Week in Review

I'm really enjoying working with Prezi.  Unfortunately, it's a bit of a time sink, because I'm futzing so much with it.  I do think that if I could figure out how to get the text to be a certain size without just eyeballing it, I would be working more quickly.  So learning a new program is actually going better than expected at this point.

After meeting with Anne this week and discussing this class in comparison with other classroom courses, just how much a person picks up from interacting in person with others. The nuances of face to face interaction aren't there when we're typing.  I don't know if we're conscious of *trying* to communicate tone and inflection when we're writing our responses on the threads and blogs, but I think there's a lot we aren't even realizing we're missing, until we talk with a person we usually type/read with and we notice the differences.  At least, that's my impression.

I'm moving forward with the paper, considering my audience more than I had when I wrote the draft. (sorry, dear draft readers!)  Upon further reflection, it was really more brain-dump than serious draft, but it's all part of the process, so it's all good.

I'm still mulling over the idea of online versus in-person classes at the graduate level.  Some folks in our circle are taking MBA classes online and reportedly enjoy it.  I'm not sure what kinds of classes we're talking about, and what precisely this person likes about the experience, but I'm curious to find out next time we see him...  I found the online seminar set-up frustrating at times, because seminars seem to presume a sense of community among the class-members that our class was slower to build, because of the limited interaction.

(It seems to me that I get to know my in-person classmates much faster than online classmates.  We just don't have all that much time to chat about off-topic stuff online, but classmates visit with each other during breaks and before class starts, building rapport. That familiarity helps ease some of the dialogue necessary for a successful seminar experience.)

So far, this is the only grad class I've taken online.  Perhaps I'll consider others, just to see what it's like with a different topic and group of people and instructor.  I kind of missed the face-to-face interaction, though, and I feel like I missed out on getting to know folks to some extent, because we never really "met" each other.