My husband completed his entire Master's degree via online courses. At the time, I thought he was crazy. Take all your classes via computer? Never meet your classmates, sit in a classroom or even stir from your comfy chair? No way!
After all, I am a "people person." How could an online class hope to match up to the experience of actually attending school?
Over the past three years, working in the trade show industry, I have participated and conducted webinars, web conferences and teleconferences. As a result, I have learned what my husband figured out when he decided study completely online: remote education is not the same as onsite education. It's not necessarily better or worse, but it is different.
Relationships have to form in different ways. You get to know people through their words and their work. Emoticons take the place of body language. "LOL" takes the place of tone of voice.
I would imagine that teaching online is a challenge the first time a professor teaches a course, as much as it is for an online student, if not more. The teacher doesn't have the benefit any longer of looking out over his or her classroom and seeing who is engaged and who is falling asleep. However, the teacher does gain the ability to consider his or her students' work more objectively, and to incorporate different methods of learning and teaching into the online "classroom."
I hope that this class will make me a better teacher both online and in person, and will also give me the tools to create engaging and educational online classes using Web CT and other programs. As I am not educated to be an educator (I have a background in public speaking, adult training and communications, but I have not taken any formal education classes), I also hope this class will give me a better understanding of education techniques and tools.
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