We Are Not in Pleasantville Anymore . . .

As we have progressed through this series of online teaching classes, I have seen my understanding of this medium continue to change. Long before I began this series of classes, I ventured forth into my first experience with online learning. Looking back on that first class, it was more like a correspondence course online.

It was taught in the Wimba environment, but there was little communication with the instructor or my other classmates. There was a syllabus online and through that single electronic document the students were instructed what to read and accomplish; and where to submit the papers that were due in the class. The class was shrouded in silence and lack of communication between members.

Submissions were returned days later with red marked comments, both good and critical about the contents and a red number grade was posted at the end of each submission. There was no discussion about the materials studied and only on rare occasion would a student venture to post a question of his peers about the course. It really seemed taboo to do so.

You could e-mail the instructor, but generally he would not respond for over a week and sometimes it would be to admonish you to follow the information he had provided in the syllabus. The class was very bleak and gray. I really don’t know what kept me moving forward at that time, perhaps the dream that there could be something more.

One day recently while driving home on a foggy, rainy gray evening, it dawned on me that online learning and now the experience of online teaching has reminded me of the book and movie entitled “Pleasantville”. If you have ever experienced the book or movie, you will know what I mean. (If you have not, I highly suggest that you do).

In the beginning of the movie two young teens were transported through time to Pleasantville only to find themselves in a “nineteen fiftyish” world that was very gray and drab. Everyone lived the same style of life (original thought was completely discouraged), wore the same clothes, ate the same foods, did the same activities and lived the same gray existence.

The library books were all blank and if anyone questioned the system the town’s people were appalled and the wrongdoer was admonished and shunned for his actions. Life was very dull indeed. During one scene, one of the new interlopers asked where the road led that went out of Pleasantville, and the flat reply was, “nowhere the road just goes in a circle to Pleasantville”.

People there lived stagnant, uneventful, albeit pleasant lives and had learned to settle and adapt to the colorless vista. Settling for okay was good enough---it was wrong to question or expect more.

That is why when our two young interlopers came to town and started to awaken people to the fact that life did not have to be lived in such a dull, gray landscape where all of the people were even depicted in black and white, suddenly some of the people started to think for themselves, develop new ideas and show curiosity about what life could be like and as they did they began not only to see a vivid colored world around them, but they also turned from black and white into beautiful , technicolored, animated individuals themselves.

Of course, the people who were fearful of change and accepted the gray world became immediately shocked and fearful of their transformations and demanded that things turn back to the status quo and they turn back to their original black and white demeanor.

However, the people who had experienced living life in color could no longer accept living the gray all too pleasant life in Pleasantville and were unwilling to be forced backward into that bleak, drab, lackluster albeit safe existence.
Living in Pleasantville, reminds me of entering the learning environment in cyberspace.

When I first entered this other world, everything was quite gray. There was no color in the online classroom and every student was surrounded by a deafening silence. People who questioned the silence were made to feel odd and were ignored or admonished by others and everyone seemed accepting of his fate.

When one spoke about online classes in on ground classes the uneasiness was palpable, both from on ground instructors and on ground classmates. The notion of learning anything online was dismissed as frivolous and as utterly impossible---a waste of time and energy. Something that was not worthy of the time it took to openly discuss it. Students were ashamed to admit they were taking classes online. Pleasantville was alive and well all around and few people were willing to challenge that theory.

However somehow, through that bleak, gray environment I had managed to dream that what I had experienced could become something much more than what I was currently witnessing. I drew this hope from what I knew from the past. The first telephone transmissions, the first television broadcasts, the first radio shows had all been primitive but they had grown and transformed beyond their inventors wildest dreams. Why couldn’t this medium expand and develop in the same way?

