(Source: http://classroomitemss.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Digital-Classrooms.jpg)

I’m about to embark on a course on online teaching — a very controversial topic amongst colleagues around the world, it seems

I’ve participated in a course taught on Facebook, and designed a course that took place on this blog (here is a recent review on the book the course was based on: CRiA_JOC_Review).

And as is evident from this blog, I try to include digital platforms in F2F teaching situations.

Just a few examples: I’ve heard from students and teachers alike that digital environments encourage last-minute participation and fragmented learning. I’ve heard some professor express fear that students will not learn professional social presentation skills, and that. At the same time, in my experience digital communication facilitates deeper, more extensive debates that a classroom situation could.

The added value of college to many of my students is the physical time with the teacher; and they sometimes shun away from exercises that I thought were clever — but that ended up being more about the tech app than about the content.

Yet — with online courses I can ‘meet’ students from around the world, and they can engage in learning in life situations that would not allow their physical presence. Digital classroom is not for every course or topic, but it seems to be here to stay.

So far, I’ve learned as I go. It’ll be interesting to see what the rules and tips for online teaching, by pedagogy experts, are. My goal is to come up with something completely new in terms of a final project. Tips, anyone?