Thursday, September 15, 2011

My first MOOC #Change11

As a participant in the #Change11 MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), I decided it was time to start my second blog focused on my career in education.  (I have written another blog for years which is all about my family's racing hobby).  The MOOC is focused on contributions in the field of instructional technology.  I have some unique perspectives in this field and have found my experiences are also somewhat unique.

First, I have taught high school, college, and university courses before moving to the corporate world of training and education.  Second, I was lucky enough to be in high school at the dawn of the PC (personal computer).  In fact, during both my undergraduate and graduate programs, I was able to take independent study courses focused on instructional technology using the latest computer tools.  I actually created a web site for a major university before universities had web sites (and received college credit for it).  And, I was showing faculty new ways to teach online before anyone had created the words google, blog, or tweet.

I worked in IT at a Medical School and accurately made a predication to our medical doctors that there would come a time when patients would bring in information they had found on the web during the office visit.  No one really believed me until it starting happening.  The tools have become easier to use, but are rooted in many base technologies that started on BITNET (a University only form of the Internet before there was an Internet).

Now there are so many ways to do the same thing, or close variations of that it can be a bit of a maze.  And keeping up is definitely more challenging now than ever before.  I look forward to this MOOC to explore new ways of learning and working.  Challenging ourselves is the first step in learning new things!

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