At that time the College of Business had no online courses. There was some part of me that wanted to see more possibilities breathed into the program and that is what drove me to question the status quo. I penned a letter to the President of the University and asked quite simply stated, “We are moving into the 21st century----why didn’t the College of Business offer any classes online? Was GSU not afraid of being left behind in the gray dust of the past century? Could they afford not to advance into the future if they wanted to keep their enrollment growing?” The following fall term the first online classes were offered in business.

Thus began the catharsis for me. I have seen the transformation begin and continue. I have sat in on those first poorly executed drab gray online classes.

And then slowly I started to see the first glimpses of color as people were encouraged to post comments on an open discussion board. I have beheld the reluctance of people fearful to post their thoughts online or have their ideas exposed to their cyber classmates fearful of a Pleasantville rejection. I have also had people scoff at me for choosing to learn online. Pleasantville people who have forgotten that learning is not a "one trick pony" and that it can be accomplished in many ways in many venues.

The road OUT of Pleasantville has brought me here, to this series of classes, to this venue, where my once gray surroundings have become much more color specific.

I have had color breathed into this environment through lively interactions with my classmates. I have had color breathed into this environment by having exchanges with people real time on the other side of the globe. I have had color breathed into this environment by seeing a video commentary of one of my classmates, breathed into his blog journal. I have had color breathed into this environment by having real time talks about ideas and challenges with my classmates who have proven to be kindred spirits who though sometimes fearful, are not willing to settle for living in Pleasantville.

And through the support of my online colleagues, my forward minded cyber instructors and my own dreams of what might be, I am approaching the potential of the unlimited color spectrum that can be created in cyber classrooms with an open mind and an open heart.

Teaching can go from the sage on the stage of the on ground environment, to the guide on the side of this new medium. A diverse population in a global setting can all converge together in this classroom and not be fettered by location or time zone. Real time cyber discussions can be enjoyed between people of different dialects and different cultural persuasions. Audio and video presentations can be jointly or individually broadcast and enjoyed. (I have even learned a little about the behind the scene language---HTML).

Virtual worlds can be mastered and used as simulations of real world events and practice exercises can be emulated for everything from surgical to historical events, and used as learning or practice tools. Teamwork can be successsfully carried on, without once meeting your team members f2f.

I have also learned that from shared experience and trial and error, one can create a diverse set of learning tools that can reach out to a diverse population of learning styles. I have learned that common sense and a grasp of good netiquette can go a long way in engendering healthy relationships in cyberspace. I have learned that close relationships can be built in the cyber classroom.

I have also had my moment as “King (Queen) of the World” as I experienced my first attempt in a real time classroom as the official “guide on the side” in that classroom. I have relished in the exchange of ideas that were brought forth as people busily bantered back and forth and the class was less about leading and more about sharing. I have also enjoyed the laughter, warmth and humor of my fellow cyber classmates although I have never physically met any of them.

And probably most impressively, during the last two terms I have seen these same people who were once in Pleasantville, start to move from gray, drab, timid beings almost devoid of form to very colorful, vibrant human beings who are animated and vivid well rounded human beings in their new cyber presence.

For you see, these people are not satisfied with pleasant; my fellow cyber trekkers are adventurous risk takers who have moved through the shroud that surrounded them and thrown aside the admonition of “pleasant” scoffers and decided to move from fearful to fearless. They no longer need to ask where the road leads that exits Pleasantville because they have ventured unabashedly beyond the city limits and they have seen all the bright colors and ideas that are there, they have glimpsed the possibilities that lay in the future.

Together we will move forward unwilling to just settle for a Pleasantville “bleakosphere”. Each of us has left Pleasantville behind and I am confident that each of my cyber classmates will add their own rich, colorful gift to the new milieu that is evolving here.

Because the fact is, that once you have left the gray, drab city limits of Pleasantville and the people who wish to continue living the gray, drab, uninspired lifestyle there, there is no turning back. . . The reality is that once you have stepped out of that gray, drab, pleasant world into this VIVID, BRIGHT, NEW CUTTING EDGE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT----who COULD or WOULD want to return?