Observations on Creating and Teaching an Online Course

Tonight I finished teaching the very first course I developed myself. It was an introduction to Social Media geared toward my Life-Cycle Celebrant colleagues.

First, let me say I knew it would take a fair amount of effort to develop a course from scratch. Next time, however, I will take my original estimate of the time involved and multiply it by five.

From the outside, it might have appeared no big deal, teach a group to use the tools I spend a good portion of my time fooling around on. Toss in some screen shots and we're off--but there was much more to it than that.

In the last month, I've taught myself Power Point, created three slide show presentations averaging over 60 slides each and learned to conduct a webinar. (The webinars were made successful by husband Paul, who handled the organizer duties.)


In an unexpected turn of events, I also had to re-teach myself the very subjects I was going to teach my students because the two sites I was covering (Facebook and Blogger) had undergone some very noticeable changes since I first started using them.  (Two happy side effects of that were that my other blog InclusiveCermeonies got an unscheduled revamp and this blog was created.)

Over all, I am very happy with the experience. The course took place over three Wednesdays, but it dominated my June. Who would have thought I'd be glad to have only one ceremony booked this month?  My only other priority this month was our vow renewal--which was lovely.

So, from here it's back to ceremonies. This weekend I'll be writing a vow renewal for my good friend Dana and also a wedding ceremony for another couple. Both of these ceremonies will take place over the next three weeks.

For now, it's a three-day weekend. I'll be writing those ceremonies, putting together the take-away materials for my class and maybe getting some sunshine. That will be the least busy I've been for a long while.