Back in 2020, when we all went online, it was definitely a wild experience. For us introverts out there, it was a breath of fresh air for a time because you were not forced into calling out any answers, and you did not feel pressured by the eyes of your teacher. After a little while and the “novelty” wore off, many were sick of online classes because that is just not the way we learn. We need that social interaction and being able to be in a classroom setting to learn. If you asked me to recall anything I learned in my online classes, I could not tell you. Sean Michael Morris echoes that it comes down to the educator and it required tons of effort on the teacher’s part in order to make an online class interesting.
The concept that Jesse Stommel brings up is that you have to build the online classroom and the course spoke loudly to me because all classes should be able to be run how the teacher wants them. If one teacher has had a lot of success on one platform, then they should be allowed to use it freely how they like. The online tools should act as just that, not on the sole of our pedagogies.
Classes that are online that I have had mostly have not gone well because most teachers did not plan for much interaction, and they just spoke to us the entire time. They did not teach any differently than they would have if we were in class. Designing a class with student interaction at the forefront like this one it needs to happen more often because students learn more from students, and relying too much on technology and being stuck in their old ways does nothing for the students to give them what they need.
Students should have their own voice because it allows them to develop one after being suppressed for so many years. That is part of why I thought this class website was a great idea because it allows us to respond to things freely, and gives us our own voice in the writing. Responding to articles more or less what we think compared to telling me what you just read would just be what we have done our entire lives.
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