One thing I have done, however, is to contact experts in various aspects in writing, publishing, and promoting a nonfiction book and ask them to write or record something on their subject matter. As always, I am touched by the generosity of creative people in my field. Ask for something, and they say, “Sure. Happy to do it.” No hesitation. Just, “Sure.”

When I taught the class in a bricks-and-mortar classroom, I always invited guest speakers who brought a perspective to their topics I simply didn’t have. While I do edit, I am not a copy editor or a proofreader on the scale of Katherine Pickett; though I do use the Web to market my books, I have a lot to learn from Bob Baker, the author of 55 Ways To Promote & Sell Your Books on the Internet; and, as I learned the hard way, I am not a graphic designer and need Peggy Nehmen to make my books look professional and enticing.

Which brings me to the second thing I have accomplished. I asked Peggy to design the logos for “How to Write, Publish, & Promote a Nonfiction Book” (did I mention the catchy title I decided on?). This is the point at which the whole thing began to feel real to me. The course and each of its modules has a logo. Then, each area within the module—learning outcomes, lessons, readings, quizzes, etc.—has a little icon to graphically identify the nature of the task.

Finally, I signed up for two of Apple’s one-to-one sessions on podcasts, dusted off my Snowflake microphone, and bought earphones. Now I can tackle creating audio lessons.

There is method to my madness. One important lesson from my ION course had to do with appealing to the disparate learning styles of students. While one may prefer to take in information by reading it, others may prefer to hear it by some audio means; and still others by seeing it in a chart, a PowerPoint presentation, or a video. I have the first two but haven’t tackled videos yet. That is a bit intimidating but definitely on my list.

All of this is to say I haven’t been idle, despite putting off some of the tougher parts of writing module content. I will, I promise, but in the meantime, back to the binders. I need to fortify myself with a massive review.

Much of my dismay at unacceptable service revolves around electronics. For example, my AM/FM/weather radio has been turning itself off after five seconds. This is particularly disturbing during a tornado watch. I have taken it back to Radio Shack five times and received such advice as change the batteries (I did that), push the power button (of course, I did that), turn the knob (I did that), and let us keep it overnight to figure out the problem (I did that).

The diagnosis was a dead internal battery (I didn’t know there was such a thing); the prescription was to charge the internal battery by plugging a power cable into the wall. (That took five visits?) However, the person who waited on me could not figure out which cable I might need. I went to Best Buy and bought the proper cable in five minutes. Goodbye Radio Shack.

Then, there is the camera saga. I have purchased my last few cameras at Creve Coeur Camera, though I always leave wondering why I shop there. The staff may know cameras, but it has never been known for its warmth. Not so long ago I observed two salespeople loudly complaining about a customer who had just left the store. This week I went in to ask a question and watched while the whole staff was engaged in looking at a computer monitor. Eventually a manager came out and suggested that someone might want to wait on me. The person who did was so unfriendly I almost apologized for being there. He answered my question, adjusted the setting on my camera, and dismissed me but taking out his cell phone. Goodbye Creve Coeur Camera.

Final tale of woe: This morning I went to Office Depot to look at a purse-size Cannon that was on sale (having said goodbye to Creve Coeur Camera). As usual, I had to walk through the whole store before I found a human being to talk to. I asked why there were so few people on the floor and was told that not much happens before 11:00 a.m., so the crew doesn’t come in until then. What about the customers who shop before 11:00? Well, they’re kind of out of luck.

Let me say at the outset that Justin, the tech expert, was wonderful, but he was swimming against the tide. The cameras were all securely attached to cables, which made holding one difficult. There was no power to any of them, so I couldn’t look through the lens.  Everything was locked up in some way; if I touched a camera, an alarm went off.

Because Justin was so helpful, I actually bought a camera, but when I asked him look up my Office Depot business charge account, he had to go in search of assistance. The lady who handled finances was on the phone. I finally gave up and used another credit card. Goodbye Office Depot.

I think there is actually a website for posting such observations. The other option is to send this blog post to the aforementioned companies.

