It feels like it's been a long time since I've written here.  Well, still here, still alive, still cracking away at those books, and articles, and assignments for 803.  Initially, before this course started,I thought it would be a walk in the park given my background in instructional design.  Maybe that was my error.  While, content-wise, it is a walk in the park (given my background) I think I swung the pnedulum a little too hard in the other direction looking to make this course more challenging for me.

So for one of my big assigments I picked gamification as a topic - a topic I knew a little something about thanks to two xMOOCs I completed.  However, instead of resting on my laurels and using what I had learned in those MOOCs, I decided to try and read at least 5 of my (unread) books on gamification and games in the classroom (self-imposed goal) to gain some greater understanding on the topic before I wrote about it.

In the end, a lot of what I picked up was left on the cutting-board since the paper was 5,000 words max, and the presentation that accompanied it was only meant to be 30 minutes.  I feel like I've made great progress in my personal reading list, but maybe I increased the stress for 803 to 11 for no reason ;-) I ended up sleeping for 3 out of 7 days (not consecutively) a couple of weeks ago to catch up on sleep (and to get over whatever cold  I had caught).

I am kind of wondering if cosmic powers are pushing me to the limits of my ZPD with this course since I thought it would be a walk in the park, or if it's my own failure of self-regulation ;-) I need to go back to "this is good enough" mode lol.

Here is the presentation I came up with for class (it hinges on audience participation, but you get the gist). 24 days until the end of class.