My online learning experience

The readings suggest that being authentic when teaching online is a learnable ability that takes as much time and effort as learning how to be authentic on a face-to-face situation.

I can relate this idea to the concept of being a natural performer in music. Mass media has done an excellent job at promoting the idea that some (or actually very few) people are born with a natural and authentic persona for the musical stage. However, recent research on high performance suggests that that such apparently natural abilities are more likely the result of hours and hours of conscious and unconscious practice. After all, the X factor is a learnable ability.

Performing on the “online stage”–online teaching–requires a new learning process on our part. Creating a new “authentic” persona is one of the main challenges of creating an effective learning environment in online teaching.

First, accepting the fact that technological developments shape our ways of knowing, developing and communicating knowledge (Major) leads to major discoveries on the limitations of our traditional disciplinary concepts and beliefs. Second, realizing that online teaching fosters a student centered experience, where we, as teachers, are not in the center of the game, also hurts our ego. I confess that it is easier to talk about student center approaches in a theoretical discussion than to actually experience it and live by such principles in one’s own class.    

The author makes a point by stating that “the quality of the communication in an online course becomes the quality of the course itself” (179). I am a bit overwhelmed by the amount and quality of tools that can help us improve communication and create a persona in online teaching. This semester I am teaching two face-to-face and two online courses (for the first time).

My initial thoughts were that this class would give me some tools to apply on my own online classes. It is now clear that it was “wishful thinking”–I love this American expression– to assume that online teaching was a matter of packing my class in the Moodle platform and add some cool gadgets to spice the mix.

It will take a few semesters to develop and feel more comfortable about my online persona. But I am confident that it can happen and that my classes will at some point accommodate to my student’s learning style and to my teaching style. Flipgrid is helping significantly. The X factor will show up eventually.

Should I mention that my face to face persona is also changing after this experience?

Siemens idea that learning is a continual and life long process fits with the principles of Experiential Learning Theory as presented in Knolb’s article: “When learning is conceived as a holistic adaptive process, it provides conceptual bridges across life situations such as school and work, portraying learning as continuous, lifelong process” (33).

Both authors also share the idea that learning occurs continually in formal and informal situations. For Siemens “Informal learning is a significant aspect of our learning experience. Formal education no longer comprises the majority of our learning. Learning now occurs in a variety of ways – through communities of practice, personal networks, and through completion of work-related tasks.”

 Siemen’s description of how networks and knowledge work in the digital age lead to a better understanding of our roles, opportunities, and challenges as learners and educators in the 21st century. However, instead of understanding Connectivism as a new and independent learning theory, his ideas seemed to provide a new perspective within the debate between the traditional learning theories (cognitivism, behaviorism or contructivism).

I think that Connectivism describes a process that existed in the past but was only available to a small number of intellectual or scientific communities. Connectivism sounds more like a description of the democratization of information through digital mediums and a set of principles to reflect on its consequences. After doing a quick internet search (thanks to the advantages of the interconnected digital world described by Siemens!) I find that there is an entire discussion about why Connectivism is or is not a learning theory.

If we take Connectivism as a learning theory we can run the risk of placing more importance on the technological changes than on the instructional methods. We might also celebrate participation as learning without considering a more critical approach to public discussion. Hammond states that “Habermas offers a corrective to the overly literal accounts of knowledge building in the educational technology literature. A Habermasian perspective asks us to view participation critically and not to reduce learning to participation” (234).  

As Major points out: “instructional methods are more important than technological aspects (253). In the digital age we can favor constructivist approaches to learning –cMOOcs–, but we can also provide behaviorist approaches as Coursera did in their first courses –xMOOCs (Daniel).

I can see this phenomenon happening in my school. We are currently experiencing the digital transformations that first world countries had two or three decades ago. In short, our school administrators are excited about digital transformations as technology that will save them money while making our courses massive. Our first attempts at online courses are using a classic behaviorist approach.

Siemens ideas on Connectivism and Knolb’s descriptions of Experiential Learning are valuable in these discussions currently happening in my own context.