My rationale was I needed more computer to host an online course. To be honest, I have no idea if that is true, but it sounded good. So, here I am with my beautiful, new iMac, complete with the Lion operating system, which does everything but make coffee. As a delay tactic this wasn’t too effective because in no time flat, I am set to go and have run out excuses. It is definitely time to write my course.

I had actually written one module while I was taking the ION course, so the first thing I did was review the feedback from my instructor and make the corrections she suggested. That gave me one fairly complete template for the form I would use on all of the modules. Since the course is based on my book, my next step was to turn all of the chapters into PDFs to use as basic readings. Then I converted charts into PDFs and thought about what other lessons I could make into graphics, podcasts, PowerPoint presentations, or videos to appeal to the principal adult learning styles.

All of the modules have the following elements in common:

1. An introduction/overview of the module
2. Learning outcomes
3. A lesson
4. Readings
5. References
6. A Discussion
7. Assignments
8. Feedback to students
9. A quiz
10. An assessment or how points will be assigned
11. Reflections on the module
12. Feedback to instructor

Where it is possible to write those sections, that will be my next step. In the meantime, I am going to review the two (huge) binders of materials I printed out as I took the course. One binder is full of readings from experts. It took a long time to read them the first time around, but I think it’s worth an in-depth review. (I yearn for the photographic memory of my college days, but that was a long time ago.)

So, with no more pencils to sharpen or floors to wash or months of filing to catch up on, I have no choice but to get down to business.

Life transitions are confusing. Between endings and beginnings is a fallow space where nothing seems to be happening. Actually, it is a time of quiet creativity and renewal. Something new is in the works.

In my case, what has ended are eight weeks of being a student. What will begin, sometime soon, I hope, is becoming an instructional designer. But at this moment, I am in that “fallow space” where there is a conspicuous lack of discernible activity. OK, it has only been two days—not even that if you figure I just filled out the course survey today. But I’m impatient. I want to get started. Yet, when I put my fingers on the keys, they just sit there or, worse yet, they write gibberish.

The problem is that it takes more than two days to experience quiet creativity and renewal. If something new is indeed in the works, it is definitely going to require more time.

To be honest, I was only going to write these blog posts until the end of the ION course, but I find that they are addictive. I hadn’t realize how much processing I did as I wrote them. Sometimes, I didn’t even know where I was until I hit Publish. Then, it was as if I had dislodged the logjam and could go forward. I guess what I’m saying is I can’t stop at this point.

I wrote my first draft of Words To Live By on my blog to establish deadlines and make sure I met them. I promise you I will not write the course here, but I find that “journaling”—if that’s what I’m doing—keeps me on track. So, with your indulgence, I’ll see where this takes me.

This was not only interesting but also thought provoking. I am quite sure I was the oldest person in the course, and that gave me no end of doubts about my ability to keep up with my younger and more experienced fellow students. Even though I consider myself Web savvy, the technology almost did me in. Yet, I finished the class and did everything I was supposed to do: read the hundreds of pages of supporting documents, responded to every person in every discussion, and completed all of the assignments on time. I’m not sure everyone did that. Some people were conspicuously absent for many discussions, and at least one dropped out. Just finishing constituted a success.

All this got me thinking about older adults and learning. I did some research and discovered that there are 39 million people in this country over the age of sixty-five. By 2030 that number is projected to be 72 million. In 2012, “retirement” is very different than it used to be—that is for those who can and choose to retire. More older adults are returning to school, and campus-based retirement communities are springing up all over the place. Those who live in them are among the many seniors who subscribe to the concept of “lifelong learning.”

Lifelong learning doesn’t have to mean going back to school. It could involve anything from taking square dancing lessons to learning a new language or improving our golf swing. Why do we persist? Well, learning keeps our minds sharp, including our memory; builds self-confidence (I can attest to that); and exposes us to new interests and new people who share them. The list of benefits goes on and on,

Apparently, our ability to learn improves with age. Linda Fried, dean of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and an expert on aging, observes, “As we get older we can draw on objective knowledge and life experience and perhaps even intuition … to be more creative and solve complex problems that we could not solve when we were younger.”

All of this is very good news, not only for me but also for those who are going to take my course in the future. Age is simply not a factor in our ability to learn new things, whether that is how to design and teach an online course or how to write a nonfiction book.

