The end of something is always the beginning of something else!

This is the last week of the online course. Concerns regarding the ability to cope and the potential difficulties were erased when I realized the application aspects were really fun exercises. The focus of keeping it a hands-on course remained true. Here are my thoughts regarding my learning experiences over the past 12 weeks:

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "If you travel the whole world to find the beautiful, you must carry it with you or you find it not." I felt that I have discovered another dimension of teaching and learning that I know is beneficial but did not explore it. I have finally set up a blog, learned to contribute to a wiki, learned to use facebook, learned how to tag articles, learned how to podcast, learned how to aggregate things, etc. It most likely that half the world has already done it. It is not only the knowing about them but also learning about the uses and their availability.

I think I have found the "beautiful" aspect of elearning that I know exist and have finally come around to using it as a result of this course. I feel that I am in a better position to further design training sessions for new and current academic staff. I am looking forward to the different ways I can use these tools for my Educational Psychology course in May 2009. The planning, implementation, and measurement of the measures I will take will definitely be something I need to work on in 2009.

Now, I cannot dismiss the benefits of using these tools for learning. I cannot say that it is too time consuming without thinking about the benefits. I cannot say that I do not know what they are. I know abou them and have learned them. Now, I must use them.