Week 2 BOLT Reflections

After this week's module, I'm less confident about transitioning to an online course.  I had thought that CORE 120, our college composition course at Dordt, would be easily transferable to the realm of virtual learning.  One major reason is that all communication would be conducted in the medium in which the students had to improve--writing.

What's concerns me now is how to demonstrate the standards of a college writing course in six short weeks.  With the online modules, students work asynchronously and via pre-planned "steps."  In BOLT, we've have six modules in six weeks. 

Yet I realize that my regular course depends upon frequent feedback and some measure of disequilibrium.  Basically, I now think of my current 120 as having many, many more modules than six.  For example, students turn in a summary of an article on the second day of class.  Most of them do quite poorly, because they don't write at the course standard.  This is a shock, and other similar shocks happen, which actually helps students get used to the standard, which is higher and demands more precise work and thinking than they are used to.  (This first week of class is a module of sorts, one of fifteen weeks.)

The week-long module online won't do this work.  At least, I can't envision it yet.  Six big chunks of a summer online course are too chunky.

I'm probably better off thinking about much shorter modules--maybe 10-12 in a 6-week span.  One module every two to three days.  That way, students can receive instant feedback, can know what the standards are, can aim for them as soon as possible.  They are better off doing poorly in the first two of twelve modules than the first two of six.

All this I will keep in mind during the next four weeks.

We begin BOLT.  Online teaching training. 

So far, I've seen much from a student's perspective. Without showing up to a room filled with people, which confirms that you are in fact in the right place, the first days of BOLT online seemed disorienting.  Just me and my computer.  What am I supposed to be doing?  Where am I supposed to go?

At this point, my suspicions about the profile of a good online-learner are somewhat confirmed.  That person has to be self-motivated, self-organized, and absent anxiety about what to do and when. You have to be used to poking around the Internet, figuring things out for yourself. 

This blog is a curious project.  My wife tells me that, in her world, blogging is out and Instagram is in.  Fewer words, more pictures.   This brings to mind my second concern about online teaching: how does one even read the Internet?  Already, I feel the length of my paragraphs here are too long. 

They should be...

shorter.

I see that I have to change my writing style for the web.  Hello, sentence fragments and one-sentence paragraphs!