Ongoing benefits from having done the FO2010 Course

Even though the course is complete, I'm using many of the tips I learned and, also, continuing my learning in this area.  I want to encourage other beginners to persevere and educate themselves about online technology that can make the world a better place and provide education opportunities that were never possible before.

I am teaching an online course for Midwives on WizIQ.  I know I still have a learning curve to do on mastering the technology for teaching purposes so I'm doing this first series inexpensively and learning on my students.  This is my teacher profile: Gloria Lemay  Some of the "glitches" I've encountered and learned about the hard way that might be avoided by others are:

1. you definitely need a headset and microphone to broadcast or else you will get too much "echo" from your own speakers.  HOWEVER, on my PC there is only one url port so that meant that I couldn't talk and be seen on my webcam.  That has now been resolved because my daughter informed me that you can buy an item to plug in to one usb port which multiplies your number of ports.  I bought mine for $20 from London Drugs here in Vancouver and it does the trick.

2. WizIQ doesn't let the students come in early to class so I have to book my classes at 10 minutes to the hour in order for people to get in, check their sound, etc.  That works fine, but I realized today that I'm starting the recording of the class at that time so women watching the recording have to sit through 10 mins of non-class time (music playing in the background, women chatting in the chat box) before they start watching the class, which starts right on the hour.  Will change that next time and pause the recording for the first 10 minutes.  I book the classes for 90 minutes although there is only a 60 minute class so that we can have the 10 minutes to get in and another 20 minutes for stragglers to say good bye to each other and play around in the chatbox and with the whiteboard tools.

3. For one class, I messed up the recording by pressing the pause button on the bottom left of the screen.  Won't do that again.  I also tried to play a Youtube video in one class and, then, couldn't locate where to go to get it.  That has scared me off using Youtube videos.  I need some more instruction on how to load them up without disrupting the class.

4.  I decided to pay for the "premium" membership rather than going along as a "free" member because it does have certain advantages.  It's only about $10 per month. WizIQ will collect paypal payments although they do charge a small fee for the service.  It also allows me to record every program (I think, will have to check on that).

5.  I had no idea the class would be so popular (most classes have 60 students).  Doing the book keeping for who has paid and who hasn't is taking time and expertise.  I had a woman set me up on Excel and that has helped.  About half the class has paid for the whole series and the other half is paying by the class and selecting ones they do and don't want.  That's a pain to administer and I think, in future, I'll just offer it as a total package with no drop ins.

6. I have set up two yahoogroups for the students.  One for the fully paid group and the other for the week by week group.  It helps to have one address to send things to all the students easily.  I'm making sure that I give them "value added" material in addition to the course so that they keep learning between classes.

The students have been using the groups to connect with each other and share information about midwifery studies and resources so I'm pleased with how that has emerged.

One of the students is an artist and she has been doing some drawings for me which will help improve my powerpoints for the next series.

All in all, I'm having fun and really learning from running this class series.