Squawk!

It's official...this project is driving me nuts! I went to bed an hour and a half ago, desperate for sleep, but couldn't get my brain to turn off. I tossed and turned, kept the poor dog awake, and finally got up and am back in front of my computer desperately searching for inspiration. Saint Isidore, HELP!

I'm following the steps, searching through Dick, Carey and Carey for ideas, hoping for some glimmer to hang my hat on. I feel like I'm just going through the motions, that I don't really understand the whole DCC model at all, and that my Learning Object is going to more closely resemble the Titanic than anything else.

I keep questioning my original proposition (ok, so it's the 3rd or 4th or 10th proposition). Is it too big? Is it too small? Is it even a valid instructional goal? My little boat is lost out in the great big sea of Instructional Design, and there's no anchor in sight. Land? Yeah, right. Island? Not even. At this point I'd be grateful to see an albatross in the sky...at least it would mean I'm not alone.

Perhaps it would help if we had some method of communicating with each other. The discussion board in the Digital Graphics and Animation class has been a real help, allowing us to share ideas and frustrations, and not feel as if we were flying solo. I know I can call the professor for this class, but what is it going to help for her to listen to my angst? I'm not secure enough in what I've done so far to think that she can help me sort it out and find the salvageable bits. I don't know if I'm the only one not getting it, if I'm being too anal about the whole thing, if my work so far has some validity, or if I need to just trash the blankety-blank thing and start over from scratch.

But I can't do that. The date for the journal is today. Or is it? In the notes for the current lesson, there is a deadline of December 2 (Happy Bday to me) but in the notes for the Wrap Up and Final Project it says it was due on December 6th but the date has been moved to the 8th and that her grades are due by 9:00 a.m. on the 10th. Then it says I have to have my course notebook submitted by May 10th. (?!?) Then we're back to the Learning Object and Journal being due on or before December 6. And it ends with saying that the notebooks must be mailed no later than December 10th so they can be graded on Wednesday and Thursday (that would be the 12th and 13th, no?).

I've been such a pest about problems I've had with the objective quizzes that I hate to question the dates...again. (I've already asked about them once.) So. There it is. I have to get this thing done. I have to trust that I'm doing it well enough that it won't totally sink in the mud. And I have to trust that I'm understanding more than I think I am. Sigh. No sleep in sight for a while yet.