quit school

Well, I went through Christmas and woke up with the realization that nothing was making me happy- I pushed through Christmas- enduring not experiencing- and said to myself- enough! Financially, my working doesn't help us- it only creates a larger tax bracket- and I was at the point of obsession with school...- taking Concerta to churn out endless assignments. So I quit school- I tend to do this------- embark on a course and put out 100% effort; with excitement and fevor, only to be come disillusioned half way through the journey and quit. I know as Dr Kessler used to say, "You have a personality disorder." But when I fix that disorder I become someone else-- no one likes or enjoys ---I don't even like me when I become "normal" so, I revert back to me. Happy, light hearted me.

Last Post

I am still trying to download Dreamweaver- the free trial- is not working, so I reverted back to Camtasia- I redid my intro and posted it!! Yah!!! So... I'm glad that is now over with. I would to like to download Dreamweaver so I can play with it and see which is easier- I realized I had to save my video in quicktime- then download to screencast- then save and upload on the course site. I need a list of steps to go by so I won't forget how to do that before my next class. Well, I've learned alot Dr Rice- thank-you for your patience and leeway on deadlines- it made our lives bearable this summer!! Kitty Partin

Trials and Tribulations

I worked on my welcome video and attempted to load it into Camtasia but for some reason, I couldn’t do it. I will retry tomorrow with Dreamweaver. I don’t know why I can’t just do the video on my photo booth and download it on the course. I tried to do that also and was unable to do so. I reviewed the area under technology tools to see if any of the links had material that might help me figure out what I’m doing wrong. I was able to import my power point into Camtasia with no problem, then I did a voice over and even though it was difficult to synchronize, I was able to do so. I am able to import the video clip I made in photo booth in Camtasia but when I try and pull it over into the screen, it says an error has occurred and it closes. Go figure……

Yacky Yack.....

I hate to make two posts on the same day, but I’m in the mood to vent! Thanks, Dr Rice I like this assignment. I had a momentary thought of withdrawing from school last night. I started out with Cohort #1 and now those students are taking their comps. One of them called me and said she didn’t pass and was going to resubmit her paper. I frankly had no idea after all that time that it was possible to fail your comps. I wish we knew what they are looking for when the committee reviews these papers. I hate to be too basic, but give us a failing paper and then a good passing paper so we can compare the two. Does your advisor review your paper prior to it being submitted? I really just want to concentrate on completing my courses and then worry about comps and then worry about the prospectus and so on…. Too many things too worry about at one time!! My main focus is to come out of this with the ability to produce nurses that aren’t just patient care providers, but nurses that push the profession of nursing. I want to instill in them a yearning to be better. I graduated from an associate degree program in 1977. I never knew how exhilarating learning could be. After I had 3 children and had worked in hospitals for years, I had the chance to return to school. I don’t know why but I love school. Now if I could just turn that love into a money making machine I’d be o.k.

Institutional Issues and more.....

I completed my paper on Institutional Issues today. I worked for the university I described in my paper for two years before resigning in May. I resigned so I can put more of my efforts toward school. I sometimes wonder about the wisdom of my actions. I am now working adjunct as a clinical instructor for them and interviewing for an online instructor for another college. I am going to end up working more, if I don’t be careful, than I did when I was fulltime. I thought about the process of adding quality online courses to the curriculum and the effort that would take. The university seems to be so strapped for money I can’t imagine how they would approach the issue. If I were Dean, I would start a pilot project and ask one of the more adaptable teachers to initiate the course. I would visit another School of Nursing that has been able to successfully launch an online program and discover how they were able to do so. I would start small and then attempt to get some type of funding to assist with the program. One by one I would have my teachers educated on power point, Blackboard, Adobe, and Camtasia. I would communicate through email and put faculty meetings on Wimba to force them to become familiar with different aspects of computer technology. It makes me laugh to think about some of the teachers that still use transparencies, trying to use Wimba. One in particular was so rude to me when I first started teaching, she told me she would do all the lectures, and grade all the tests by hand and I should just watch and learn. I watched her use overhead projectors and transparencies, and heaven forbid should we try the scantron, we had to grade by hand and if you couldn’t decipher what was written, then just mark it wrong. Ohhh I am so glad to be away from her. (Sorry, I got carried away!!)

Student Issues

I was working on my student issues section of my online course development. I wanted to present to students the fun side of attending college- be it online or not. I approached the orientation module with friendly verbiage and the old adage try, try, again...but never give up. Online learning as well as, traditional learning can be daunting and frustrating to say the least. The more you ask questions, bond friendships, and verify understanding the better your chance at succeeding. Students need to realize that online learning is much different than traditional classroom so they need to prepare, to email classmates, meet up with any classmates that live in the same city with them, or whatever they need to do to have a successful experience. The student of today’s generation is much more capable of taking online classes and being successful than the older student like myself, yet slowly but surely I see myself taking another step forward in the process.

Camtasia

One of the aspects of developing an online course was the ability to voice over a power point in order for the student to hear the teacher delivering a lecture. I used Camtasia on my Mac and spent around 4 hours trying to adjust the voice and the slides so the student would understand what was being presented. The power point was developed by another student and I was the voice over- the problem with that was I had to decipher what she was trying to address - I initially did the lecture and it took around 5 minutes for me to address each slide, but she had 24 slides. The presentation would have been much too long- so I cut my lecture down drastically- but felt that if I was truly presenting this to students I would have not been giving each area on the slide enough time. The workload should have been rearranged so each person could make their own power point and voiced it over and then make adjustments to the slides as necessary. You hate to butcher another teacher's slides!!!!