What I'd Like to Learn
This semester, I'd like to learn more about the functionality of online classes.
As an instructor, I want my classes to be as accessible as possible and I think that having them online makes them even more available.
I have also long held somewhat prejudiced views on online instruction. I'm an active person. I like to be outside, move around and communicate face-to-face. Lacking the ability to sit for hours in front of a computer, I also feel disadvantaged when I take up the task of working online. I have been biased, perhaps, by what I have seen of communication on social media which seems to lack some necessary element of empathy and, thus, overly simplifies complex social relationships.
The online world isn't as rich in information as I think we'd like to believe. In the real world, there's so much subtlety and context. Visual cues we have been relying on for 1,000s of years for example and cultural values that are further enforced by the ways we interact are unconsciously included in face-to-face conversation. But when we communicate online, we are so focused on the idea, we forget these other all-important aspects of communication and we're left only with text or video.
When I heard, for example, that Facebook told advertisers that they know when teenagers are feeling "insecure" or "worthless". I nearly wrote off all forms of online communication as being manipulative and focused on gathering personal data to exploit their users. Over this last summer, watching friends of mine divide themselves into political categories and then 'unfriend' each other, I have seen what these oversimplified relationships can do. I know these people are more complex than the labels that have ben applied to them.
And yet, Pandora's Box has been opened. It wouldn't benefit anyone for me (or anyone else) to focus on the negative aspects of this new way of communication and dismiss it. Online communication is still in its (relative) infancy. Print and telephone communication, the precedents of the internet, took years to evolve and are still evolving. But in their onsets, they were both dismissed as being destructive or--in the case of the printing press--even heretical, but they brought untold benefits to humanity, for example, before the printing press, most people couldn't read.
Rather than complain about this new way of communication that seems alienating to me. I'm going to endeavor to understand it and perhaps influence its future direction in a way.
I welcome the challenges posed by this semester online. I have a lot of ideas about online instruction and after last semester's switchover, I have some idea about what is successful and what isn't. I'm excited to find new (and potentially better) ways to communicate key writing concepts to students. I hope that this course will furnish a fuller understanding in how to use online instruction models to communicate Composition concepts with my students.
And, as always, I hope to learn from my students about writing. I believe that one's progress in writing comes through experience. As we write we gain experiences that teach us more about our voice and the way others perceive it. I hope feedback from the class will help me continue to hone my writing and focus on an ever-changing audience.
As an instructor, I want my classes to be as accessible as possible and I think that having them online makes them even more available.
I have also long held somewhat prejudiced views on online instruction. I'm an active person. I like to be outside, move around and communicate face-to-face. Lacking the ability to sit for hours in front of a computer, I also feel disadvantaged when I take up the task of working online. I have been biased, perhaps, by what I have seen of communication on social media which seems to lack some necessary element of empathy and, thus, overly simplifies complex social relationships.
The online world isn't as rich in information as I think we'd like to believe. In the real world, there's so much subtlety and context. Visual cues we have been relying on for 1,000s of years for example and cultural values that are further enforced by the ways we interact are unconsciously included in face-to-face conversation. But when we communicate online, we are so focused on the idea, we forget these other all-important aspects of communication and we're left only with text or video.
When I heard, for example, that Facebook told advertisers that they know when teenagers are feeling "insecure" or "worthless". I nearly wrote off all forms of online communication as being manipulative and focused on gathering personal data to exploit their users. Over this last summer, watching friends of mine divide themselves into political categories and then 'unfriend' each other, I have seen what these oversimplified relationships can do. I know these people are more complex than the labels that have ben applied to them.
And yet, Pandora's Box has been opened. It wouldn't benefit anyone for me (or anyone else) to focus on the negative aspects of this new way of communication and dismiss it. Online communication is still in its (relative) infancy. Print and telephone communication, the precedents of the internet, took years to evolve and are still evolving. But in their onsets, they were both dismissed as being destructive or--in the case of the printing press--even heretical, but they brought untold benefits to humanity, for example, before the printing press, most people couldn't read.
Rather than complain about this new way of communication that seems alienating to me. I'm going to endeavor to understand it and perhaps influence its future direction in a way.
I welcome the challenges posed by this semester online. I have a lot of ideas about online instruction and after last semester's switchover, I have some idea about what is successful and what isn't. I'm excited to find new (and potentially better) ways to communicate key writing concepts to students. I hope that this course will furnish a fuller understanding in how to use online instruction models to communicate Composition concepts with my students.
And, as always, I hope to learn from my students about writing. I believe that one's progress in writing comes through experience. As we write we gain experiences that teach us more about our voice and the way others perceive it. I hope feedback from the class will help me continue to hone my writing and focus on an ever-changing audience.
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