Week 1: Face to Face

Last night we had our initial face to face meeting. As expected there was a range of experience in the room. Some people are blogging, podcasting, contributing to forums and the like, while others are taking their first steps in the world of e-learning.

I came away feeling really enthusiastic and excited at what is to come as well as a little apprehensive - what if it all goes horribly wrong!!!!!:) I could see that some participants were also apprehensive and we discussed the idea of introducing an e-learning element into an existing course rather than creating a whole program - maybe a resources library or a forum which might extend beyond the course. Small steps seemed to be the way to go for this group.

During the evening we covered the program outline and objectives, individual learning objectives, had a tour round Moodle (our LMS)and lots of talk about Web2 tools. We will have eight virtual conferencing sessions of which five will be participant led and eight weeks of forum chat of which five weeks will also be participant led. During this time participants will be exploring Web2 tools with a view to integrating at least one e-learning strategy and/or tool into their own college programs.

This week's forum chat will be about two things: what people discover about Web2 tools, and what it feels like to set up a blog for the first time. Our first virtual conference session will be an orientation to the environment.