Day: May 7, 2012

I met with Charlene last week. I showed her what I was doing and learning in Canvas. Unfortunately, the videos did not work when I showed her the one I had put in Canvas.. Today, the videos came up and were really great! However, when I tried to update the syllabus, Canvas refused to load. Apparently their website is down for the moment.

On top of this,  I spent several hours trying to get documents attached to my email. I finally had to dump all my favorites  The temperature is about 69 degrees outside; and I have clothes to wash and weeds to pull (everyone got a letter telling us to clean up our yards for Mother’s Day). Right now none of that is happening. To make matters worse, I was called by my supervisor to work for a teammate, this morning. I did not go because I had so much to do. I lost money staying home fighting with a silly computer. Go figure!!

It seems it never rains but it pours. Since I cannot get to Instructure Canvas to get the information I need and to input what needs doing, I am going to watch YouTube video on how to operate Canvas. I have spent many hours now doing just that…watching videos. I am getting pretty frustrated. I have so many unknowns and am supposed to be producing course material at this point. That is not happening! Charlene gave me an instructors manual to go with the textbooks that never arrived because the sales rep forgot to order them. I am not certain when the book will come into Charlene’s department. One more frustration to work around. Do you suppose there are internet trolls that create all this havoc for fun?

I am trying to figure out if in five weeks I have accomplished anything. I meet with Robin on Thursday of this week and feel like I will not be able to show her what the system is capable of doing. I wish I had a few more hours in the day to get all this done. One positive in this situation is the fact that with a little luck eventually everything will work like it is supposed to do. Will I have the time to do what I was trying to get done today? Probably not!

So back to my tale of woe. I had band practice for the last three weeks in my lead’s garage. When I got home last night, I could not sleep. I was up until 3:30 AM. Right now this page is out of focus. While I am trying to work with a misbehaving computer and progs, I am trying to get my laundry done. I have a unmade bed, clothes all over the top of that unmade bed and have banished my poor husband to the front yard to start pulling weeds. Now, if looks could kill, I’d be toast. Okay not really, he went rather willingly. I think he isn’t really impressed with our computers at the moment either!

This all reminds me of why I asked to study under Charlene again. She has the classroom experience and some feel for what will work online. She seems to know instinctively. On the other hand, I think I am showing her how to use the technology to get a totally online class up-to-date with the tools available in Web 2.0. She seems pretty hesitant about using blogs and feedback forms. She has seen that the students in her class have a hard time with attaching documents to emails. I suppose a blog will be too difficult for them. However, grade school children are using these tools. Maybe grade school children are more advanced technological then college students…now there’s a thought!

Our next problem is trying to get a good group activity together for our online course. There are many different ideas and ways to do this. Maybe if Bellevue College offers training on Instructure, the instructors would get more insight on how to use open source materials and technology. I certainly could use course like this myself. I am getting a bit frustrated trying to learn the ins and outs of Canvas via only video tutorials. I need someone with more knowledge to “hand hold” me at this point. Did I really say that?

I am including a video on the future use of technology. Can you imagine have a bad day with these precious creations?