Course prep passion

Designing online courses is supposed to be drudgery, so I can only conclude that I'm doing something wrong. I'm having an absolute blast designing my summer course in Nature Writing. I'm producing podcasts and narrated powerpoint presentations! I'm posting assignments and links and photographs! I'm translating the techniques I learned in the Digital Imaging class into writing exercises! What's not to love?

I've taught hybrid classes before but never an all-online class, so I sort of know what to expect but I may be in for some surprises once all those students (nine!) start submitting reading comments and writing exercises and drafts. The class starts June 6 and I've posted all the assignments on Moodle, but I'm still working on some narrated powerpoints and podcasts and discussion questions.

This is what gets me really pumped: I'm using many photographs I shot for the Scientific Imaging class two years ago, and as I looked through the available photos chronologically, I was pleased to see significant improvements in quality as the course progressed. Since those imaging exercises helped me become a measurably better photographer, let's see if I can adapt them to help my students improve their writing skills.

For instance, I can insert a human hand into a photograph to show the size of the blackberry, but how can we insert a similar scale into a written description? Or a photograph can emphasize motion by letting moving parts produce a blur, but how do we write a blur of movement? I'm eager to see how my students respond to these challenges.

I've reminded them that this is an upper-level writing class that condenses 15 weeks of work into a mere eight weeks, which means they'll have to work hard and stay on schedule--and so will I. I don't know how demanding that work will be, but if the execution is half as enlightening as the planning, we'll all have a blast.