The Syracuse City School District was recently awarded a grant for piloting a distance learning program. The grant specifies that five courses (French 1, Spanish 4/5, pre-calculus, ESF: The Global Environment, and ESF Writing) will be offered to Syracuse students via Moodle, the district's distance learning interface. In a collaborative effort, one teacher from each of the city's five high schools will be responsible for planning, creating, and delivering one of these courses online as a substitution for one of the traditional courses in their normal class loads. As a participant in this grant, I will be teaching the ESF Global Environment in the distance learning format.
Here is how it works, supposedly. Each high school dedicates a single classroom to the distance learning initiative. Small groups (about 5-8 students) at each of the high schools will be in the room during each of the five periods when one of the courses mentioned above is being taught. Each class will be a different group of 5-8 students (it will not be the case that the same students are all taking each of the five distance learning courses). Each high school will be assigned as the "home base" for one of the distance learning classes (for example, Corcorcan will be the home base for the Global Environment). So, say Global Environment will offered during period 3. That means I will meet in the distance learning room during 3rd period with the 6 or 7 Corcoran students enrolled in the course. There will be a video camera on me as I teach and the video image (and audio) of my instruction will be projected onto the smartboards in the distance learning classrooms of the other high schools. I will also have the ability to see video feeds from each of the high schools as viewed on Corcoran's smartboard as picture-in-picture (PIP) images. Students from all of the other high schools will be able to interact with me (or any other student in the class) in real-time. Sound futuristic? Its really not, but it is relatively new for high schools to implement this type of technology (virtual classrooms are becoming much more common at the college level). The Jetson Family could now feel comfortable sending their kids to the Syracuse City School District.
I have taught EFB 120: The Global Environment (Energy, Adaptation, and the Exploitation of Resources) once before during the 2010-2011 academic year. I really enjoyed teaching this course in a traditional classroom setting, and I now look forward to the unique opportunity of teaching this course in a "virtual classroom". At many of the high schools, there have not been enough students enrolling to justify offering the course. Now, interested students will be given the opportunity to take this unique college credit course virtually, whereas it would not even be offered otherwise. This is a great example of a win-win situation. However, I am not without my reservations.
The opportunity to teach The Global Environment via distance learning was really an offer I couldn't refuse. I find teaching this course intellectually and personally fulfilling, and I believe the students get a lot more out of it than just college credits. I think that it changes their perspective of the world around them. However, the students have to be motivated and generally interested in the course content. Distance learning presents the added challenge of selecting/recruiting a roster that will be well suited for this course from student populations that I have never met. How will I know that these are the "right" students for the distance learning version of The Global Environment?
I admit that the anxieties do not stop there. I guess this would be as good a time as any to confront a deep-seated personal issue: I am a technophobe. I do not own (in fact, refuse to own) a smartphone. I was initially resistant to cellular telephone ownership and only signed my first phone contract in the summer of 2003 because I needed a contact number to list on my resume as I searched for employment in the Pacific Northwest. I suppose I will also succumb to the allure of smart phones eventually, but not until encountering some unforeseen necessity (maybe I will one day need one to effectively facilitate distance learning with my students?). However, I dread the idea of incessant proximity to the internet. On a related note, I also have great difficulty soliciting friends to watch Syracuse basketball games at my home. The reason for this is my lack of a flat screen, high definition television set. There is nothing wrong with my traditional 32" CRT television. It is only ten years old and it works fine. There is no need to buy a new TV, and my reasoning for this is probably best articulated by "The Story of Stuff". My technophobia extends further to such phenomena as GPS systems (will humans lose the ability to interpret maps on their own?), to eReaders (why should books need electricity), and to Google itself (are people losing the initiative and drive to pursue information in creative ways when Google can easily just do it for them)?
These technology issues are mine to resolve, and it will likely be a life-long struggle. But for now the question is how will the technophobe fare as a distance learning instructor? As a technophobe, and as member of the New York State Teachers Union, I am happy that my roster for The Global Environment will not and CANNOT exceed 30 students. I love the idea of distance learning expanding learning opportunities for students in schools who would not otherwise have these opportunities. I legitimately fear a scenario in which virtual classrooms replace living, breathing teachers. I fear a fully automated, robotic society devoid of old-fashioned, real human interaction and creativity (as opposed to the virtual kind). This is part of the reason for my eagerness to participate in this grant. On one hand, it is great opportunity for me as a professional educator and for the learners who will partake. On the other hand, if I discover that virtual distance learning is evil (or as Ken Kesey would say, part of the "Combine") then I will at least be well-positioned to destroy it from the inside (let me very clear here, I do not anticipate this second scenario, but I am first and foremost a teacher and will do whatever is necessary to protect the institution of public education). I mean look at this way: who will need teachers when everyone has Google Goggles? They will be the same people who need drivers' licenses when everyone has Google Cars.
My main point here is that it is a 'brave new world', and we are all people in it. One of the reasons that The Global Environment is so compelling to teach is that it helps students establish a context and an understanding for our modern world. I am very fortunate to be teaching this course again next year. However, I recognize that distance learning will come with a substantial learning curve. There is a lot of work to be done in preparation for this endeavor, and its time to get started.
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