Early experiences with online learning: reflections and new directions for thinking
The summer before my junior year of high school (in the late 90s), I took an online Algebra 2 course sponsored by a major state university (not in North Carolina). I soon discovered that I was my only resource! I took online exams/quizzes and submitted any question I had to an anonymous ‘system administrator’ – and usually no one responded with helpful feedback. There was absolutely no human element. The online supplemental worksheets provided repetition instead of clarifying potentially troubling concepts. Most times, it seemed like just me and the textbook. I had to learn completing the square, parabolas, hyperbolas, and asymptotes all by myself. My midterm exam showed I had not learned these concepts very well at all!
I needed some human communication. I called my geometry teacher from the year before and he agreed to tutor me on a weekly basis until the final. What the textbook and online worksheets made confusing, he was able to clarify. With his help, I passed the course.
That was over a decade ago. I have not indulged in online learning since. I am now a graduate student at UNC. This semester, my assistantship duties include researching current trends in online learning and online professional development. When I first learned what topic I’d be studying, part of me wanted to say, “Online Learning? Isn’t that an oxymoron!?!”
I have learned that couldn’t be further from the truth. My reading has acquainted me with many teachers/researchers who are committed to high-quality online teaching and building online learning communities with their students. This has indeed been encouraging. Synchronous and asynchronous technologies make online environments more conducive to community building than ever before.
But, my prior experience with online learning has never left. There was certainly no community in my online Algebra 2 course. I still wonder: is ‘community’ really possible in online environments? What do people mean by community? Can online environments duplicate the intimate, face-to-face interaction/experience that community building requires?
I have yet to find a detailed and well-written account (by a student or a teacher) of experience in an online learning community. What did it feel like to be a part of such a community? Did more learning occur than usual? What did community mean in that context? Was participation mandatory and, if not, what about it was so compelling to continue participation? Most accounts of online learning communities rarely venture beyond the usual platitudes: ‘we were learning together’ or ‘all of sudden we started trusting each other and sharing more information.’ To me, these aren’t convincing enough to make me want to learn more about online learning communities, much less participate in one. What I would like to find is an honest account of personal experience in an online learning community. What was good, bad, great? What made the forum a community? What made it so compelling to come back to? What made it a professionally or personally enriching experience?
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