The back-end of online classes

In "Who is Driving the Online Locomotive," (Wayback Machine link) Rob Jenkins asks some pertinent questions about the force and direction of online education. There is definitely the feeling that something is coming, and those who aren't prepared will be lost by the wayside...or flattened by the train. However, this feeling of online education as the next-big-thing has been palpable for a couple of decades now. The latest gust of wind in the sails has been the infamous MOOC, but it's really more about the intersection of budget cuts and the ubiquity of social networking. It's also very unfortunate that there is usually little discussion of the differences between types of online classes – a MOOC with thousands of participants is a very different thing from a small online-class of 40 students.

Digital pedagogy and the online classroom

A few days ago I finished grading for an online summer class, The History of Latin America (HIST75V). I was the TA (teaching assistant) for Professor Juliette Levy, and this was the first time that either of us had conducted an online course. We’ve both taught the traditional in-class version of this course many times, and the opportunity to transform our in-class materials and teaching styles into an online presence was quite exciting. Professor Levy and I are both from the University of California, Riverside, and the course itself was hosted through UC Online. This class was an accelerated summer course, only 3 weeks long, and the LMS (Learning Management System) was Canvas. We also used Piazza for a student question & answer forum (I’ll write more about Piazza in another post).