Welcome to My OMDE 603 Journal

Hello! Welcome to my OMDE 603 blog. For the next 5 weeks(?), I will be posting my thoughts, challenges, and victories as related to OMDE 603 Technology in Distance Education and E-Learning, a course I am completing as part of my Masters in Distance Education at University of Maryland University College. My intended audience will mostly be my classmates and instructors. If you have found me through other means, however, please feel free to weigh in. Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated.

Currently, I am working furiously on Assignment 1. My goal is to have my paper finished by this evening. For some reason, I am so excited to write about my topic (Facebook Groups as utilized by online stand up paddle communities) that it is actually distracting. I need to narrow my focus, and maybe save some notes so that I can use later assignments as opportunities to flesh out some topics.

I wonder if this blogging assignment would be a great opportunity for us (my classmates and I) to act as virtual cheerleaders and cheer each other on. Athletes in the stand up paddle groups that I am examining in my paper utilize their Facebook Groups to train together asynchronously. They report their progress in their training by posting on the group's wall. Other group members will then "like" or comment on the posts with words of encouragement and advice. As I explain in my paper, this virtual cheerleading is effective in motivating the athletes in 2 ways. The comments show the athletes that other athletes are monitoring their progress, making them accountable for their fitness goals. The comments and "likes" also give the athletes positive reinforcement, and a feeling that a larger community cares about them and their success. The groups I am following on Facebook have grown rapidly in popularity as a way to train for/complete monumental distance races and events.

The two stand up paddle groups that I am researching are the 100/100 Paddle Challenge (a group devoted to paddling 100 miles in 100 days), and the Back of the Pack Chattajack (a group of everyday paddlers that are training for a 31 mile race on the Chattanooga called the Chattajack).

Sometimes, I feel like completing online classwork is a monumental distance event. This type of supportive online community could be used to help give distance education students the momentum they need to stay continuously enrolled and complete their programs.