In the beginning . . . .

Catch the irony? shelves and shelves . . . . file after file. . . . and I now teach fully online. I have spent years developing files, collecting books....even educational games....and now it's time to truly shift my thinking from that of being a fully F2F instructor to that of being a fully online one.

The journey begins

I have been teaching  since 1975.  My starting salary was high for that  time - $7,500. Friends envied me for that "high" salary. My first year of teaching in the public school gave me 3 classes of 10th grade English students and 1 class of senior English students...and I was  only 3 years older than some of my seniors...and all of them were taller than me.

Terrified of standing before classes of 35+ students, particularly those who were really not all that interested in the subject, I started seeking new ways of teaching, of delivering and/or enhancing the content.  After all this was English...and most people did not look forward to spending 50 minutes in an English class.  So it was up to me to make it fun, to make it a learning experience.

I tried innovative assignments: Students rewrote Julius Caesar into modern English and acted it out in class. We crafted our own version of Canterbury Tales, (entitled Tales from the Bahamas)  where, as a class we wrote our Prologue - in Chaucer's rhyming scheme, of course - and each student chose their character, illustrated that character, and wrote a story told by that character....which we then published as our own book.....anything to have the students working collaboratively and not making me the center of attention.  When we studied mythology we made our our newspaper where the students became a god or goddess and submitted articles from that character's point of view.

Eventually, I grew up :-) and could handle a little more directive teaching, but discovered the students had actually learned quite a bit when I wasn't directing, but merely facilitating their learning.

Hmmmm.......

Flash forward 10 years...or so...

I eventually moved to the community college where I taught as an adjunct, served as a counselor/advisor, and coordinated several grants. We were trying to serve the prison population, one that was not allowed to mix with the general prison population...much less with on-site faculty, and an opportunity to create a correspondence course arose.

Yep, I officially moved into  distance education as an adjunct.

I never saw these students...and they never saw me.   Everything was handwritten (they were not allowed access to a typewriter, and the prison lacked computer access)...so we worked outside of the time constraints of the traditional semester as the warden reviewed their work (looking for hidden messages, perhaps?) before sending on a big fat manila envelope to me for review.   I would review, give feedback, and return work for their revision .... a long slow process, but I learned a lot about communicating in writing.......

And another 10 years go by

When Blackboard first hit the scene, it was free! Once again, I was given the chance to develop a course - this time to be taught as a hybrid through Blackboard. Content and assignments would reside in BB, and students would see me in my office for individual writing conferences.

Just a few years later

Pow!   I left that work site, now hired by a university to run a program with 600 students, 400 of whom are across the nation....and we are using a satellite delivery system for course content.

Now students can see me and hear me while I can see myself on a television screen...a really BIG television screen...(boy oh boy) and students become disembodied voices.  Add in a 7-second delay between the time I spoke and they heard me...and the the time for them to process...and the 7-second delay before I could hear them respond..... but we were at the top of distance education! And this program was beamed to every community college in the state and several around the nation as well. Students sat at table sharing a microphone where they pushed a button to talk. Group assignments were difficult. Not impossible though.  Sometimes I might have 3or 4 students at one site, and they could form their own group.  Individual students would IM each other to form a group, then all could present their discussion...as. disembodied voices

I moved to teaching in a doctoral program where we discovered videostreaming...a necessity as our programs grew, and we admitted more and more students who were not near a satellite site and were going to attend via their own computers.  They could hear me, and hear their classmates...but videostreamers were limited to a chat function to ask questions or respond to questions....that 7-second delay was still present, then the pause to type, then delay for uploads..... Not the best mode, but it allowed folks to take courses who would not have been able to do so otherwise.

Rising costs of the satellite delivery, decreasing space due to an increasing number of courses being offered, and increased enrollment required we become creative, so we moved to "time slot sharing" where two classes "met" in the same "band" but on alternating weeks.....and the hybrid came to campus.....   then we started taking some courses totally online...

Finally, Adobe Connect entered our world, leveling the classroom experience. Every student "attended" class using his or her own computer.  Everyone saw everyone else. We had breakout rooms where students could meet, and I could visit and listen and be that observer I had so missed being!  Students could present online, honing those oral skills.  We had virtual office hours, and students could work in group projects outside of class, meeting through Connect.  This meant I could use our Learning Management System as a repository for articles, for discussion forums, for content, saving Adobe Connect to use as one of the major ways of developing social presence and some teaching/content presence.  I used Adobe Connect for perhaps 6 class sessions per course, allowing students to work independently between meetings...still somewhat a traditional model in that we met synchronously as a class with asynchronous work between meetings.

This meant it was time for me to hone my online skills in instructional design to make sure that the LMS component was both useful and engaging..leading me to search for new technology tools, new ideas for assignments.....bringing me to...

Today

My current courses are fully online, incorporating some group video-conferencing, but primarily individual video-conferencing  3-4 times a semester due to my students' schedules. During evenings they often teach, have work-related activities, family commitments, or community commitments, and finding a time for a synchronous meeting requires a great deal of scheduling and shuffling....thus my search to learn even more about making my courses engaging and informative....

The Now

I can google - and do -  to learn about new tools.  I read blogs.  I read books...but the idea of  earning degree in online teaching and instructional design - what could be better?  I get to experiment with new ideas and new tools, hear from others working with them at the same time.... and improve my courses.  This sounds perfect to me!

NEXT ENTRY: The quest begins . . .



References

 "Bb_newLogo_pos." Logo. Catholic university of America. August 6, 2012. August 27, 2014. <http://instructionalservices.cua.edu/instdesoff.cfm>.

Cantenna.  "5.5 GHz cantenna as a feedhorn." Photo. Wikipedia. com.  May 31, 2014. August 27, 2014. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantenna>.

Edudemic.com. August 27, 2014. <http://www.edudemic.com/online-learning-28/>.

Photo. Home Design  Information. August 27, 3014. <http://home-design-information.com/chalkboard-background-background-labs.html>

Photo. HooverFence.com. 2013. August 27, 2014. <http://www.hooverfence.com/mailboxes/mail-slots.htm>.

InteSolv. "Adobe_connect_8_logo_webready." Logo.  InteSolv.com. August 27, 2014. <http://www.intesolv.com/>.