Perhaps the best part of BOLT is viewing an online course through the eyes of a student. We looked at the format of a course, as well as all of the tech tools, as students.
This was quite beneficial. I can see where and how others would get frustrated, how much they need to learn about the tech in order to complete parts of the course, and where and how they could cut corners.
BOLT confirmed a simple fact to me. Technology is nice at times, but it has many pitfalls. Without awareness of them, an online course would fail almost instantly. I liked Voicethread, but the drawbacks were quite obvious. It requires a steep initial learning curve, and complex threads would take a lot of time to assess and evaluate (as an instructor). It seems to me that all of the tech tools had challenges like this.
As well, I am still convinced that the profile of an online learner is an organized, self-motivated person who doesn't need much real social interaction to thrive in a class. I don't think that those people are common. Throughout BOLT, I found that I tended towards laziness, towards doing the bare minimum, etc. Granted, BOLT isn't really a college class, but I think that my attitude here would be similar to the attitude of others who take a class that they are just trying to get through.
I wonder if such an attitude exists for me because of the way I've always used computers and the Internet. Perhaps it's a constructed habit?
So now, whenever I teach an online course, I will keep all of the above in mind. Which should help make that online course reasonably, if not very, successful.
So true! Attitudinal issues definitely pose a challenge to me as well as an online learner. It just seems so easy to leave the majority of the work until the end (like I'm doing today :-)) when the course is online. I also feel like I learn more when I'm in a F2F course (though BOLT has been great). For that reason, I'm seriously considering committing myself to driving to the U of N in Lincoln about once a month to do my doctoral work rather than enrolling in a similar online program, simply because I value that personal interaction with people and instructors over communicating strictly online.
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate your candor in your reflections, Josh. I'm glad you found the experience of taking on a "student" role in this workshop a benefit. A few others have expressed this same idea to me; it's actually part of why I structured our work this way--as you say, to "see where and how others would get frustrated, how much they need to learn about the tech in order to complete parts of the course, and where and how they could cut corners." I think we sometimes forget what it's like to play the role of the student, and being back in the students' seat can help us empathize and understand their experience more fully. (Maybe this is just my experience, but I'd tend to think not.)
ReplyDeleteThanks for your thoughtful reflections throughout!