Reflection on online classroom set-up

Most terms I have one online course so I have experienced a variety of instructors presenting through this medium.

My face-to-face courses have always been good, however, when an online teacher is able to set Moodle up in a way that allows for visual organization as well as interpersonal collaboration, the course takes on unique possibilities, Habermasion in nature, for engagement and learning, in a manner that a face-to-face classroom may not be able to achieve.

Online courses allow for personality and physical presence to be set aside, creating a unique, equitable opportunity for students to interact solely through content and ideas. When the instructor is capable of creating an online "culture of care," the online classroom experience has potential to be transformational beyond the face-to-face. One of the ways I have experienced this, is when the instructor sets Moodle up such that each individual answers the prescribed weekly questions *under there own name* thus allowing fellow students to be able to click on a colleague's comment and respond directly to what they have said in collaboration with other students. This way of communicating in a class mimics a normal conversation even though not in real time.

In contrast, when an instructor sets Moodle up so that everyone's response to a prescribed question appears as a single thread under the question (as Angel  used to do), then it most often becomes a game of *who can respond first* most often letting the heart of the conversation get lost in a long unwieldy disjointed thread. Another thing that happens in this set-up, is that the first person to respond is the one that most will then respond to, and so often the first response is done by the same person.  Others with different ideas have to work in and around that response, at a later time, making it difficult to collaborate with the differing views and the differing topics, as the thread gets more and more unwieldy. It also becomes tedious to have to respond to the same early bird posters on most questions, which is akin to a face-to-face class where the same person is the first to answer every question, in every class.

I beg instructors to realize this -- especially adjunct instructors not used to Moodle.

I strongly urge instructors to move toward the set-up that allows people to respond under their own name with a subject header describing the essence of their response, giving a voice to each individual in a manner that can be heard and given due diligence by class mates. This set-up supports collaboration and equality which is satisfying to both the topic and the people engaging with each other.

Wisdom and technology

I use content from the internet, digital media, software applications, and hardware systems everyday for both business and personal reasons. For instance, I use the internet for online banking in two different countries, which, twenty years ago, the simplicity of such would be unheard of. I also have an extensive digital media collection on itunes, and I have recently started storing some new downloads on a cloud player to free up space on my hard drive. Having two musicians in the house makes these tools invaluable.

Facebook is something I use hopefully in an informed way. I stay in touch with friends I would otherwise loose touch with, such as students of mine who have graduated but still want me to see their current recitals or to just have simple chats. I’m not a collector of Facebook friends as some are because I think people put themselves at risk of loss of privacy with this mind-set. The Burnside gallery experiment was a logical and very bold explanation of this. The reality of people one doesn’t even know, just staring at you -- because they can -- is a great metaphor to what indeed happens on Facebook and the rest of the internet. It is easy to assume, though, that it is not occurring because one can't see it happening. Keeping up with old friends and neighbors and people who I would, otherwise have no way of maintaining a relationship with, is what I use Facebook for, and for sharing tidbits of things that I think are important.

The internet in general has proven to be an amazing way to find people, but it is also an amazing way to stalk people, as the younger generation now say. I am guilty of looking up old flames and various characters I’d otherwise choose no contact with, just to see where they are and what they are up to. My own actions teach me (and I consider myself a fairly normal person) to keep my internet presence carefully thought through when it comes to self presentation and privacy. I maintain a google alert for both myself and my daughter for our names as another way to minimize our online risk.

Taking a course such as this is important, but it will eventually need updating as technology is swiftly changing. It’s helpful to have a teenage child, but truly, while younger people may have the ability to get around with ease, having cultivated wisdom and ethical judgment through having lived so many years is, in my view even more valuable.