Welina!
Introductions
Our teacher, Anne Guptill, is a great example for us, being a graduate herself of MS-OTL! She continued on to gain her doctorate in education with a specialization in instructional design for distance education. Who knew there was such a thing? Obviously not me. But it is so exciting to learn there is another step beyond this one.
Speaking of which, I better focus on this one first. Hello. The reading assignments so far have been extremely helpful, particularly the first article providing writing advice for online university students. It seemed like the author used me as a research subject when he listed the major challenges students face.
The first two of the seven listed shouted at me from the page. Procrastination and perfectionism! Who me? You bet. I am already aware, from past experience in the MA Hawaiian Studies program at Mānoa, that I need to deal with those challenges swiftly and confidently.
The First Lecture
I was more than a little disappointed that the first lecture was not an audio presentation. Maybe I missed it somewhere, but man, more reading? Also, not many images are being used in the course design, just black and white so far. Meh.
The content of the lecture, however, was very helpful. Anne shared some common sense guidelines. Good thing she shared those guidelines. One in particular hit home, making me, the student, proclaim the teacher gratifying "Aha!" She pointed out some mathematical equations for exponential growth of discussion threads if we do not pay attention and set a limit. Ha!
That's all for now. I need to get to some reading done and respond to the discussion questions.
Mālama ko aloha.
