IF this is your first online course, welcome. This will be an exciting learning experience.
IF you’ve taken online courses before, welcome. You may find this one a little bit different than other courses you’ve experienced.
First thing to remember! This is a course like any other course – it requires your dedication to learning! It requires dedication to taking the time to do the work! Just because we don’t meet in a classroom at a certain time each week, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t schedule this into your weekly agenda. BLOCK IT OFF into your open spaces every day, every week! Then, make sure you stay true to this commitment! You may quickly find that time for this course may be ‘shifted’ or ‘slips away’ as other course commitments add pressure. DON’T forget about this course when others demand your attention!
With that in mind, here’s my recommendation.
Based on personal experience, I recommend that you spend approximately 1 hour online in D2L each week (posting, reading, and responding to others) and 2+ hours researching, reading, completing activities, and working on your blog assignment. Here is a suggested weekly plan of work for this course. Remember that since there is NO specific classroom to report to, this work is in lieu of attending a scheduled class, as well as the usual work required for an in-class session. Plan your work to fit your own schedule, but DO NOT IGNORE this weekly commitment if you want to be successful in this course.
Weekly Work FLOW – suggested actions
| Sat./Sunday before week begins | Monday
|
Tuesday
D2L today |
Wednesday
|
Thursday
D2L today |
Friday
|
| Review upcoming readings and activities.
tinker with creative makes for the upcoming blog post. |
Read & think about connections for discussion post (do draft in Word or Google doc)
|
finish readings
finish draft of discussion post
POST to discussion forum in D2L |
read and post any feedback or conversation prompts in D2L
Work on A2 blog assignment and creative makes |
Read discussion posts in D2L forum
complete responses as directed in the schedule |
Check into D2L to wrap up discussion responses
Work on A2 blog assignment and creative makes |
| Approx. 1.5 hours | Approx. 30 min | Approx. 1 hour | Approx. 30 min. | Approx. 30 minutes | Approx. 30 min. |
For those of you who need a calendar to organize tasks and assignments, I’ve added due dates and suggested actions into a Google Calendar – which you can access here OR subscribe to using your University email (this will bring these dates into your calendar – see more about Google calendars on the Google Tools page in the LAB.
IF you need some inspiration, here’s a video that speaks to me about what this course can be – for you the learners. While it’s referencing another course (DS106), you can take this message as representative of EDUC 3910 – the Happy Student’s Guide to 3910 CDL!
