Jim, Tim, and all,

I had a pretty rough day yesterday and I apologize about freaking out yesterday.  While at times I do get frustrated with this course I generally think that it has value to some.  I apologize for the rant I have just had a stressful couple of weeks.  My frustration should have actually been directed towards the assignment and not the fact that people disagreed with me on things that I said.  My frustration was that the assignment didn’t actually teach anything of value in my opinion.  It actually scares more people away from coding by sending an abstract message that coding is too complicated to actually get involved in.  Coding is simple.  I was trying to give a good starting point resource to help people who are interested see more about the assignment.  I was frustrated when my resources credibility was disputed.  I was trying to contribute to the class and help.  While no resource is perfect it was an attempt to help beginners.  After a long day of work and coming back to a bad reaction when trying to help was incredibly frustrating.  In my opinion and a recommendation for the future is to spend more time with the explaining what is going on.  Review the video post.  No where is there an explanation on what HTML is or where you can read about how to further modify elements on the page.  You had them use a tool that changed text on a page.  MS word does that.  My frustration stemmed from the fear that there will be people who are afraid of coding because of the poor explanation about the underlying elements to web page creation.  Clearly I had many issues with socially putting myself out there yesterday and I apologize.  Maybe my message is more clear now.  I was not bashing the course or trying to cut myself out of the course and distance myself from the community.  Honestly while I have had complaints about this community there are very important things about his community that I do enjoy.  I think that it is an interesting take on education.  While I don’t agree with many things within this course I can say that it is an attempt to try something new and different with education.  While I’m not sure how effective it is I can say that any movement towards change is good movement.  Maybe I have spent too much time on the negatives and for this I apologize too because there is also clearly just as much to be praised with this course.  However my blog name is Joefinisher.com (The Anti Everything Blog).  This was a play on the fact that I know I normally focus on the negatives.  I’m very passionate about education as shown earlier in my previous discussions as well as web page design because it is something that I do for a living.  This is why I freaked out so badly when the value of the assignment was being destroyed by the quick pace of the course.  Perhaps it is best if from this point forward I silently spectate, comment on others works and refrain from intruding in the “ds106 saga” because of the difficulties expressing my feelings.  My apologies to any who were offended as I previously stated I am extraordinarily controversial and commonly speak on impulse feelings.  Too anyone who still wishes to respond or read I will try and keep my comments and responses to the class in a negative light to a minimum.  Also I will continue to comment on others works and complete my own assignments but keep out of the others conversational boundaries as to not tear another path of destruction.  Keep up the good work.  One week and a half left.  Thanks for reading and please ignore any spelling or grammar errors.

Regards,

Joe Fehrman