Ah it is a SNOW DAY in NYC.
With a blanket of white outside it was tempting to just click on the Xbox Kinect and spend the day in the warmth of home. But I didn't. I've been doing household chores (there are 2ft drifts in our front and back yard and 8-10" on the driveway.) and reading. It made me think though. Online schoolers don't get snow days do they? But then again every day is tailored to their interest level and academic ability so there is no need for the relief of a Snow Day (I'm sure that the collective prayers and pleas from 1.4 million NYC school children has some bearing with the snow angels in the sky)
But with three online courses with three very different instructors I am finding myself very overwhelmed and a little lost. I can't seem to get a handle on the communications. There are 3 discussion boards, 2 wikis, 2 blogs and a mizzillion emails that keep popping up whenever someone questions or responds on the moodle thingamagig. The content is similar so I'm not always sure if I'm responding to the correct question or logged on to the correct service and item.
I must admit that I thought it would be better to attend school this way, but I'm seeing that it isn't. Or maybe it's just that I'm not use to it as yet. I am not a social networker at all. I don't tweet, twit, text or blog on FB. I don't even text on my cell phone which despite it's social bells and whistles is only used to call people or receive calls from people. I guess I need some more time to practice my strokes in the shallow end, but I have jumped cannonball style into the catchment of the 10m diving platform.
Okay enough floating on my back time to try and swim to the ladder.
You raise an interesting point, which is the lack of coordination in terms of platform and web 2.0 tools among those of us teaching online at TC. Hopefully, as TC moves from Blackboard and ClassWeb to Moodle, there will be more standardization in the tools (but perhaps not in the use of them!) and that will make life easier for students like yourself.
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