second instalment about the teleconference and some tips

One person had a great tip she shared in the teleconference, and lots of you will already do this - block out time in your week to devote to the course. If you follow the weekly schedule this will help keep you on track, but do not restrict yourself if something captures your interest. AND remember to share what you find by posting to your blog, and you can alert people on the Wiki discussion or add material to the Resources page on WikiEd. It is best to add material to a place where it is recorded and can be found easily.

This brings me to a great question one person asked - how will we communicate using the blogs or are we going to stay isolated? There are a couple of things you can do to help you get the feeling you are part of this class community. Post regularly on your blog as indicated in the assessment section, and take time to read others' postings and leave comments - you can use it like a discussion board.
Blog etiquette - ensure you request email alerts for all blog comments you make, and then follow them up with people by going back to respond to comments. You'll get what I mean once it gets going. You can quickly find participant's blogs from the quick links in the course blog.Time went fast in the teleconference by the time we did a round of introductions and people asked questions about the wiki Discussion area and getting set up with a blog. One person managed to set one up as we chatted - good multi-tasking and a good chance to get some tips.

Tips on blogging: Keep it simple to start with - http://blogger.com - is a good place to start out and there are step by step instructions and some good, clean templates. You can get complicated later using the layout features and different templates. When you click view blog once you have posted for the first time, this is the web address you need to copy and post on the WikiEd discussion area at the top of the Evaluation of eLearning for Best practice course page. As you do this, I will be posting your blogs links to the Course blog under Participant blogs. Hold off on the RSS feed link in your blog if you like until I have found out how to set one up in the course blog.

Regular, synchronous meetings
The group made a decision to meet regularly, synchronously, every fortnight on a Thursday evening and we will try for 730 pm - 830 pm - next meeting Thursday 13 March. (I may have to login on my computer from dialup in New Plymouth.) Please keep one eye on the calendar here on the blog for the details.

I suggest we use Elluminate with Skype as backup - failing that teleconference again. It should not be a problem accessing either from home though Elluminate is more efficient (less breaking up) on dial-up than Skype. So next thing is to download Skype - I will be in touch by email with my Skype name and as soon as you have one, please respond with yours.

In next week's class meeting (Thursday 1215 to 1pm) we can discuss if people prefer a daytime meeting on the opposite week - we can also discuss this online.