First Week Done!

I finished my first week teaching on "Backpack", my new website. My first course is off the ground with a great cohort of learners. They get the course for free and are helping me improve it before I release it generally.

This wasn't really that different from teaching in the University. Some things I learned based on some really good conversations:

• People with a job don't also want to do work at home. This should be fun. When you get to the point where you can't get any further and you're getting frustrated, pause and bring it to class next week.
• It's way more valuable to have other people hear that they're not the only people having challenges and that there are solutions that everyone can share in. That's the point of going through the course with the cohort
• This previous point means that I need the discussion board up ASAP.
• People need to know that when they get to a stumbling block, they should bring that problem to class. The point of the class is to get you over a technical hurdle. I need to set up students on that in the first session.
• I have to do a full dry run of a produced class first, for each variant of computer I'm supporting. Whether it's Windows, Linux, Mac, Virtual Machine, WSL, etc, The nuances of each operating system and install process can be different in subtle ways that can frustrate a paying customer. Having technical issues that are avoidable should be avoided by better prep.
• It's really important to balance the 'information" vs "action". One way to keep the lecture moving woulc be to add explainer videos broken out separately from the main thread of the lecture.
• MAKE SURE YOUR NEW DOMAIN HAS DKIM AND SPF SET UP SO YOUR EMAILS DON'T GET SENT TO SPAM.

You can see the first lecture here:

https://backpack.danaukes.com/course/43/lecture/608