Week 3? Already?

Can you believe it? It is already Wednesday! Whew!

On another note, it is often difficult to stay motivated in a graduate program. I have a friend, Lady Lee, who will often give me "tough love" and/or motivation when I feel overwhelmed with school. Lady Lee completed her Ph.D. ten years ago. What an accomplishment! She is a wondeful mentor and friend. Here's a wonderful quote by Dr. Lady Lee about her experience in graduate school:

It was like being in a black tunnel,and you see the light at the end of the tunnel, and you run fast toward that light at the end of the tunnel, knowing that it was the end of the road... only to find out that that light at the end of the tunnel was the headlight of a fast-moving train...-heading fast toward you, so it could mow you down and KILL you!

LOL! Everytime I read this, I laugh because it rings true!

I am in a wonderful group! Our group is on the ball! It is truly refreshing because I have been in groups that I still have Friday the 13th nightmares about. I am serious. I know many of you are familiar with the "Group from Hell". Sorry for the bad word, but it is the truth. I will not waste my blog on group members from the corner of my mind (Barbara Streisand, look out girl!).

Okay -- lets chat about Week 3 a little. Did I say I was in a wonderful group? :) My group reviewed and investigated Gmail tools. To be honest, I do not think that Gmail is user-friendly. There are too many steps involved and often, I felt that I was on a scavenger-hunt searching for lost gold. For example, it took an act of Congress to get the group chat to work. Two group members could use group chat and a third group member could not access the group chat. Even if this could be considered "user-error", there is no simply way to access the group chat in Gmail. Again, there are too many steps.

We learned that only two people at a time can access the video chat at once. If someone has a different solution, please let me know.

We ended up using the live classroom for our meetings versus Gmail. We also had to purchase additional equipment (i.e., headsets and webcams) in order to use the video chat feature in Gmail and Liveclassroom in WebCT. Dr. Wang graciously volunteered her office if we needed to use a webcam. I live in Louisiana and it would be difficult for me to drive three hours to Dr. Wang's office to use the webcam. The cost of gas would cost more than the webcam. However, I do appreciate her offer (thanks Dr. Wang!).

Overall, although cumbersome, investigating and researching Gmail with my group was a great experience and I learned quite a bit. In fact, I am still learning more about Gmail. I do know that it could be integrated in a classroom -- especially if I wanted to use Gmail for one-on-one confernces with a student.

Until we meet again.....