Month: March 2011

I have been on break for almost a week now.  I have had some time to decompress and it is really rather nice.  First my drummer passed on to quite possibly a much better place on the night of the big tsunami.  John was Japanese and one heck of a good drummer.  He will be greatly missed.

Secondly, we watched the devastation unfolding on the television every night for days.  I was horrified at the destruction and the plight of those thousands of people who never had a chance to flee the horror of the event.  This was followed up by the problems the country was having with its nuclear reactors.  Even now, we are finding trace evidence of radiation in our milk in Washington State.  It is hard to believe, while we’re being assured everything is fine, that it really is. Maybe years from now, we will see an increase of thyroid cancer; but for now all we can do is hope we are being told the truth.

Years ago, when I was living in Utah and attending the University of Utah, one of the towns in Utah called St. George was said to have experienced an increase in several types of cancer.  It was exposed to radiation when a Nevada Test Site unleashed a 32 Kiloton atomic bomb into the atmosphere in 1953.  The fall out passed through St. George on the winds.  The US Atomic Energy Commission reported there was an increase in these cancers in 1962. Whether or not there was indeed a statistically significant link to the fallout and the testing of atomic weapons in the desert, we may never know for absolute certain.

It may take many years to know whether the children of Japan will suffer similar fates because of the nuclear incidents there. We already know and it is common knowledge that low levels of radiation have consequences.  For example, hospital employees who take x-rays are protected by lead shields in the x-ray rooms of our hospitals.  In fact we know, there are no levels of radiation that are safe and we do not know when cancer will strike.  Even in the face of this we use radiation to kill cancer cells. In conclusion, we do not know enough about cancer and radiation to set a safe limit on levels of radiation. What we do know is we’re being bombarding by radiation every day, at so called safe levels. Furthermore, thousands and/or millions of people are given radiation treatments to cure or control cancer every day.

I think the bottom line is pretty simple, the best we can do is let the experts continue to test radiation levels and research the effects of radiation on humans and especially children. A trip to the Seattle Children’s Hospital could have the effect of changing people’s minds about how much radiation we are really willing to be exposed to.  We might want to reconsider using nuclear power to produce electricity and weapons. Years ago concerned scientists tried to warn us of the dangers of using this form of power for weapons and for energy sources.  If you are concerned about this threat to our survival you may want to join forces with the Union of Concerned Scientists. Staying informed is a good way to contribute to the effort we are making to understand the power of nuclear energy in our world.

I have come to the end of the class. I am deeply saddened. Why is it, I only enjoying a class when I am banging my head on a wall to accomplish the tasks at hand? I suppose it is the same personal traits that make me cry while watching commercials. I enjoyed my classmates and some of them will continue on to the next course on assessment with me. But my biggest problem will be saying goodbye to Jen as my instructor. She has challenged me and prodded me to achieve throughout the course. I am going to miss her.

I have tried to think of what things I might do better in my own course. Then I realized that one cannot mess with perfection. I loved the set up of the modules and the way Jen recreated the course as we went along, based on our common class needs. I enjoyed the challenges of reading the Boettcher material and applying it. And, I think I am a fan of Backward Design. I get the concept one hundred percent.

Since I like video, I might have included a few more of them along the way. I would try to get the group to present a bit more light hearted material as well. Having fun and laughing can go a long way to relieve stress and may help bind people together in a more cohesive group. But I suppose so does beer and wine and especially food.

The one thing I learned and pondered the most was, how much thought and designing goes into the creation of an online course. Each step an instructor takes during the course is also time consuming and thought provoking. Learning the different technologies are equally time consuming and yet, are very rewarding. The finished product is what matters in the end. If my learners have taken away as much information as the students in this class have, it has been a successful endeavor and one worth being extremely proud of.

I hope I will be as good an instructor as Jen and Norma have been. I want to develop the skills that help make my courses exciting, instructive and fun. Learning doesn’t have to be difficult if one enjoys the final product and takes the time to laugh along the way. I am including the presentation I created at the end of this blog.

So, I am saying goodbye to my classmates and Jen. Hello new learning opportunities this coming quarter at Bellevue College. My neighbors might frown on the explosion of fireworks at the end of this quarter. So, I just have to think of a new way to celebrate. Anyone for a good pub with music and cold beer? Ahhh…low calorie beer that is.

The course is slowly coming to an end. We have learned many new skills and developed the ability to put together an online course from beginning to end. We have read and absorbed the ten best practices for teaching on line as Boettcher and Conrad taught us in the readings. We have worked together to put information into the Diigo communications place we selected as students. We have commented on the presentations of our classmates and thought deeply about the material presented to us.

Finally, we have thought about and decided on a project or presentation. A presentation that will put all of the information we have gleaned over the past several weeks, into a polished, interesting video or Voice Thread, etc. Based on my classmates’ presentations in Diigo lately, I can safely say “we,” when talking about what we have done and learned.

Once our instructor Jen told us we would need to present 7 of the best practices of Boettcher in a video with a voice application, I thought deeply about the skills I would need to learn to do this. I started with a program named Jing. I asked the instructor for help, only to be told it was something I needed to explore on my own as part of this assignment. Wonderful! I download Jing and started to learn how it works.

My biggest problem was figuring out how to capture the screen and talk as I went through my substitute for a LMS system, Wikispaces. Several hours later, when I was still figuring out how to use Jing…I found myself contemplating using virtual anger applications, e.g. virtual pie throwing (like some videos I found on You Tube did) to vent on my unknowing, unsuspecting instructor. At this point, my husband (quietly sitting next to me working on his income taxes) in his uneducated wisdom told me…”now you know how your students will feel about you when they attempt their projects at the end of the course.” Well, with that comment I found myself quickly reversing my negative thoughts and diving into the application with gusto, while wondering how someone who is not college or university educated gets right to the point before I do!

Alas, I managed to figure out how the application works and posted a video to You Tube. Two problems presented themselves: 1) how to bring the voice up on the microphone during the presentation; and 2) trying to figure out why my wide screen Windows 7 Touch Screen computer put only half a picture on the video. Sigh…once again, I began to resent technology and knew I had much to learn in the remaining week. Thankfully I have gotten acrylic nails so I cannot bite them while doing this project!

Jen has taught me during this course to take deep breaths and count virtual sheep in my mind, while I try to chill. Lately, while working on the project and taking deep breaths, I find myself counting virtual bottles of low calorie beer. Oh well, this too will pass. All this stress while starting a demanding new full time job; losing one pound a week on Weight Watchers; working on the Eastside Domestic Violence crisis line from 7-12 PM Sunday evenings; going to gigs and practicing with my band; fighting the state UI office, who unfairly ruled I quit a job that nearly took away my ability to work at my Bellevue College job or any other job for that matter. Okay, why wasn’t I born independently wealthy? Better yet, why did I go for a Political Science Ph.d, instead of going full time to law school and becoming an employment law attorney?

So stay tuned blog readers…my presentation will appear in my next blog. Until then, I have had my hair colored again and it turned out horrible and had it cut and it looks awful. That is what I get for asking for a Lisa Rinna look and hair cut. Luckily I can wear a wig during our last class for this course scheduled on the 22nd of March. I will be the one taking all the deep breaths and counting quietly, with my eyes closed in a gray or platinum wig.

This video has been added for terminology and fun!