Creating an iTU Course

Being organized with an outline certainly makes things much easier.   By knowing the exact content I wanted to include and in what order I wanted it to appear made my initial design of my iTU course easy ... or so I thought.  I quickly got wrapped up adding new features as I would find them such as adding videos, tables, etc.  A lot of the materials I have created to use I with my students are PDF files which I had problems initially getting to go into my course.  Tables when in landscape orientation ended up being a nuisance as they kept on wanting to jump part way into the first column.  I finally ended up deleting the table and entered the data spaces using the tab key.

Aesthetically, the interface makes it easy to make eye catching pages.  Theme images are not overpowering and adding elements, for the most part, feels intuitive.  The one major issue I have is how it will quickly freeze up .... typically when embedding video or sometimes when adding graphics.  After recreating the same page several times after crashes, I have learned to SAVE each time just before attempting to add video content.

Through trial and error, I also learned that saving all of my resources in one place made things a lot easier.  For example, at SPHS each teacher has been using a Gmail account for years.   Mine was hunterje.spsd@gmail.com.   This year, all students and staff were told to switch to a new Gmail system because we are now a Google school, so my email became hunterje@spsdme.org.   Students frequently send materials through Google Drive and email to my former account so I would be switching from account to account several times a day searing for missing student work only to find that some had shared or emailed it to the old account.   As a result, sometimes I would struggle to find resources I had saved .... forgetting that I was in one account rather than the intended account where I had saved the materials. 

I also found saving resources for my students in PDF format appears to make it much easier for them.   When they are home, some students access materials from a computer that may not have the Internet or software I had originally created the file for them to use.   PDF files have removed that issue for most of my students.  Another thing I learned is the importance of testing all links before releasing the course to the students.   Nothing can be more frustrating for a student than to have a resource not work because of a coding error on the creator's side.   Many of my students are visual learners so providing them with screen shots or illustrations makes learning and keeping them more engaged easier.  The final thing I learned was the importance of PATIENCE!  When all else fails, save my work and walk away, take a break and return to it a while later.