Tuesday, July 16: Dominica Diligence!

  Today most of the teachers were well on their way to make lessons, the room was quiet with brains churning and fingers typing. One student from last year remembered that I insisted they give credit for images they use, and showed others how to do it. This was great to see! I spent the day being called from one teacher to another, while trying to get to my computer to make someone a teacher in a course or find the answer to some question. They are really working hard and the collaboration demonstrated continually impresses me. They are really trying to find answers without relying on me as the source of information. One or two have not been there every day and so are a little lost at times, so I have tried to guide them to the resources they need to start and catch up. This is not easily done when those who have been there for every session are asking for help. Such is the life of a facilitator!

If you have created a Moodle lesson, you are aware they are tricky and require quite a bit of forethought, yet unless you are a master at storyboards, the forethought never seems to be enough. I admit I am not good at that planning; I like to get in and get messy, frustrated and truly learn. However, I did my best to encourage the teachers to create a plan of their lesson and some did create sketched outlines on scratch paper. Some of my warnings fell on deaf ears, as they had no experience of this type of course development and therefore had no prior knowledge to draw from. We all speak English, but technology is another language without worrying about accents.

So we are preparing to wrap up. I can't believe it is time already! Tomorrow we will have to do a check and see what can be accomplished and what can be done once we are done. I really hope this camaraderie continues long after they forget my name. But they will never forget my smile and laugh!

By the way, the other group had a colour theme. Endira and I were not informed -_-