This was our final week, just in time for the holidays. As always there's things to walk away with. One of the things in the class that a lot of people commented on was the amount of time teachers work. My thoughts are that people went from the thought they don't work a lot of hours to the complete other side of the spectrum that they work all the time. I think it's in the middle, so for me, I'd say no more or less than a traditional classroom teacher. However, their work day would look different than mine. They also need to be prepared ahead of time. Based on how I currently do my job no differences other than the medium in which I'd use to teach. I work A LOT of hours, 7 days a week for my students - no difference. I check voicemails and emails all day - no different. I spend a lot of time preparing, realizing it could change in a flash - no different. Don't get me wrong, I think there are plenty of differences, but I feel like many people picked up one person's 14 hour day and have used that as the platform for all online teachers. Online teaching still intriques me.
In preparation for the facilitation part, Amy and I spent over 2 hours playing and learning Elluminate. We've used it before, but ours is different - not nearly as many buttons, controls, to use. We took part of a class earlier on to do this, but I think a good assignment would be really explore it. We discovered a lot of features we didn't use or really didn't get the full extent of until we took some real time. This gave us ideas of what we might include if we were online teachers.
This week I had to do my synchronous and asynchronous presentation. While I feel both went okay, I personally was a little disappointed in my cohort. There's a reality of online teaching. Being with this cohort for 1 1/2 years now I know how they interact when they are online. That did not happen this week for any presenters other than Chris. Here's what my gut tells me, many of them signed on and walked away from their computers until it was almost time to sign out. Why do I feel this? Because many of the people who normally don't contribute, didn't, not even when their names were mentioned. Also, in group work before I have heard people make comments that they have done it before, especially on nights of presentations. Disappointing really. Out of respect for my cohorts I made sure I was an active participant during their presentations and ALL of their discussion threads. Why did they respond in Chris' then? Because it was the last one and the class ran past 9:00. They were all back at the computers to sign out. Ok so now why does all of this matter? Well, most importantly it's very difficult to "facilitate" a discussion when very few are listening and/or contributing. How could this be handled as an online teacher? By calling on students that haven't contributed anything - chats or writing on the whiteboard. Give them a short amount of time to get the mic or type and if nothing, you'd take away points for the class and in this case I'd take points away from their presentations. After class I'd conference with them to find out what was going on and restate the expectations. I've been taught and teach my students that part of their scores for their presentations include being a good audience and participant for others. In spite of lack of contribution, I think that all of the presenters did a great job. Just like everything else I've done this was a good learning experience.
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