Mirror Mirror on the Wall: Reflection Post!

Expectations for the first semester of graduate school ran from the sublime to the ridiculous. Overall, though, IT 644 Advanced Hypermedia Development has been a wonderful start. In fact, it stands out in my mind of one of the most enjoyable classes I have ever taken (including my undergrad degree and professional certification).

At first look, the text book was dauntingly dense and overly technical. I tried to keep up with the weekly reading like a Serious Graduate Student, but found myself overwhelmed by mid-chapter. For the remainder of the semester, I turned my attention to the weekly assignments and studied the online tutorials for each assignment. However, the text re-entered the spot light for the final exam and after working with media through the semester, the second try at the textbook was completely different from the first. I found the text book to be well organized and in some points, down right fascinating. It still is a pretty dense read, but I will absolutely NOT be selling it back to the bookstore. In its denseness, the book’s information per page ratio makes its value phenomenal. This is a textbook that you can go back to for quick reference again and again.

The assignments of this class were consistently useful and accessible. Coming into the class, I had a computer proficiency that could be considered average. I work on computers professionally and use them personally for more hours per day than I am willing to calculate. However, I have been keenly aware that there are elementary school students whose technological savvy far, far, far outstrips my own. Therefore, I found that the versatility of each assignment in this class, in terms of its use in professional, as well as personal application gave me the most education bang for my buck. In other words, there was no time wasted in this curriculum, and that is a trait that I greatly appreciated. Each assignment was also accompanied by loads of online tutorials and “how to’s”. While all first attempts at software require some degree of practice and trial and error, this class has resources galore for support and questions provided in its Lecture Notes.

In addition to the support provided in the Lecture Notes, this class also ran through a social networking site. My classmates and I were able to troubleshoot minor difficulties in the assignments practically in real time. The network was also wonderful in terms of keeping updated with the class. I often logged into the network before getting up in the morning and several times a day during the work day so that my evenings could be devoted to working through the assignments.

The class itself was presented in hybrid format; some meetings took place on campus, while some were online. This was a perfect balance for me. I did not get burnt out going to class week after week (I often work late during the day job and get worn out staring at a computer into the evening hours night after night). On the other hand, there was plenty of face-to-face engagement that I stayed encouraged and engaged and did not feel as though I had been cast off to struggle through the assignments on my own.

In all aspects, this has been a wonderful class. The content is universally useful and the manner in which it was delivered was both accessible and flexible. I’m almost sad I can’t take it again!