Having said all that, I must add that taking this course was one of the most significant things I have done in years. People come to me with an idea; I help them turn that idea into something tangible: a book. I logged into ION with an idea; this course has taught me how to turn it into something tangible: an online course.

Everything I learned will help me design and teach my course; every module helped me overcome doubts and obstacles; every person with whom I had any contact taught me something important. The two most significant activities were the collaborative group project with four very hard-working teammates, and writing a module for my class.

There were two major “take aways”: The first was discovering the caliber, knowledge, and professionalism of my classmates—a pretty awesome group of people. The second was finally believing I can do this; I can design and teach my course.

Anyone who has read my book, Words To Live By: Reflections on the writing life from a 40-year veteran, may recall that I have reinvented myself and plunged into unknown territory many times in my career. Looking back, I recall how hard it was—every time. I was always uncertain; I was always tense; I always survived. Then, the next time I faced another challenge, I repeated the cycle: I was uncertain; I was tense; and I survived.  Somehow, I suspect, I will repeat that pattern the next time and the time after that.

You know the saying: “If it works, don’t break it.” Somehow, this crazy cycle works.

Like all previous assignments, when I first looked at it, I thought I will never be able to do this. Like all previous assignments, however, I did it. It helped a lot that several of my classmates posted their final projects immediately, so I could see what it was supposed to look like when done correctly. In addition to doing our own projects, we were expected to read and comment on several others. At first, they seemed uniformly fabulous, but as I read I became more discerning. Some were more fabulous than others. A couple were extremely well written. I told one of my classmates that if I were his editor, I would be out of a job.

I was surprised to discover that I am not the only one who will be teaching my first online course. There are others who are just as apprehensive as I am. No matter how good professionals may be at what we do routinely, we tend to experience a crisis of confidence when it comes to something we have never done. I am in very good company on that score.

I have received one critique so far. The first comment was “Awesome!” I’ll take that kind of feedback any time. The module I planned was on how to write a book proposal, which is difficult enough to explain in person. Trying to describe the process online proved to be even more challenging. This isn’t the kind of situation where I can meet someone for coffee and talk through that person’s confusion or concern. On the other hand, we can plan synchronous (real time) discussions on the phone, gotomeeting.com, or Skype, which is beginning to feel like a very good idea.

Besides planning the module, we were asked to describe the technical requirements for our course, as well as its strengths and weaknesses. I was pretty understated about both, but a classmate pointed out that one of the strengths of my course was my own experience teaching it f2f (face-to-face). He suggested I include that. This same person was quite forthcoming about his lack of experience teaching online and his struggles with technology. I thought that was quite courageous and something I might also add.

I will actually get to submit my final project twice—once early enough to get some feedback and again as the “final final” to be graded. That provides a great opportunity to make improvements before I write, “Please grade this one” in the subject line of my post. One of the things we will be graded on is grammar and punctuation. Taking no chances, I sent my draft to my trusted editor, my sister, Judy. You may recall that she edited my memoir, Words To Live By. How lucky can one be to be related to a top-notch editor? Believe me, with me as a client, she will never be out of a job!

• Present the material in several formats (written, audio, video, PowerPoint, Web links) to appeal to students’ varied learning styles.
• Introduce myself and my qualifications; post a photo, bio, and links to additional information; list times of availability for phone or private email conversations; provide a way for students to give me feedback on my role and on the course.
• State explicit, achievable learning outcomes (goals) for the course as a whole and individual modules within the course.
• Furnish a clear, concise list of activities to be included/completed within each module or chapter.
• Give clear, step-by-step directions in every assignment
• Set up systems that allow students to interact with the material, each other, and me.
• Build a sense of community.
• Provide prompt and regular feedback to students on how they are doing.
• Keep students actively involved in learning.
• Design a visually appealing website that is easy to navigate and functions seamlessly.
• Provide information on technical competencies and requirements (hardware, software, connection speed).
• Be a presence in the course but not a dominant presence—a “guide on the side.”
• Explain expectations in terms of online behavior, honesty, honoring commitments, and copyright laws.

