Kirsten’s E-Learning Blog

Thinking back over the semester, I feel if I had the chance to do this subject again, I would, and definitely put more effort into it. I think I still need to work on my procrastination, and that will definitely be a focus next year, as I commence my final year at university.

However, that said, I have still learned many things from both the subject and the online course.

In regards to the online course, I have learned that to ensure you don’t waste your time, you should definitely read through the course objectives more clearly! I have learned that good story writing is more than just putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard), but involves many more aspects, such as creating an engaging character with a background, and writing stories with a point.

Many of my attempts at short stories have been mostly fantasizing about what could happen/what I wish would happen in my own life (to some extent this is true about my most recent attempt at a short story, Untitled). Next time I attempt a story I will make sure to follow the directions in both my courses (in the first course they suggested that you write an outline and then put it aside for 6 months, take it out again and see if you still think its a great idea)

In regards to the subject, I have really enjoyed it. The teaching was greatly improved on the previous e-Learning subject I did, and I really felt we had a lot of support when we needed it, unlike some of my other subjects…

In terms of content, the subject was really engaging and interesting, and made me think a lot about the way I’d like to learn, and how that may be different to the learners I may be creating courses for. The VARK Questionnaire really opened my eyes, and made me understand more about the way I learn, and I think I would find it useful as a trainer to get my learners to complete this prior to training sessions, so I can build a session to accommodate all learners.

Some of the experiences I have had this semester I wouldn’t have been able to have had it not been for e-Learning Experiences. I had not heard of netvibes before, and I have been using it a lot to keep track of my favourite sports (football – aka soccer – and netball), as well as keep up with the latest news headlines, and with the various e-Learning magazines and websites.

del.icio.us has also been a very useful tool, as I have been able to put all my bookmarks in one place so I don’t have to keep switching between my two computers to find things… I also particularly enjoyed being able to see other people’s bookmarks, I came across a few interesting sites through looking at other people’s.

Our lesson on Second Life was a very interesting one (I just realised I haven’t actually blogged on that yet! :S), and I quite enjoyed being able to see what it was like. I had read about it before, but always thought it was basically a revamped version of the computer game “The Sims” (which I am already addicted to) and so I thought I’d better not join so as to not waste any more time procrastinating. However, after the lecture I’ve been thinking I might check it out, and now is a much better time to do it for two reasons. Firstly, I have some spare time now uni is over (almost – just a couple of things left to do), and secondly, my family finally got broadband, so the download won’t take hours! (YAY!)

So, overall, my learning has been wide, varied, and very scattered (oops). I have tried to make sure I get things done, but when you have so many things to do, and so many things to procrastinate with (like 6 seasons of Gilmore Girls or MySpace and Facebook), it became very difficult. I think it’s just part of my nature to procrastinate, but I am doing my best to ensure that I don’t do it too often anymore!

Finally, I would like to say thankyou to Victoria, you were a great teacher and I don’t know if we’ll find another one quite like you. I don’t know if we would have had as much fun with another lecturer, and I certainly enjoyed our interactive lessons, especially our last class!

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