Virtual Learning - Week 2

 

This week, we got an opportunity to practice what it would be like to work as a virtual instructor.  Out first experience was in running a portion of the elluminate session.  We facilitated a small group discussion on a predetermined topic.  My first impressions were that time flies, sharing the mic requires patience, and watching both the chat and listening to the mic may cause you to learn nothing.  I really struggled with following both the chat and the audio, and found that I needed to focus on listening to others, then during the lag time between participants I could scan the chat to see if there was anything I needed to address.  Another observation was that the synchronous discussion requires a lot of patience in wait time and transition time from one participant to the next.  Finally, when discussing it was really useful and added a degree of authenticity when people recognized one another by name.  In the classroom the name of another participant is often implied, but in the elluminate session it was too confusing when people didn't use names in discussions.

Our second teaching virtual experience was setting up an initial contact letter.  This is the classroom equivalent of the first day of school and serves to make the first impression between students and teachers.  I had to think about what I would want my first impression to be prior to writing the letter, as well as predict what some of the initial needs of a student may be prior to starting an online class.  It was an interesting experience, that will serve me in my classroom as well.