Designing a New Course OR Help! Please! NOOOOOOO! It Can't Be Time Yet!

Did I really get myself into this mess?  Why, oh my do I do this to myself?  I know!  Let's go read email instead...  spam, spam, and more spam.

Oh, yes!  There are papers to read for the Pop Culture Conference Awards.  Let's do that first. Wait, I finished that in 5 minutes.  Has Berkeley Breathed posted a new Bloom County yet on Facebook?  Oh, some more friend requests?  Who is this person?  Do I know them?

Okay, that's it, I have to do it!  After all, I'm a fairly "social network" kind of guy.  It seems a natural extension to create a writing course dedicated to writing for the the internet.  Let's have EVERYONE write a blog!  Yay, that's it!  And Facebook!  Of course I'll create a dedicated Facebook page on Cyberwriting (do I get some nerd cred for that title?)  And Twitter!  Let's not forget Twitter.  #engl211, #socialmedia, #WTFamIdoingCheckingtheChiefsPatriotsScoreInsteadofWorking.

Yeah, okay.  Let's get to it: the biggest issue with designing a course from the ground up is organization: what order do we do things?  Is it going to be all asynchronous or not?  Are the modules going to be linear or free flowing?  Am I adding too many videos or not enough?  Am I encouraging "analysis paralysis" by having TOO MANY OPTIONS?

Well, I've come to the conclusion that I'm dividing this puppy up into five main modules:

• An Introduction/Orientation thingiemajigger (the technical, pedagogical term)
• A History of Social Networks (better dust off the LiveJournal & MySpace accounts)
• Blogging (where we will all maintain our personal blogs for the class, like this one)
• Microblogging (which will include use of Facebook, Twitter, and other stuff; maybe Instragram and Pinterest?) AND
• A Final Project, which will likely include some video blogging as well.  

Which reminds me: when is Joss going to create a sequel to Dr. Horrible?  Or is NPH (@ActuallyNPH) too busy right now.  Okay, I'm getting sidetracked again.

The biggest problem with creating a course like this is taking something that I usually apply as a supplement to courses and making it the course itself.  How do I go from turning what is essentially a massive, online cabal of communication tools into a writing course?  It's a bit like teaching people how to drive a car by using those customizable "car design" apps on company websites: sure, it's fun to do and zesty to behold but it doesn't really teach you how to do the task.

So that's what I need to figure out: how to I actually teach people how to write a blog, make their Posts and Tweets more effective than just spewing about what they ate today or how much they hate spoilers for Star Wars.

I'm going to have to dig deep to figure this one out.  And if you're one of my students reading this blog post, I hope you know that we're in this together.  I'm as confused as you are.

So I’ll leave you with this final thought, in video form… Lost in the Wilderness.

TA!  For now.