Nearly the start of term

Am I ready?  No.  I don't know how long it took me to get to grips with Blackboard because it was so long ago and so much has happened since those days 8 years ago(?).  Merv came and did a day session with us and I was overwhelmed with the possibilities on offer at the time.  I feel that way again, but with the addition of mobile technologies, an iPhone coming my way, support via Twitter and Facebook, etc.  There's so much more technology out there.

I have to sit quietly and plan my first course and put it together.  I think I've learned just enough to do this.  The e-learning team gets together tomorrow and I will share what I've learned with them but I haven't yet figured out how we are going to roll this out in a coherent way throughout the college.  There are a number of technical configurations going on which I have no control over (Moodle talking to the MIS system, for example) so until tomorrow, I can't really begin to worry.

Lessons learned:
1. Stay on good terms with IT Services.
2. Buy chocolate to encourage everyone to think positively about difficult situations where systems are new and not quite ready to talk to each other.
3. Have a game plan and keep smiling.  Apparently, if you smile, others find it hard to get cross.
4. Remind yourself that this is the right thing to do and when we get through  the 'pain' barrier, we'll wonder why we didn't do it earlier.
5. Remember that yearning for 'the good old days' is a sign of age.  There weren't really any good old days when it came to technology.  The cooperation and collaboration that was started by FERL and the lovely people in FERL has carried on.

Example of excellent reasoning found in Amsterdam