online education - some thoughts from the trenches

Online ed is growing as a cash cow all over the place, and why not? From the institutional point of view, there are minimum site costs (no electricity, AC, or maintenance of buildings); the software and support costs are marginal (more about that in a moment); and thus the financial equation is more or less, "is there more tuition revenue coming in than the cost of paying the instructor going out?"

Probably I oversimplify this a bit, but you get the point.

To teach online in my shop, I was required to take a 5-week course in Teaching Online, taught, naturally, online. This is a pretty brilliant move - in making the educators students in the online environment, we got to experience the full range of moronic classmates (yep, even in the rarified world of PhDs); unreliable software/internet; and inconsistent attention from our profs.

In the way that online learning (OLL) is conceptualized at my institution, we should be coldly and critically analytical: for every chunk of knowledge/facts/skills, we should be thinking "why should students need to know this?" and "how will I assess their learning?"

I have some mixed views about this. I am not a fan of instrumentalizing knowledge in this way - yet I see the value of thinking about value of knowlege, not just blindly transmitting "the wisdom of the ages" because someone told us in grad school that this was important stuff.

Along with the "what should they know?" and "how will I know they know it?" comes the so-called paradigm shift from teacher-centered education to student-centered education. Lifers in academe may scoff at this as just another fad in pedagogy, but here again, I see some value, even though, interestingly enough, this approach is about 180 degrees from the prevailing test-and-punish mentality that pervades K-12 in public education.

Teacher-centered education is a leftover from the medieval period, when books were scarce, and university education consisted of having precious books READ to you in lecture halls. (In fact, the word lecture has its roots in the Latin verb "to read." Professors read books to students because books were rare and precious and students didn't have access to them. Thus was knowledge transmitted.

Since Gutenberg, this notion is increasingly antiquated, and now with the electronic age, probably completely superfluous. In the regular "lecture" classroom, instructors either recap what was assigned for the reading, or they strike off in new territory, or some combination. (I regret to say that I've been in the former camp too often, not from a firm belief that it was necessary to recap the readings, but from an uncertainty about what should be done instead. (I am mindful too of advice given by one mentor - there is nothing wrong with reviewing what's in the textbook - students need help understanding it.))

Imagine now online teaching. There is no "you" in the classroom, only documents you put on the website. (Our classroom management software is really lame, but that doesn't really affect the whole CONCEPT of online ed.)

a smorgasbord of thoughts

Here is what is going on over here:

I have joined Weight Watchers (International) and now am in week 3. I lost 6.2 pounds the first 2 weeks. I will never write of this again: hearing people talk recipes and "points" and motivational strategies is dull beyond belief. There is some interesting anthropological work that could be done on the discourses of dieting though: the invocation of morality ("I've been good/bad this week"); the weird possessive relationship with food ("drinking my water" "eating my fruits and veggies") - but I am not the person to do such research. Lots of blogs explore the fraught female relationship to food and body image.

I am on the brink of jettisoning my book contract for the textbook I was supposed to write with my now-deceased co-author. It was to be a HUGE amount of work even jointly, and I think my limited research time over the next 18 months could be more productively spent. So that involves some get-up-and-go on pitching new projects.

Blackboard sux sux sux. Did I mention that the online learning system called Blackboard sucks? If I did not need a little extra cash for the summer, I would not be teaching online. I am seriously considering other work options for next summer than this. I could write an entire post about my experiences with online education (and I should): the soundbite version is that online ed is not completely worthless if you really work at the paradigm of guiding students in their learning rather than teaching AT them, but if you are spending hours working the fix-it game in html coding screens, something is seriously amiss. (Just to be clear: I do not teach comp sci and I have no business meddling with html code.)

I think I like HB 0.7mm leads better than the 0.5 in mechanical pencils. (B bought a new desktop today, and I got some new pencils. They ROCK.)

Speaking of office supply, everyone is doing "back-to-school" already, so sad. I walk by the kids in summer school every morning on my 28-minute constitutional, poor bastards. (They are mostly boys, btw.)

We are "borrowing" some friends' CSA share while they are away, and it is AWESOME. It's some work to drive up there and get the stuff and go out in the fields to pick, but it also is very relaxing and satisfying.

Lately there is a skunk in the 'hood in the evenings. Sigh.

stateside

How has it been so long? This past weekend, I worked through all the accounting (ugh) for my trip reimbursement. It was tedious and a pain-in-the-ass, but I also was reminded of how much we accomplished, and how many articles it can potentially translate into. :)

(When I ever get the time - this online class is sucking my will to live.) Ok, I could type forever about online education (scam-o-rama) and the particular hell that is known as Blackboard ("Captain, I'm an educator, not a html-coder!") But I'd rather summarize differences in European and American lifeways - albeit from a very consumer-oriented, pedestrian point of view.

First: things that Europeans should definitely import from the States:
1. window screens. Hello!? You have insects, especially at night! Stop lying to yourselves (and us) about it and keep them out!
2.Ice. In drinks; in hotel ice machines. Not just for cooling drinks either: maybe we like an ice pack on our feet or head or [insert body part here] after a strenuous day of European sightseeing. And see also the next item: ice would help!
3. Air conditioning. "Oh, it's never THIS hot!" Bullshit! I have lived in Europe 3 out of the last 6 summers and it's been unbearably hot. And I wasn't there the tragic year when all the French old people died of heat exhaustion! Global climate change, people! This is not 1816-and-froze-to-death! (google it) Figure out how to make yourselves comfortable!
4.Deodorants. On the subway: "Sir, for the love of God, please put your arms down!" Yeah, we Americans are over-obsessed with cleanliness and washing. Riiiiight....

