As a first year High School Media Arts teacher I am often faced with students wanting to work at their own pace.  My class meets five days a week for 59 minute sessions in a computer lab of 30.  In my Masters’ class CEP 820: Teaching Students Online I decided to create my Movie Making Unit using the Course Management System (CMS) CourseSites by Blackboard. For this Movie Making Unit students are told: we will be using our class time as a hybrid course because a lot of the footage will be taken both in class/school and out; it is only fair that we use our time wisely.  I will still provide strict deadlines that both individuals and groups will have to adhere to, but there is a bit more flexibility to how our time in class is used.  Pedagogically I feel this would work a lot better since students can work at their own pace and when materials and resources are available to them.  Students have pre- and post-work within the lab of each of the five movies they create.  Feedback will be given throughout the lab so students will know how to improve and grow.

Being a rookie using CourseSites there were many times that I only succeeded by trial and error.  The biggest struggle I had was learning/remembering how to edit items that I already created in the site.  There was a little arrow next to the heading and sometimes I could find it and other times I couldn’t.  It was frustrating but eventually I got the hang of it.  Another suggestion I would make, and something I will do for future online units, is to sketch out what you want the course to look like.  I finally had this idea about halfway through creating the course and it just made it so much easier and more consistent throughout.  I would definitely recommend this CMS for courses because it organizes information so nicely.  I had contemplated for a long time of choosing one I was more familiar with, but in the end I was happy with all the functions and features provided in CourseSites.

I invite you to look at my course :

www.coursesites.com

Username: suser1884
Password: Medi@123