This week I have been thinking more about how my students will view the content and ssignments for my course. I'm trying to anticipate the questions they would have in a face-to-face course and make sure they are answered in my directions to them since I can't immediately answer questions online. I hope they will still feel comfortable enough to use the question page or email if they need to, though, because I can't anticipate everything.

I think I have gained better skills when it comes to writing and answering discussion questions. Our readings, such as Dr. T's with the lists of question types, help spell out this sometimes-ambiguous process in a clear, explicit way.

I knew that group work was an important part of education, even though I sometimes don't like it, but I didn't know that so many people feel it is an essential part of online education. The COFA videos particularly stress that it's not just some "extra" or "easy" thing (in fact, it's often not easy) that teachers just do so that they have fewer assignments to grade. Rather, it's an essential skill to foster so that students are prepared to work in groups in their future occupations.

Lastly, what I know I will not forget tomorrow, or for a very long time, was the impact that the video from Sir Ken had on me. My initial reaction was that I loved the video and what he said. As I've thought more about it since then, I still love the video and how it presented his material in a more tangible and entertaining way. And I still like most of the content, but I'm thinking more critically about what he said about divergent thinking. The longitudinal study that showed that children lost their genius ability for divergent thinking quickly as they became "educated" had some shock value, but the more I think about it, I don't think that's as big of a problem as Sir Ken thinks it is. Some people are good at somethings, others are good at different things. Not everyone needs to be a genius at divergent thinking. For example, I want my accountant (if I had enough money to need an accountant!) to be very good at knowing the one right answer all the time when it comes to my money. I don't need him to invent 10,000 different ways to do my taxes. That said, I still very much enjoyed the Sir Ken video.