As I come to the end of these four classes in the online teaching certification program, I can only look in amazement from whence I came and wistfully imagine what lies ahead.
I came into this adventure knowing that I knew enough about online learning to easily admit that I loved the concept and the dynamics of cyberspace. Cyber learning was designed for me. I love the freedom and mobility it affords, the open exchange of ideas with the largest diverse community of minds on earth at your fingertips and the up-to-date nature of the prospect of dynamic learning.
I was a child of the btc era (before the computer era) when the best information source we had was a dusty old set of the Encyclopedia Britannica and I happened to be one of those children who was always wondering about something---the “Cliff Claven” of my grammar school. Space travel was one of my fascinations and the information you found on the space program was outdated by the time the encyclopedia was published. You also couldn’t interact with the encyclopedia and ask it for additional information or different points of view. That was a stagnant, lifeless form of learning---outdated and overrated. Couple that with the fact that I was also a child of a remote, rural area and we couldn’t even get good television reception. My parents (by choice) decided we did not need a phone so my solace was in books and I was an insatiable reader but much of the topical information was also outdated in those tomes also.
Thus you can understand why from the first time I touched the keyboard on a computer and experienced the Internet, I knew that it was manna from Heaven---a natural boon for my insatiable curiosity---it was designed for people like me. Why it was like going from a horse and buggy to climbing on board the Challenger. Imagine that now when I want to know where the largest meteor struck on earth, what time it is in Pohnpei, the latest research on ALS or how long Thoreau spent at Walden Pond, I can find it in a moment’s notice. This is learning the way it was meant to be. To say that I was hooked is an understatement!!!
After having taken numerous online classes from the viewpoint of an online learner, I decided it was time to take the love of this medium one step further and imagine the potential of becoming an online instructor. Thus I enrolled in the online teaching certification program. How hard could that be-----WHO KNEW???
This certification program has successfully brought me to my knees more times than I care to recount. Along with that humbling realization came all of the other “quirky little issues that aren’t supposed to happen but occur with technology”. Around every corner on this continuum, I was confronted with new challenges, sometimes I found a bridge across the abyss and sometimes it seemed like I was being swallowed by a black hole. These times generally came around midnight when I had attempted to do something for the 44th time and still was unsuccessful---but if you can imagine it, I was still unwilling to give in to failure and admit defeat.
In spite of all of this my desire to move into online teaching has never wavered. The cyber world have become like an extra appendage. This is a revolutionary change in teaching. This medium is the unchartered wilderness of today’s academic world. We can only begin to imagine the possibilities. We have only seen the tip of the iceberg, much more lies still hidden from our narrow conceptualized view. Believe it if you can dream it.
And as that dreamer, I imagine a day when virtual reality becomes commonplace in the cyber classroom. I have already witnessed crossing the chasm of exchanging views with classmates on the other side of the world. Imagine how great those possibilities? I also see a time when printed textbooks will be as archaic as the slates students used in the one room classrooms of the past. Who wants to be stuck reading stagnant wording in an outdated text when real time changes are occurring everyday in everything from medicine to horticulture.
I also dream of the day when cyber learning will completely obliterate and bridge the digital learning divide for those in remote areas of third world countries. There will be so many more minds contributing solutions to the problems that face our world! Imagine the potential is limitless. The world is our oyster my friend.
I am a dreamer, but I have admittedly waded through some technical glitches---not enough memory----on the pc or in my cranium and I have hurled myself headlong into quagmires that I thought only existed in the Amazon jungle. I have been stumped, chumped and I’ve almost jumped (more than once) out of this program. I have seriously considered the fact that I might have some type of masochistic tendency that kept me consistently propelling myself forward. Granted sometimes, it has just been my own stupidity----wondering why I couldn’t see the text on a black blog page----duh when I had the font color set to black!! (That little gem only took me about ten minutes to figure out!) Sometimes it has been a case of “no ability----big task” and sometimes it has been just the newness of a concept that has caused me to stumble.
Quite honestly, if you can imagine I have been aggravated, deflated, irritated, flagellated, abated, berated, debated, infuriated, dated, agitated, eviscerated, negated, overrated, inundated, intimidated, humiliated, nauseated and animated but I have also been elated, elevated, ruminated, orchestrated, narrated, vacillated, venerated, titillated, orientated, saturated, sophisticated (?), vindicated, facilitated, fascinated and exhilarated just to name a few verbs that occur to me right now and I have persisted. I would tell any first semester student in this program that is just starting on this journey that they are in for quite a roller coaster ride. Every time you slowly have inched your way to a high vantage point and sigh with relief another precipice appears before you and you breathlessly go spirally downward and holding on for dear life and just about when you are ready to give up you are ascending upward again and enjoying the magnificent view along the way.
Can you imagine that my passion for the potential that lies over the next cyber horizon has still never waned? With this fourth class, the real clarity with all of the bells and whistles finally just started to kick in recently. The pieces of the mental puzzle of class four’s technology overload is just starting to come together in my mind.
Yet despite all of the gnashing of teeth, I still have an unswerving desire to see what is around the next bend in this road. How will the dynamics change next? What new innovation will pop up this year? New software, always new software and new opportunities and new and faster computer speeds, better audio visual opportunities, better communication mediums---imagine the opportunity to incorporate better technologies in a basic course to flesh it out and make it more engaging for cyber learners? Look how far the last ten years have brought us and we have only just begun. Can you imagine?
Beyond all of this are all of the people I have coalesced with in cyber classes, many of whom have my deepest admiration. I particularly admire those instructors who are willing to take that risk and move from the comfort of being the sage on the stage on ground for years to the novice guide on the side online. I have seen many of them struggle with the transition, but they have stayed the course and are working hard to become a part of the new order. Instructors who are willing to move out of their comfort zone and meet the needs of a budding new generation of learners instead of try to dismiss the obvious.
I also would be remiss without mentioning the great ONTL instructors. Imagine that I literally never met any of my instructors in person until I was well into my third class, but they were always available to me when I was having seemingly insurmountable problems. Kudos in particular to Jan Engle----she was always there giving me words of encouragement and spurring me forward when I was feeling defeated and unsure of my abilities. Kudos also to Jan for designing such an exemplary series of classes---the honors her work has received are well deserved. Who cannot ultimately prosper with such great role models?
I know that I am still in the infancy stages as an online instructor, but I am truly amazed at what I have learned in just four short terms---everything from a myriad of new technologies to a wealth of information on effective pedagogy and everything else imaginable in between.
Granted this series of classes is not for “sissies”, and I would be a liar if I did not say that this has been the most frustrating series of classes that I have ever taken. Those without patience and tenacity need not apply. But for those who persevere, there is so much to appreciate and so many exciting reasons to imagine what lie in the future. I am already anxious to gain more skills and move from building my meager cyber learning cottage toward constructing cyber learning cathedrals.
For all of my optimism you may say I’m a dreamer, but I am not the only one . . . (using Imagine by J. Lennon)
Just------
Imagine there's no textbooks
It's easy if you try
No desks to seat us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Joining to solve the earth’s ills...
Imagine there's no third world countries
It isn't hard to do
No one’s thoughts unheeded
And no exclusion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday the cyber world will be this
And the global world will be as one
Imagine no lack of learning opportunities
I wonder if you can
No need for physical boundaries
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing with each other in a cyber world...
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday the cyber world will be this
And the global village will live as one
