Check this Padalet to read my internal voices about this statement.
Sometimes my thoughts are redundant and contradictory.
Don’t succumb to campus envy: we are the campus!
////////////Check this Padalet to read my internal voices about this statement.
Sometimes my thoughts are redundant and contradictory.
Thanks for sharing these different ideas – your ‘internal voices’ – around this statement from the Manifesto, Lidia.
Something that particularly caught my attention – and it’s an idea I have wrestled with for some time without finding a resolution – is whether and how we can recreate online the kind of serendipity that is experienced in the physical spaces of the campus. Is it possible or desirable to try and structure-in those moments where students might talk informally outside a classroom or in a cafe? In the Digital Education programme in particular, should course or programme organisers establish a space where students can chat and get to know each other away from the more institutional spaces of the tutorial and discussion forum? Or would the very fact that these spaces are created by staff immediately make them feel ‘institutional’ or manufactured, rather than student-owned. Perhaps we simply need to accept that while studying online brings flexibility and other advantages you describe, maybe there are some things it will never be able to adequately recreate that happen on campus?
What a difficult problem! As you already pointed, I agree that if the programme offers and organise the space to have informal chats, this can be percived as something institutional. Although, in my experience teaching adults (online and face to face) I have always tried to make clear and encourage informal interaction beyond the class. When I was teaching Spanish, I organised “Spanish dinners” after a class and some meet ups on Saturday in order to create a more informal situation and create a good relationship among students. I knew that if the group was getting along they learn more, because they felt more comfortable making mistakes, something essential when learning another language. Also, when I was facilitating an online programme for people in London, I organised a meet up that was running in parallel of the course. I usually was part of the meeting for the first or two times, but after that I was basically making sure that a table in a pub was booked and they can meet uo without me. I know that some people still meeting after the course. Sometimes, it is needed to show as a positive value that is important to interact beyond the “mandatory” interaction. I think it is an statement of the programme.