Hello, Homework. I'm not sure I've missed you.

I have to say, I have thoroughly enjoyed having no homework for the past 3 1/2 years. Having my evenings to myself and being able to read whatever I wanted has been absolutely wonderful.

And in spite of that, I decided this year to go back to school. I'm working towards a Graduate Certificate in Instructional Design from UND, and I have attended a whole one class session so far. And so far, I'm remembering why I always liked the beginning of the semester on some level. I'm in just one online class, on Instructional Games and Simulations. I was pretty terrified leading up to the first day, on a lot of levels. For one, I wasn't sure I was prepared for homework after 3 years away. For another, the graduate school office was full of screwups during my application process, from losing my application to repeatedly failing to change my address. But, my first class dispelled my fears. I think the first week is usually one of the best--I'm not tired yet from the homework, the material is new and fascinating, and I'm excited about the projects that haven't been able to stress me out yet.

I sincerely hope that this course stays this interesting and exciting. In my undergraduate career, I had a few professors who were consistently able to make their classes so interesting that I was sad to be done with them at the end of the semester. For a few of them, I still have and refer to my notes and my textbook sometimes. Based on my first readings and sessions, this course has the potential to be another one. Games and learning has been a topic that has interested me for awhile, as games seem like a great way to make learning more interesting. When I'm trying daily to create materials to teach people to use (often boring) software, interesting can be a precious quality. The course seems like it's going to actually really address pratical issues of how I can incoporate games into a course successully, and actually use them to support learning. On top of that, it appears that during each class period we get to spend some time actually playing a variety of games, so we can get more familiar with all the different aspects and ways that games can help with learning. At least last week, that made it a lot more bearable to still be locked in a conference room at work to go to class at 7 pm!

My weekend was meant to be full of a few more adventures, but most of them were put off for now. The snowboarding lesson I was supposed to have on Saturday got postponed after I showed up and couldn't find a parking place within half a mile of the hill, and I'm postponing my cooking experiments until I've finished quite a few leftovers. Until then, I'm stuck with homework--but at least right now, it's still interesting!