Week #1 Wrap-up: Diversity, Writing Challenges and Time Management

The post title basically summarizes my first-week impressions of taking Webskills 2016.

I am in awe of the diverse backgrounds, locations, educations, experience of Webskills participants. Despite such differences, we have all been fortunate to go digital for one common goal: activating web skills to bring about the best educational practices to our classroom in the 21st century. And I'm very honored to be part of this unique community. And trust me, I'll devote time and efforts to making a sound contribution to the course.

Another noticeable feature of the first week is the amount of writing on the online platforms. Each participant has to post at least three discussions on Nicenet and one post on our blog. I think the workload is acceptable when every two days we're informed of our progress via emailed messages containing checklists sent by our course instructor, Celeste Scholz. The applause will very much also go to our course instructor as she will monitor, summarize, comment and mark the quality of all posts made. My observation is that late posters in each discussion might be left with 'nothing to say' so they could play the role of devil's advocate to add vigor to the discussion while early posters will have to carefully craft their pieces since they will be closely scrutinized by the latter commentators.

Finally, achievement in online courses requires effective time management skills. Self-directed learners are more likely to succeed, but better time strategies will yield better academic results. I've found these tips useful:

1. Allot a specific number of daily hours on the course (1): as taking this course is my priority at the moment, I'm spending the best hours of the day on it: 10-12P.M every two nights. Hope it works.
2. Plan ahead (2): what I fear the most is not completing the final project when it is due. Fortunately, our class wiki has a brilliant function: the countdown clocks is present on the main page. It reads:

53 days

till

Final Project Due

That said, I will take a look at the final project starting week 2: read it, re-read it, brainstorm, outline, review literature, and the like.

3. "Know when good is good." (3) This is to have a clear expectation of my participation in the course. I will try hard, but will not aim to be a perfectionist to avoid burn out due to my current daytime teaching schedule and research projects.

Goodbye week 1.

Hello week 2!

References

1. 4 Time Management Tips for Online Students (USNews)

2. 5 Tips for Online Student Time Management (ElearningIndustry)