Good ID is Good Composition

Once again, I post the image and then I figure out why I posted it. This photograph is compositionally interesting because of the patterns, the repitition of shapes, colors, lines, and textures. Similarly, good instructional design depends on good "composition," the organizing of course elements into simple and repetitive patterns so that students can easily follow the structure and know what to do.

VERY tangentally, I'm noticing how different the mood is between this image and the image in my prior post. The masks in both images are the same. But the morose maniquins in the prior post's image sets a disaffected, lonely tone, while the smiley face of the biggest mask [cut off in the prior image] and the colorful patterns and textures in this image make me happy.

I'm Feeling Creative Again

I took this photograph with my Blackberry yesterday at the Lowell Folk Festival. We were heading back to the car after an afternoon of music, crafts, seeing friends, and people watching when this store window caught my eye. The maniquins are inside the window. The African masks are on a table in front of the window, outside the store. I love the juxtaposition of the mask-like faces with the face-like masks.

I love taking pictures and putting words to them. I feels sizzlingly creative. The juices flow. I had no idea of what I was going to write when I decided to post this picture. All I wanted to do was to share the picture with you. And no, the stolid expressions on the masks and manequins do NOT reflect my current mood. Like I said, I'm feeling creative again. No lonely, expressionless face any more.

Online Learning Communities: For Visual Learners

Two pictures: The first one is my husband, Jeff, and me last January in Boulder. You can see our smiles, the twinkle in our eyes. Something of our personality shows through.

The second one is my husband in the Minneapolis airport on the way home from Boulder. This image is "flat," even though I like its stark beauty [I enhanced it with Photoshop, taking out extraneous details and darkening the sillouette]. You can't see the twinkle in Jeff's eyes or anything about his personality, age, style. This is how I feel about the people in the online learning community. We are engaged with other in an intellectual, cerebral, and very limited way. We are sillouettes to each other, flat.

Online Learning Communities: A Down Hill Slope

At first I was very gung ho about the idea of collaborative learning communities. This is my fourth online course, and I’ve enjoyed them so far, although the two I've enjoyed the most were the one's in which I met colleagues [who I am still friends with] in person to work on projects. I’ve also been working for UMASS for about a year doing online Wimba support. I’ve loved that too. I’ve thought, “how cool is this getting online in real time with people all over the planet.”

Recently, though, I feel different. I’m getting lonely. Working on a virtual team with people I’ve never met is getting old. I would like to know who my colleagues are. They feel very one dimensional. I have a vague idea of what they look like, what their hobbies are, where they live, what their voices sound like, whether they are reliable workers or not, but that’s about it. I long to invite them to my back yard to shoot the breeze and eat watermelon.

I’m feeling the same about this course—somewhat disconnected, lonely, wondering who all of the people behind the posts are, and at the same time, wondering if I even care. Yes, other people’s feedback has influenced, even changed, my opinions on some of the course content, which is good. But the loneliness is getting to me, and I’m loosing motivation. I find myself distracted by other things I want to learn [this week it’s Web 2.0] and less able to focus on this class.

Brenda is doing all of the “right” things, structuring in collaborative activities, giving us lots of feedback, keeping the interaction between us going, but for some reason I can’t quite put my finger on, its not working well enough to keep me as motivated as I was at the beginning of the course.

I’m starting to think that I would do better with a cohort model where students in the program started at the same time and met in person [the Nantucket thing, but as a cohort all starting and going through the program together]. I would also like to try a hybrid course. I have a hunch I would feel more part of a learning community if the other members were more 3-D than I experience my colleagues in this course to be.