How NOT to Teach Online: A Story in Two Parts
April 11, 2013 | Filed in: Online Learning
by Bonnie Stewart
Here’s a little secret: when I started teaching people how to teach online, I had no clue what I was doing. It was 1998. I was a graduate student, without extensive computer skills or even teaching experience. I’d been a high school English teacher for a few years, and I’d taught GED classes, but my online facilitation background was limited to helping students figure out how to search song lyrics on Altavista. Then I took a part-time job for my university coordinating a fledgling online M.Ed program. This was new stuff, then, with few best practices available to build on. The college had bought a bright and shiny “online learning platform” and it was my role to facilitate seminars teaching faculty how to use it. Just as soon as I figured it out myself.
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Here’s a little secret: when I started teaching people how to teach online, I had no clue what I was doing. It was 1998. I was a graduate student, without extensive computer skills or even teaching experience. I’d been a high school English teacher for a few years, and I’d taught GED classes, but my online facilitation background was limited to helping students figure out how to search song lyrics on Altavista. Then I took a part-time job for my university coordinating a fledgling online M.Ed program. This was new stuff, then, with few best practices available to build on. The college had bought a bright and shiny “online learning platform” and it was my role to facilitate seminars teaching faculty how to use it. Just as soon as I figured it out myself.
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A Bill of Rights and Principles for Learning in the Digital Age
January 22, 2013 | Filed in: Online Learning
On December 14, 2012, a group of 12 assembled in Palo Alto for a raucous discussion of online education. Hybrid Pedagogy contributors Sean Michael Morris and Jesse Stommel gathered together with folks from a diverse array of disciplines and backgrounds, representing STEM fields, the humanities, schools of education, corporations, non-profits, ivies, community colleges, and small liberal arts colleges. Among us were adjuncts, CEOs, a graduate student, several digital humanists, and two outspoken educational technology journalists. As a group, we’d chaired online programs, designed MOOCs, dropped out of MOOCs, and the term "MOOC" was even coined in one of our living rooms. The goal of the summit was to open a broader conversation about online learning and the future of higher education. This co-authored document, which calls for hacking and open discussion, was the result. Read More...