Started online training today…. The training that I attended this morning (Orientation to Training and VNTT) was an hour-long session introducing us to Blackboard Collaborate and showing us how to register for required training. Most of the information I already knew from exploring the website, but there were a few things that I hadn’t seen before.
When the teacher shared a resource with us, she sends a pop-up button to our computer asking if we want to download the document. This was AWESOME (although I’m sure it’s been around for a while). Of course I downloaded all the documents and saved them in a folder labeled “Training”.
I learned about the features of the program. You can answer poll questions with a drop down menu. The teacher can change the type of questions from ABCD to yes/no. There is another menu with a smiley face, frown, confused, thumbs up, thumbs down, etc. You can even briefly see the reactions of other students!
There was a screen share program that allowed us to follow the teacher’s desktop. We were able to listen to the teacher and follow the teacher’s whiteboard. It was nice to visually see what I was hearing in real-time. I am looking forward to having access to my whiteboard so I can start messing around with it.
Since there were so many ways to hear/see the information, I had a little trouble concentrating. However, I do think that I learned what I needed to know from the session.
I have continued to do other training activities today. Some are as simple as reading a document and saying that you read it. Others include watching videos and answering questions.
The training that I am doing now starts as a document, then you watch a video, then you read a document and write a reflection. After that, you watch more videos and finally you make changes to your document. There isn’t pressure to memorize the information because much of the training saved via PDF, and you are able to return to the completed content at any time. Also, you technically could speed through the training without following the directions directions because whether you completed it or not is your word.
I have worked for most of the day, so here I am taking a break. It seems about right that I am in the middle of a multi-step training.
Overall I am finding the online school thing very interesting. The ways that I am reacting to working online will help me to come up with strategies for the students. I know I get distracted and try to do several things at once. Also, I am realizing that breaking up the training (or work for students) is very helpful.
Right now I don’t really know what I am talking about, but I will learn more with time, training and experience!
