I enjoyed the semester as an online distance learner. I really like the flexibility online courses allow for and I like that I can spend however much time I need on any given assignment as long as it is submitted by the due date. The only thing I really dislike is not having the social interaction so I have less opportunities to learn from peers although sometimes we do comment on each others work. To improve the experience of online courses one idea would be to put students in groups at the start of the class and they could exchange contact information and stay as a group for the semester. This way they could text each other for hep or feedback and a bit later into the year when I introduced group work they would be a little bit more comfortable with each other and maybe it would encourage them to meet in person and work together to bounce ideas off of each other.
OER or Open Education Resources are materials that can be used in a multitude of ways making them convenient for teachers. These resources are available to be copied and used in your own way with any edits or revisions you see fit and, your new work with the edits may be posted for others. They are free resources and teachers are encouraged to contribute to the OER that way teachers have materials available to them when they need it most. One example of an OER resource is, https://community.oerproject.com/b/blog/posts/redefining-black-death-plague-pandemic . This website has several articles available for anyone to read and they are all on varying subjects.
I really liked the PowerPoint assignments and I felt like I learned a lot from them. That was my first time recording my voice over a powerpoint so it was cool to do that. I also had never used or really even ever new that the slide master was a thing that I could use. One thing I don't particularly like is the transitions on my PowerPoints. I think I need to work on ways to implement that feature in a more interesting way.