On the other hand, we of course can learn from the world's second-largest economy. Here are some examples.

1.Health care. B got a very bad foot blister. He went to a doctor recommended by the hotel; they saw him at once; and his treatment (cutting and bandaging and 'scrip) cost less than $40. NO INSURANCE! TRY THAT IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!

2. Vacation. 5 weeks is normal. What is this two-week routine in the States? Do we live to work, or work to live???

3. Celebrating outdoor living in summer. Of course, we were in the dense historic urban cores of Germany. Cafes everywhere - coffee or beer at any hour. (We chatted up a mom and 15-year-old son celebrating his birthday in Berlin. The boy was having a beer at 10 am.) World Cup - sit and nurse a drink as long as you like. By contrast, we watched the World Cup Final at a Pizzeria Uno in Swampscott MA and the server would NOT leave us be: "Would you like to order food? Another drink? The check?" NO, WE WOULD LIKE TO WATCH THE GAME! IN PEACE!

We drove by some little sandwich shop this week and there was a valiant (but pathetic) attempt at urbanity - two picnic tables in the parking lot, marked off with some yellow police tape. My hypothesis is that Americans really WANT this pedestrian-oriented, walkable lifestyle - they love it as tourists! - but they just can't reconcile it with the auto-oriented, sprawl lifestyle that is our paradigm.

Bottom line: I could live in Europe and work there (if I could conquer the language). I am really feeling pretty good about that, which is a relief after my years of Polish angst.

Traveling at top speed through Central and Eastern Europe

This blog would have been a great place to write about our trip, had I started it right after the Hamburg post. I didn't write about the Fulbright program (although one of my colleagues did) because I wasn't sure how public I wanted to be about my musings on the German Sozialstaat.

Anyways...meeting up with B on the train worked out just fine, although his pocket got picked in the process and we spent HOURS in the lobby in our place in Prague skype-calling the credit cards to cancel them and get replacements sent to our hotel in Dresden. The fucker got nothing, though - although he tried cash advances on every card. We were less successful with the MA DMV (no surprise there) - apparently the possibility that a MA resident should lose his/her license while out of the country and have to have a replacement in order to rent a car has never occurred to the Provincial Geniuses who run the DMV. (Why would anyone even leave the state? I ask you.)

I never did get my bearings in Prague but we saw the city museum on the first day (Sunday) - interesting but not really research-relevant. Interesting special exhibit on a 1920s furniture designer and architect from the Czech Republic whose name escapes me this moment. Also we saw the monument to Jan Palach and later, the Museum of Communism (REALLY great!). Later we stepped into a brand-new club called Propaganda that is full of leftover artifacts from the period. The next day, Monday, we took Communism tours from two different tour companies - same content, quite different approaches - but lots of parallels with the tour industry in Krakow/Nowa Huta (Poland).

We met a delightful French couple in our hotel and talked with them every day at breakfast. I am glad to report that I am able to be sarcastic in French as well as English. We sort of bonded over our frustration with Stumbledumb, the weekend desk clerk.

On Tuesday, we grabbed the train to Dresden. More to follow.

confidential to JW

Has our electrical power been off? We can't connect to our hard-wired databases over the internet, suggesting that the power was off and the system needs to be reset.

auf wiedersehen, Hamburg!

Tonight is our last night in Hamburg, and tomorrow I board a Prague-bound train, and hope that B finds me when the train stops in Berlin! It will be a fraught 2 hours - because if he's not there, then what???

I'd better grab some hotel info right now. And check the weather - it's supposed to be rainy.

The seminar program has been so intensive and so interesting - yet in ways tangential to what really interests me, which is the question of identity formation. I'm also interested in the economy - but our work on that was tangential as well. The first thing would be to go through the notes and see if I can synthesize our work. Then, I have to figure out what use to make of all this.

Hamburg is potentially very interesting - but due to working on "real" work last night I feel I have no grasp of the city. Some good photos of the port, though - and our farewell dinner was on a converted fireboat in the harbor - really stunning views.

Ooh, B! Later...

"Ich bin ein Berliner"

Ja, Herr Prezident, ICH bin Berlinnerin. Wir sind ALLE Berliner!

So, ok, today after the guided tour of the Reichstag (equivalent of the U.S. Capitol building), I stepped into the Kennedy Museum at the Brandenburg Gate, influenced by the fact that it was close and they probably had a bathroom (yes!) and maybe a cafe (no).

It's the equivalent of about 3 rooms, mostly archival photos but also some artifacts of a lesser sort - a dress shirt, JFK's designer briefcase, handwritten notes, pens. There's quite a lot of material about JFK's 1963 trip to Berlin and how he sort of went off-script vis-a-vis the administration's policy of appeasement of the Soviets, because he was so incredibly appalled by seeing the Berlin Wall. (They took him on a 53-km drive of the wall in Berlin, which was the majority of his eight hours there.)

A side note: Some interesting notes from Jackie directing the addressees not to pay particular bills that she or Jack or others in the family had incurred. There was no context given for this, but my guess is that some stuff was "loaned" (jewelry, say) and other stuff was to be paid for by friends or the campaign rather than the Kennedy family personally.

I am not sure the Berlin Wall thing fits into my research outline but it's pretty interesting that there is all this stuff in Berlin. The museum was not well attended though. Taking photographs was not allowed (lots of copyright-protected iconic photos by famous photojournalists) unfortunately, so I ended up staying longer than I really wanted, to write down photo captions. Then in the bookstore I saw two books about JFK in Berlin, so probably this is well-covered territory. But, no one has yet analyzed the textual materials in this particular exhibit, I'd say. So there is room for some peripheral treatment, by me. Gotta write my field notes while all is fresh. More later.