Online Learning

This morning I saw that I had received incompletes for not responding to any of my classmates discussion responses, and a teacher comment saying I could do the responses and she would update my grade. I don't understand why I didn't just get partial credit. Why is it all or nothing? I honestly would have preferred to just get a lower grade than no grade at all. But instead, I spent at least an hour going through and responding to three different responses on each of the two discussions so I could get a grade.

I am someone who likes to get my work done and not have to worry about it at the last minute. With multiple classes, four kids, work, and all of my responsibilities outside of my classes, I can't really afford to procrastinate.  That's where the standard online class set up fails me.  There must be some kind of standards about student interaction because all of my classes want me to participate in discussions and respond to classmates. It feels so forced and not at all helpful in meeting my goals in the classes I'm taking. On top of that, most of my classmates are not very quick to participate in the discussions. So I am left to keep checking back to see if anyone has posted so I can finally respond to someone else.  

In other news, I started laying out my photo book. I created a wire frame, which is not something I've ever done before. I will end up having to go back and switch it up a bit once I have finalized which pictures I will be using in my book. But I have created some basic page layouts that can be used for various situations. Progress!

Sleep update: I have managed to get some sleep, but the sleep deficit is real.  

Projects in Progress

This week has been rough.  I don't know what's going on, by I cannot sleep. I am operating on fumes, but I am trying to stay on top of my work. This week I was supposed to turn in three book cover roughs for a photo book and three cover roughs for an old typing style guide called "The Mac is Not a Typewriter", so 6 roughs in total. Some were better than others. I much prefer the ones I made for my photo book.  By the time I got to the "Mac" book covers, I hadn't had a good night's sleep in over a week. I think it shows! I just looked over the PDF for the "Mac" book and found a very obvious typo.  It is a rough, so I'm going to let it slide. I am so tired. 

It's Getting Real Now

Well, my InDesign class just kicked into high gear.  I went from watching hours of videos every week and no projects to now having two big multi week projects going on simultaneously.  I’m worried that I’m going to end up spending more time on this class than my other classes combined. The funny thing is I thought by week 10 I’d be familiar with how things worked in my classes and have a good rhythm down.  I was not expecting the rhythm to change completely.

That said, I think that doing these projects will definitely give me a chance to really use InDesign and put in practice the stuff I’ve been learning in all the hours and hours of videos. Whether or not I will enjoy that process is another story. As someone who enjoys art and creativity, I had hoped that graphic design might be a good path. I have yet to take an actual graphic design course, but based on what I’ve learned so far in this class, there is a lot to do with the nitty gritty details of typography that just makes me want to curl up in a ball and take a nap. How do people get excited about that stuff?  Robin Williams’ (not the actor Ha!) intro to The Mac is not a Typwriter indicates to me that she is someone who really cares about all of that nitty gritty stuff. But I was figuratively shaking my head the whole time I was browsing through the contents. Clearly she and I are not kindred spirits! 

Anyway, I’m trying to kick myself in the ass a bit and find my positivity. I don't have to love typography to understand the value in making things look good. And I may be pulling my hair out working on this class for the rest of the semester, but I will learn things!

Keeping Up With School While On Vacation

 Last week was spring break at COD. Unfortunately my kids’ spring break is this week.  I wish they were the same, but they never are. My kids always have spring break the week after COD. We typically plan our vacations around the kids’ vacations, so that means I end up missing classes (if they are in person).  My two other classes had the modules for this week up early, so I was able to get that work done during MY spring break, but for this class, I had to wait until Monday to access the module.  

So here I am in New Mexico, trying to stay on top of the work for this class.  At least my class is online and I have internet access. However, I was surprised at how many items there were in this module. I I will not be able to watch every single video this week, because my spare time is limited. I will have to do some catching up when I get home. I have watched a handful of the shorter videos. I enjoyed learning about Adobe Capture.  I have the app on my iPad, but I have never used it. I also read about the book project so I could do the related assignments for this week. I’ve submitted the book choice assignment, but I’m not sure if I did it correctly. There was not much guidance about the book brief, so I just wrote up what I could and submitted everything as a text entry, including the url for my pin board. Hopefully it is enough.

It will be a very good exercise to put the whole book together in InDesign.