By John Thelin, Inside Higher Ed
Online education is neither simple nor sinister: I am not so much low tech as slow tech — and found that being ready to teach an online course takes a long time. But the time lapse falls into two markedly different phases. To convert a graduate course I had taught in “traditional mode” for many years, last September I sought out my campus’s director of distance learning programs offered by the university library and met with her and the DL staff for a long series of work sessions and carefully monitored progress reports. At each juncture the DL staff patiently yet firmly showed me why and how it was important to understand the logic and logistics of course preparation and presentation. One had to have course materials – including syllabus, weekly content, discussion topics, assignments, and links to materials – clearly in place before starting to teach. What I found was that the more one learned about the format and understood the strengths and limits of the online technology, the more interesting and effective teaching and learning would be.
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2012/07/10/professors-shouldnt-be-afraid-online-learning-essay
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