Kristine's Reading Notes #2

         I thought that Week Two of On Course was a really interesting section. Integration of technology is important in the classroom but at the same time sometimes students aren’t quite as comfortable with a “non-traditional” style of teaching. For example, in my Composition two class, the professor found it helpful to teach class in the virtual environment of Second Life. Here, fictional characters are made and you venture around this made up world. The benefits of this kind of structure is that it allows for a different experience for students to see and also has a lot of educational information that couldn’t normally be found so easily on the internet. However, I found this type of environment hard to write essays in. I felt that by writing all of my essays from first person and always talking about what I had explored, had hindered my ability to write different types of essays. Also the reliability of always having a good internet connection and use of a computer brought into hardships.

            Another question that arises goes back to how much interaction is adequate and not overkill? If an undergraduate has five classes and each class requires a post on a discussion board before class, the amount of time adds up pretty fast. Also, how much are students actually getting out of the discussion boards? Yes, they are required to make a post but are they reading what other students wrote and correlating that to how they felt about a subject matter? I guess one of the most efficient ways to make use of a discussion board would be to require a post of their own and a response to one or two other classmates as well. The only fault that I have with interactive technology (such as discussion boards or wikis) is that for a general education class with 100 students, there is no way to make sure every student has submitted their required posts as well as being able to read through all of their responses in a timely manner. One point of discussion that I would think would be useful would be describing what other types of technology (besides blackboard and discussion boards) have been integrated into the classroom successfully.

            The last discussion point I think would be good to discuss is how to get students to overcome the fear of meeting new classmates. Throughout both books, the authors are constantly suggesting that students work in pairs or groups of fours, but not everyone is comfortable meeting new people. The thought of rejection or fear of failure hinders a lot of students from being active speakers even in small groups. As a freshmen in undergrad, I always got annoyed about how much professors wanted students to meet outside of class with two or three other students. As a student, schedules are already hectic enough, without having to worry about arranging to meet two other hectic schedules. I think that group discussions would be more beneficial and make a greater impression if done in class.