I like to take one day a week and look back at where we’ve come.
This time last week, many of you were getting emails from me even before the course was underway, to urge you to start getting connected. I’ll confess it was with some trepidation that I laid out the list of communications tools that I wanted to use for the basic tool set for the course. Most of you have discovered that Blackboard holds almost no content — only that which we need to get going and to satisfy the university. Since last Sunday, almost all of you have created blogs and established a network of information with your aggregators, subscribed to the list, set up your accounts on TappedIn, and — for most of you — that was in the first couple of days. You guys have done great work and we’re going to use this nice foundation to build on.
One of the topics we’re talking about this week (and which we’ll spend more time on next) is your defintions of distance education. I wanted each of you to write it down so that you’ll have a “base point” to look back at when we get to the end of the semester. I’m hoping each of you will be able to use your postings to see just how much progress you’ve made by the time we get to the end.
On the subject of “perceptions of distance”:
Laura Miller wrote: “As a child, I was merely a passenger in my parents car, along for the drive; now I drive to Lexington myself and I am familiar with its landmarks, roads and shops. I am an active participant now. I feel connected to the community. ”
Rachel James had this to say: “[I]f you enjoy what you are doing and the people you are talking to it seems like you are all right in the room together. You usually feel closer to people that you have things in common with.”
These are going to be the common themes over the course of the week.
August 30th, 2006 at 10:25 PM
After reading the quotes by Laura and Rachel, I can see great symbolism in their statements and the unsureness or unexperienced aspect of technology/distance learning.
For some of us our experiences, as far as technology is concerned, are that of a child in the passenger seat of a car–driving to an unknown community. When we began this class, we were the child. As we progress, we grow. Furthermore, we become more familiar with our surroundings and eventually we will be used to landmarks and our web community. Nevertheless, our community isn’t limited only to the people in this class. Like Rachel said, “You usually feel closer to people that you have things in common with.” Thus, with tapped in, yahoo, and our aggregators, we can build our community and as we grow more familiar with our surroundings we will become an “active participant,” and become more comfortable with our community.