catching up: my thoughts on the virtual learning community

“I believe, but can’t necessarily prove, that in order to be successful, an educator needs to exude a profound respect for—and trust in—learners to collectively make good decisions for themselves about their learning” (p. 18).

This quote sums up virtual learning communities for me and I believe to some degree, Richard Schwier.  The virtual learning community needs to be self-driven – even more so than learning in a classroom.  In a classroom the peer pressure to do well and perform could be stronger, whereas the pressure to do well in the virtual community is heavily intrinsic.  Many of us are online learners because we want to learn but do not have the time or the proximity to our desired institution to physically attend classes. Based on this, online learners are learners because they want to be…now THAT is community.

In the first two chapters of Connections we read many comparisons of “vitual” learning communities (virtual meaning online as we come to find out on page 21, but I think we all knew that) and learning communities where we are all present in the same physical space. Two words used in the first two chapters that I would like to dive into are “Hospitality” and “Forgiveness”.

Hospitality:

Early on in my experience earning my master’s degree I was amazed at the ways my classmates were there to help.  While at first, I think we start to help each other as a way to do exactly that – help. We all begin to get a sense that there is a certain degree of online karma in the virtual learning community.  We start to realize that if we help our fellow classmates with links to articles, personal insights, etc. we start to see it come back to us.  Ironically enough, I do not believe I ever received this type of treatment from my fellow classmates with whom I shared a classroom or lecture hall.  The mantra in the physical classroom that seemed to be much stronger was the concept of “keep your head down at get YOUR OWN work done.”

Forgiveness:

I would like to take the liberty to change this word to “flexibility”.  The good news and the bad news of any online/virtual community is the sense of immediacy.  The online learning community is moving and shaking, living and breathing 24 hours/day 7 days/week.  The ongoing nature of the virtual community is relentless - again, good and bad. If you blink you could miss something and if you are in the community to learn, missing anything can be very frustrating. 

This is where flexibility comes in to play; the learner and the community needs to be flexible.  The learner needs to understand that he or she must always check in and the community needs to understand that this may not always be a possibility.

This week I am a prime example of this.  I find myself in the back seat struggling to catch up in all of my classes this term due to the abnormally social characteristics of my life recently; good and bad. I know I need to be flexible and work all hours of the night to catch up in all off my classes this term, but hopefully everyone will keep an eye in the rearview mirror for me to reappear.

So there you go.  Somehow I have informally thanked you, my classmates, for your hospitality and begged for forgiveness in your ongoing flexibility.

a portal to media literacy video: the insights of Kansas State University’s professor Michael Wesch

Wow. That was good information and a video I will be watching a few more times! I it amazing to me the amount of information that has been made accessible to us in recent years. As we all know it can be extremely difficult keeping our students engaged; students who want to learn but do not want to sit in class and listen to some “expert” drone on about topics students should be listening to and learning. Specifically, I have been in the conversation where one of my colleagues said the phrase, “Some students are not cut out for college” and I was struck by Wesch’s alteration of this phrase to apply it to the word “learning”. I have friend – let’s call him Tom…because that’s his name - who was not “cut out for college”, but somehow was able to go on to learn an enormous amount of information while working as a runner on Wall Street and now is an enormously successful businessman who learned by doing. The stars do not align for everyone like they did for Tom who, while a lot of his successes were generated in hard work, some were rooted in being in the right place in the right time. For these people the foot in the door is a college degree. Practical, hands-on instruction is how I learn and, quite honestly, this is the predominant characteristic of my students. SO my goal is to always try to marry the two concepts of practical, field-based learning and a college education.

The questions Wesch hates are the same ones that make my skin crawl; specifically the “is this going to be on the test?” question – if the only information that was important was going to be on the test either the class would be much shorter or the tests would be A LOT longer! So how do we make everything relevant in the eyes of every student? Make the student the expert. Create ownership in the education of the student.

One thing that Wesch’s lecture and this class (Teaching and Learning in a Networked Classroom) is doing is opening my eyes to the possibilities of using online tools as a learning tool for the reluctant student; a collective learning tool. My students have a lot of opportunities to learn from each other.
Since I am posting this on my blog, allow me to use blogs and my sophomore practicum as an example:

An enormous part of my sophomore practicum is the students’ logs – where they were, what they did, what they learned, who they met, etc. We ask our students to download videos, photos, etc. but all of that information is directed to me as that instructor which not only alters the way they “talk” but pipes all of the information to just one person…me. The opportunities I see in my students blogging is shared information and learning through the collective.

If I add a blogging component to this course I think the language will change the thinking will change and the possibilities will grow for each student. Now the information is not all getting bottlenecked to me the professor (a.k.a. expert) who (in theory) already knows all of the information, the student is reporting on information for the collective to learn from…including me, the expert. By this model we find ourselves in an opportunity for everyone to be the expert and for me to become the student.

I am very excited about this.

exponential info tech

The second week in this class has begun by being very interesting.  I got to try out Skype which (believe it or not) I have not tapped into yet and during the Skype call had a lot of information clarified. This first interaction had to happen for the class which, for me, is often the case; I learn what I have to learn when I have to learn it.  I am hopeful this characteristic of my life will change as it has not always been the way.  I have just been so busy in the 24/7 world of resort management for the last few years, all learning has been rooted in necessity.

That being said, I will admit the one part of this week I have enjoyed so far has been the videos.  Not because I am not much of a reader – because I am not – but because the way they were presented.  Notably, the “Did you know…?”  videos were especially informative and entertaining for me.  The difference in information between the two videos certainly makes you head spin when you think about the future. This led me to think about how the minds of the people who think up the devises we (seemingly) take for granted work. This led me to start thinking that the reason for the increased speed and exponential growth of information technology is information technology itself.

Check out the following animate.  It may just back up some of my ramblings in this post!

The first week…oye.

The first week for me has been a tough one. I am in the final semester of my masters and I am cramming two classes (6 credits) and my capstone (another 3 credits) into the next two months. This began as I was in the throes of a ridiculous week at work.

Now that the first week is past me I am pretty happy. Work has calmed quite a bit and so has the work load with school. Networked Classroom was not nearly as crazy as my other class (THANK YOU KIM!) as I was not required to write a paper right off the bat nor read and entire book, but regrettably it was enough that I fell a little behind.

All of that said, I am back on track and feeling pretty good…here we go.