I'm excited and a bit nervous, I've now got a couple days of teaching done, and we've had a few wrinkles but I'm starting to get into the groove. I'm new to Canvas and its been a heavier lift then I anticipated. One easy thing the other instructor suggested was creating a student account for myself in the system, and let me tell you that was a game changer. This course is closely integrated with two other systems, and its not at all clear from the student side how all of that works. I've used both of the supporting systems before, but rather than having one SSO interface for all three, you have to individually sign up, which is more challenging for the less technical learner. But now that I've seen things on the student side, I'm more understanding of what is going on and can create some videos and tutorials to help them get all up and working. I feel I am now understanding what is expected of the students for the first few days, and I can get them up to speed and ready for the next pieces of the course. One of the things I misunderstood were the exit tickets, which I thought were quick knowledge checks but are actually places for the students to raise concerns and do quick reflections. So my feeling is that students should use the tickets to summarize the days topic(s) in a sentence or two, while using the lj for deeper reflection, as a memory tool and as a private thought gathering mechanism. I think everybody is in learning mode, and we have a few strong candidates. I think we have to do a bit more on the social and bonding side, perhaps a learning buddy or small study groups. Also, I think I'd like to do a knowledge exchange of sorts, where a student can talk about or answer questions about something they are good at, and students can ask questions about something they are intrested in, and hopefully we have lots of matches.