Image from Maria Keays on Flickr, Creative Commons attribution
Well, October went by in a flash, didn’t it? I spent the entire month co-facilitating a blended model course in volunteer management with colleagues from Volunteer Victoria (my old workplace as well) and over the weekend I shifted from ramp-down mode on that course to ramp-up mode on co-facilitating another Instructional Skills Workshop Online course through Royal Roads University.
With both the Foundations in Volunteer Management course and the ISWO one of my favourite things is getting participants in the online classroom that have never learned online before. Some people meet this challenge with much trepidation and, more often than not, at the end of the course they speak up with “Wow, I never knew online learning could be like this!” I’ve got to say, it pleases me. 🙂
It pleases me when people are nervous about learning online yet still give it a chance. They dive in with an open mind and a “come what may” attitude and they really get involved. They ask questions, they give from their experience, they participate. And they really learn!
For my part it’s busy to facilitate two online courses in a row, which equates to 10 weeks of active instructor presence in the online classroom. But it’s so worth it. Learning from my participants is another reason why this is so.
The image of the stepping stones above spoke to me because to me it says we came to this online course from different places, yet we began to work together…
