Team project reflection

Looking back, I’d have to say that the team project was far more challenging than I would have expected, and on many levels. This was my first experience building an interactive online course, so I suppose that discomfort should be expected. Nonetheless, I struggled in a few areas.

•  Technology: I don’t know why, but when I meet a new technology I face an extensive learning curve, and it’s only made worse by my underlying suspicion that, somehow, programs are set up to trap new users in dead ends. As a result, I was fiddling with the Hotpotatoes-based quiz until the last day. I never could get it to generate a proper index page, which was a small matter in the end. I was also disappointed that it wouldn’t allow me to create multiple-choice quizzes with multiple wrong choices. I think it’s better for the learner to reason their way through a larger set of choices than only three or four, especially when they’re being asked to enumerate three dimensions of a single problem, such as sustainability or the three R’ of waste prevention. I wanted to get learners to engage each dimension separately, not as a set, and Hotpotatoes seemed inadequate to the task. As for Dreamweaver, I’m still learning after a couple of years of fiddling with it how little I truly know. I’ve never worked with templates, created multiple site folders to a single server address, or uploaded via Dreamweaver; I’ve always used Cyberduck. I’m still not sure I understand the whole folder thing, but I think I can see its value, and uploading with Dreamweaver is much faster. I wonder if I can use it to go back and re-upload previous class projects that I’ve overwritten with later Cyberduck uploads? I think I’ll need that skill to develop a portfolio.
• Learning: As a trainer, I’ve long had the luxury of interacting with students in a face-to-face setting. Even last spring, when I created a prototype for an online course, it assumed extensive instructor interaction, both synchronous and asynchronous (such interaction was required, in fact). This is the first time I’ve tried to create learning where no instructor was present, and it has felt unnatural. I don’t think I’m terribly good at it, and it has made me doubt that I can build a useful final project. I have multiple possible subjects at hand as a longtime writing coach, but I’m hard-pressed to imagine how I can make any of them happen without direct interaction. I can’t help but think: doesn’t this sort of learning need to be reserved for fairly simplistic subject matter? This is likely to be a longtime challenge for me.
• Personal: I’ve struggled greatly to attend to this class while balancing work and life demands (somehow they seem greater during the summer), and I came within a hair’s breadth of withdrawing from the course. Now I’m a couple of weeks behind as a result. Between that fact and my lack of confidence in building a project that meets the course objectives, I feel like Sisyphus pushing the rock up the hill with little hope of reaching the top. Still, I’ve found that I commonly go through some sort of mini-crisis in each course I take before I finally stumble upon a workable project.
• Teamwork: Once again I’ve seen how incredibly valuable it is. Mikah did the bulk of the design work; I simply helped with the words and provided a couple images. Had I been on my own, I might have needed the full semester to produce this project. Working with templates alone would have taken me a week to understand. It’s great to have a teammate whose skills make up for your weaknesses.