I’m sure there is a great deal more to learn and to include in my course, but this is what I know at this point. In our next module I think we will be designing a segment for the courses we plan to teach.

When most of us consider beginnings and endings, we usually start with beginnings–a new relationship, a new job, a new project. It may seem backwards to start with the end of something, and yet it is so logical. I first read this concept in a book called Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes by William Bridges and wondered why it had never occurred to me before.

Change is inevitable in life. It is happening all the time. Bridges calls it “a shift in the externals of any situation.” Transition is more personal; it is internal, emotional, organic. What intrigued me about Bridges’ description was his three phases of any transition: “an ending; a disorienting sort of ‘nowhere’ or The Neutral Zone; and a new beginning.”

When I look back on my career, I can see that before a new phase began, what existed before it had to end, and this was rarely a tidy process. Endings were often painful even when they were something I had initiated or expected.

Graduating college is the end of education despite all the hoopla about this moment being the beginning of the future. That comes later, but for most people that future is pretty unclear on the day the degrees are handed out. We know where we’ve been, but we may not know exactly where we’re going. I thought I did, way back then, but I was wrong. What few of us think about or are aware of is the space between endings and beginnings—the bridge that must be crossed to get from one to the other.

When I finish a writing project, especially a book, I feel a sense of loss. Even if it is successful, the process of writing is over; and whether I realize it or not, I am grieving. When a new project starts, I am filled with energy and excitement. I can’t wait to get started. The adrenaline rush is amazing. But between the end of one thing and the beginning of another, there is what feels like an empty space.

What I have learned is that it is not empty at all. It is filled with creative activity. When I am restless and unsettled, it means I am about to give birth to a new idea. After all these years, I should recognize this dynamic, but it always catches me off guard.

William Bridges is not the first author to write about that space between. “During this internalizing stage,” wrote says Robert Fritz in The Path of Least Resistance, ” the result being created is growing organically, developing from within, and calling forth inner resources.”

Fritz is describing the creative process. So much of it takes place out of sight we are rarely aware of what is happening. Then suddenly, there is a new beginning. For those of us who struggle with “the neutral zone,” it is important to remember where the action is. Like an iceberg, most of it is beneath the surface.

I have deduced that those are who effective online have a certain intuition about what to do, how to do it, what link to click, how to get where they’re going, and how to function once they arrive. It is sort of a cyber sense of direction. I don’t have it, or any sense of direction, for that matter. It makes thing difficult, not to mention time consuming and embarrassing. I am forever asking, “Where should I post this?” or worse yet, putting my assignment in the wrong place. Then, someone figures out where it is, retrieves it, and puts it where it belongs. This happens a lot.

There are twenty-four people in my class; they range from novices to experts who seem to handle all of this with ease and aplomb. Their schedules are loaded: teaching all day and sometimes at night, running online departments, juggling homes and families, going for their PhDs, and more. I feel sort of guilty about having only two other major obligations—running a business and taking care of clients.

The “takeaway” from all of this is that I can clearly see what my future students will be feeling as they struggle not only to learn how to write a book, but first, how to learn in this new online environment. I have reams of printed material on this subject, but nothing is as powerful of going through it. Come to think of it, I guess that’s the point!

As a new student, I need the following:

• Description and/or map of the home page. What is each section called? What is its function/value? How often am I supposed to go there? What will I miss if I don’t go there?
• Clearly spelled out goals for each assignment. What am I expected to learn and why is it important? How will it fit with other lessons?
• Explicit, step-by-step directions for everything I am expected to do. Do this first; then, do this. Don’t do this. When I am finished, go to this exact location and post it this way.
• Explicit, step-by-step directions for getting around Moodle, Blackboard, Elluminate, Google Docs, and other ways to communicate with the instructor and fellow students
• Clear labels/descriptions of destination sites that match the names of the locations described above. What is this? What should go here?
• Private, synchronous (real-time) access to instructor to answer my questions and dispel confusion.
• Direct answers to my very direct questions (no hoping I will infer or somehow “get it; I won’t)

I know there is more that I need, and as I get closer to the end, I will know what it is. Stay tuned.