There were two things that I especially appreciated from our readings this week. One was the questions with which Weimer started her blog post:
- Who should be taking online courses?
- Are online courses equally appropriate for all students?
- Can any content be taught in an online format or do some kinds of material lead themselves to mastery in an electronic environment?
- Who should be teaching these courses?
I love this kind of reflection, yet I often don't engage in it enough and according to Lisa Lane, apparently more educators neglect to ask these kinds of foundational questions and, in doing so, allow the technology to determine their pedagogy. In essence, we're allowing the tail to wag the dog. For that reason, I was grateful for the encouragement and the reminder to remain in control of the instructional design of my curriculum and use technologies to support the intended outcomes I've set and enhance learning activities rather than permitting tech to influence instructional design.
So I like the deep questions part, but I also grew from the chapter we read in Smith that in very practical terms explained how to see up an online course. These readings together provided a nice balance which led me to ponder why I do what I do and also gave me some tools to use for designing an online course.
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