Preparing to Teach Online Course on Web 2.0

This is the first blog I've ever written and it is not about the writing... but about the thought that my students will be reading it as well. The thought of what I should write and what I should not write in a blog about teaching an online class weighs heavy on my mind.

Still, I am excited to reach out to my students in a different way, one that is about equal communication rather than strict student-teacher positions. That is the good thing in the virtual space, people's social positions mean less than in reality. Not that they do not exist online, but people (including me) dare to share their points of view with those who would be considered experts in a specific field.

For the next seven weeks I will share my experiences of working with fourteen students and teaching them (and learning with them and from them) how to utilize blog spaces, wikis, RSS, podcasts and youtube... and of course facebook.

It took me about three busy weeks to put together all the power point slides for the class. It was not the slide organization, they all have the same organization, but making sure that I can describe clearly every step my students have to take in order to complete the assignment was the most time consuming part of the class preparation. And of course, some power points were easier, the one about Facebook and Twitter... but then, the harder part was to decide how to encourage them to think critically about a social medium that they probably know more about it than I do.

And there were other, much harder power point slides because the social media tool required deeper knowledge of different websites and software. I will be blogging about my and my students' experiences with each of these media tools and the level of clarity of the power points. In some way, I will be re-evaluating my teaching approach through their experiences

Well... too much writing for first blog.

Welcome to Social Applications of Web 2.0 blog