I was surprised that there were k-12 educators in the course. I just assumed it would be all college level instructors that would be developing courses for adults. It was very very cool to see things from their perspective and to see the courses they developed for various k-12 age levels.

I was surprised at how polite everyone was in the course… maybe that was not it, maybe it was more that there was a formality to the interactions that i did not anticipate.

I think the concern about grades/failing/etc. also surprised me.

I was VERY surprised a student’s trying to interact in the course using a cell phone. I did not anticipate or expect that at all. Really interesting implication. Not sure what to do about that yet : )

I was surprised that most students seemed to prefer communicating with me privately via coursemail with stuff that needn’t have been private… i need to manage that better by directing students to the appropriate areas of the course. I wonder why… perhaps it was just easier than scrolling down to find the question areas or the talk with me area…?

I was surprised that no one really used the Bulletin Board or any of the class community areas really. No one found the hidden picture : ) i wonder if that is cuz the area is way at the end of the topics physically.

I was very very very happy with the blogging activity. I loved reading the student posts!

I loved using jing in the course.

I learned a lot using diigo for the shared references in the course. I need to shore that up some now in the course. I want all links that are used anywhere in the course or the blogs or anywhere to be posted and tagged in diigo. Also, i need to set up some standard tagging conventions and have some instruction on how to tag effectively for students, especially thinking about the resource moving forward with the student beyond the end of the term. The diigo link roll embedded right into a moodle block rocks!!!

Twitter and voicethreads worked great.

I found grading very tedious for technical reasons. I had to do everything manually. Tally up all the discussion grades… etc.

Using moodle for course management was extremely challenging. There are limited course management tools, or i just don’t know how to use moodle, so following and keeping up with things during the course delivery was very difficult. I also need to look at the design of my activities, the amount of work required and my own levels of participation in the course.

Not having a HD for tech support was also very challenging. Not having a MID to review my course and to give me feedback on optimizing the features and functionality of Moodle was also frustrating… or i missed having that a lot.

In spite of all the work, i loved every minute of developing and delivering this course. It has been awesome. And i had wonderful awesome students that I can’t thank enough for sharing this first online teaching experiences with me. : )