment. The best place to visit with me leave comments for me is at KandisJohnston.wordpress.com