There are certainly ‘skills’, physical things you’ll do with your hands, that are not going to be something you can replicate online. If you focus on what people really need to know to be a professional in the topic your working on, you can, maybe, teach those literacies online. photo: https://www.flickr.com/photos/tomhilton/5599966437
We had a guest from the UK come to visit today on our Oliah podcast. The main message, don’t over complicate what you’re doing, think about the implications of your changes for all your students, communicate with them and stay flexible
Find yourself a comfy spot to work. Think about the ways in which you like to work face 2 face and find a way to replicate that. Find a cluster of people you can work with. Take care of yourself.
I think we can launch students onto the web to learn from the field itself. Given them a challenging question. Ask them to figure out who the leading voices are on a given subject. Let them make real connections to the work of real people. The community can be the curriculum. Image source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/foxypar4/2124673642
If your assessment is for power, for obedience or for gate keeping, I think you’re going to struggle to put it online.
Some things to think about before doing your first live facilitation. Add some extra time to talk to your students and get the technical issues sorted out. Be clear about what you expect from your students… establish a clear social contract for how people are going to behave. Take time, don’t be afraid of quiet …
You don’t need to ‘cover the content’. You can take this time to, you know, try and make your content interesting. Or engage with your students. Think deeply if you really need to ‘cover’ those last three chapters or if your time is better served engaging with one important concept that is critical for your …
Discussion forums are a great way to interact with your students. You can, mostly, use them as a replacement for traditional lecture. If you imagine taking an article of interest, recording a 5 min video or asking a challenging question, a discussion forum can allow your students to come to know together while they respond.
There are a pile of different ways you can think about a ‘resource’ for your online class. There are certainly lots of Open Educational Resources out there. You yourself are a resource. Your students are also a resource. Image from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:OER_Logo_Open_Educational_Resources.png
My first oliah blog post had to do with prioritizing the establishment of clear lines of communications with students when you are trying to create online learning in a hurry. Once you have that out of the way I think the next step is still not the development of instructional content. I say the second …
