I have travelled some distance from my first online conferencing in the fall of 1994 to now. There have been many hundreds of postings along the way. Now that I facilitate an online course for teachers, I find I want to be a role model in my postings. In the beginning, I simply wanted to be able to communicate - period.

I'm a life long letter writer and keeper of daily journals. The idea of expressing myself in words was not a foreign concept nor a particularly intimidating prospect. The first challenge was in mastering the tools by which to send my messages. I envy those who are starting their online communicating now with a system like Web Knowledge Forum. This system is a dream compared with parti, my first sytem for communcating online in a course.

I did keep a journal of my early days on that system - samples of these thoughts are found at
http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/~skarsten/1551/mod1-log.html I had a manual. Like many manuals (to do with computers at least) it was written by someone who had forgotten what it is like to be a total virgin or newbie to the online experience. I must admit, I still do not understand all of the arcane optionsavailable in this system. To add to the confusion, I was new to the PC as well.That did not make the learning curve any more shallow.

I am a visual learner, so as systems developed that allowed me to insert graphics, I became much more comfortable in the online environment. I find it extremely helpfulto be able to include links to other web materials and to have those links become active within the messages I am sending or receiving.

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