I’m always trying to think up was to add a personal touch to online learning and collaborations. Lets talk about all the ways we can make the experience more personal and meaningful and relevant.
I have always found that grounding the examples / case studies in a real world scenario makes the learning experience easier to relate to and more meaningful. While this is easier to do for some subjects others subjects may prove to be a challenge.
That’s certainly true for addressing relevance. But what about ways to add a more personal touch? One of the biggest complaints from people is they miss that aspect of things.
I’ve started two things in my online classes that have had great results.
First, when I upload PowerPoint presentations for the students, I include at least a snippit of audio in the presentation. In fact, the first presentation my students here for the semester is an audio overview of the syllabus.
The other thing that I do is to use virtual office hours (through any instant messenger you wish) to allow students to communicate with me when they have questions about an assignment. This is more informal than email and students are relaxed in the environment. In fact, I had a student tell me this morning that he was ready for the soup my status message said I was cooking. It’s a great way to get to know your students without the distance provided by “distance ed.”
Hi Mary,
Do you mean to add social presence to the online learning environment? Can you clarify what you mean by humanizing?
Here are a few sources on online social presence:
http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~kimble/research/icicte.pdf http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/mis/docs/TTLHE.pdf http://www.sloan-c-wiki.org/wiki/index.php?title=On_the_Nature_and_Development_of_Social_Presence_in_Online_Course_Discussions%2C_JALN_9) http://videolinq.tafe.net/learning2005/papers/wheeler.pdf http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1149372
Thank you.
I post an article from a newspaper that gives a practical view of the theoretical topic my students are working on. I teach a Judicial Systems college level senior course and exonerations, Supreme Court decisions, sentencing decisions that cause community reactions, prosecution decisions are all possibilities.
The students are required to post within a 3-Day window their comments to the article. This is really a mini-essay with two required library database articles in support of the questions the student uses in relation to the article.
The student must pose a question related in some way to the article. The student then answers it in the affirmative or negative and must back their answer with outside resources. They are expected to raise pro and con points and indicate why they went in the direction they chose.
Students are also required to respond to at least two peer postings that must go well beyond the simple “I agree.” Many point to other articles they found that introduce another position or add to the original answer.
This weekly participation equals 50% of the final grade.
Recently there was one about the Texas castle law and one student’s question was “Will the castle law increase the number of homicides?” Since students must also post responses to what peers write, we had a lively discussion on the topic. This is active learning in the truest sense.
At the end of the semester in evaluations students comment on how these discussions took away the sense of isolation that can be inherent in an on line course and how they felt a part of a group. Many communicate with one another using the course private email.
Another very important point in my view is that the teacher send private notes to students about postings. These need to be complimentary while pointing out errors or making suggestions for other things to consider. While I will post on the wiki (that is used for our participation area), I generally only do so when there is something that might be mis-information or when there is new information that I want to share. If I give my personal opinion, I state that it is opinion and stress in the syllabus that all opinion has equal value, mine as well as theirs.
My rule is to answer email when I read it, so students often get immediate replies and they constantly comment about my fast replies and their appreciation.
Hope this is what you mean by humanizing
Persuade your institution to go to synchronous lonline learning – that’s the quick way to humanize online learning in my view. Use it exclusively or in tanden with asynchronous online learning. I used Elluminate this semester on a trial basis and it was amazingly interactive and engaging (I hope). Lessons can be recorded for those who are unable to attend. Students can login on their own to do group work.
Like Techno_Teacher, I also use instant messaging for my virtual office hours. I actually have more productive time during my virtual office hours and less wasted time having trivial chit chat – not that I object to chit chat, but the students are usually just looking for a quick explanation and then they leave.
cheer, Rob T
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