The course for me

The whole MS program, for me, is going to be a big stepping stone. Unlike my other classmates, those are already engaged in some kind of educational profession; I am a stay at home mom from last 3 years. I have to take care of my two and a half years old who needs my constant attention and spends whole day with me. So, I plan to finish of the course and then look out for some job opportunities in e-learning.

I was most  surprised by the kind of strict schedule posted in weekly course schedule. Frankly speaking I wasn’t expecting this kind of timetable. I have done a few online certificates and the deadlines were extended, so I could easily finish my work. But, then I realized the instructor’s welcome note itself says that-“ This is a fast-paced course. We have designed 10 weeks of learning into a 5 week course”. It cleared the fact that there is a strong need of such a weekly plan.

I liked the welcome note and the description of using blackboard itself. The steps were pretty clear and they are repeated at appropriate places so that students don’t have to go back, read instruction, come back and apply. This helped in moving smoothly and quickly.

I am little concerned about making team. I won’t say that I don’t  ‘like’ it but, it’s just that , M not sure how will I go about it. For example, finding team members, selecting representative and all..

As a future course designer, I would like to simplify the discussion board layout so that it is easy to understand and not many threads are located on the same page. The pages for the threads should be separate according to the subject they deal in. For example, there can be a page for tech help which has thread related  only on the same topic. Another one can focus only personal profiles. I think, it would help in an easy navigation.