Ferns and trees with sun coming through in a west coast forest

A short but full week with Canada Day landing right in the middle of it. We pulled off seven studio sessions in four days. The numbers are smaller these days- I even had one private lesson – but with that we can really dig in and spend more time on the ‘why’ and ‘when’ to use things, not just the ‘how’.

In building my handout for the Assignment and Communication Tools studio I got into the 3 levels of interaction (Instructor – Student, Student- Student, and Student – Content) and which tools facilitate them. I kind of anchored the conversation around that and was able to circle back with each tool to tie in to creating student engagement. This session really brings out the good conversations around online discussion and everyone gets try things out as both instructor and student.

I enjoy the creativity the participants show in creating tests, assignments, and discussions on the fly in the studios. I hope they leave feeling more confident about how things function and with some understanding of what it’s going to be like for their students.

We did a hands on studio with Student Services using Mediaspace instead of Blackboard. We set up a channel for them to practice publishing videos to. They really dove in and created some videos with thumbnails and hot spots. They’ve now created their own channel for when they have ‘ready for prime time’ content.

I had a couple of instructor meetings and took care of some help desk tickets in and around studios. I learn a little more about Kaltura and Mediaspace as I use them.

I don’t usually take a summer vacation and I’m looking forward to a little time off. I plan to read some books, stare at some trees and count the shades of green on Quadra Island. There will probably be some staring at the ocean and likely some star gazing.  I’ll stop there as I can see my vacation time getting stacked up with so much to do. 

And now, it’s time to set that ‘Out of Office’ message. See you in a couple of weeks.