Our Virtual Teaching Experiment

3/18/2020

Fellow educators, what are your thoughts?

photo credit: Maia Liebeskind

March 18th, 2020 (week two, here in NYC)

A week ago (which of course feels like a month ago), I interviewed an American tech integrator at a K-12 international school in China, where they have been teaching virtually for more than six weeks. As I listened to her experiences and suggestions, I was struck by how her school’s experiment amplifies the most critical issues in education today: equity, teacher agency, student voice, parent involvement, social-emotional wellbeing, accountability and authentic assessment. I started writing up our conversation, one part how-to, one part editorial, a weird piece for a weird time. (Rough draft linked here, if you care to read it.)

But a peculiar thing happened as I was writing. Passionate educator though I am, I started to feel that perhaps it isn't critical, in the larger scheme of things, to teach online for the next few months. I teach because I fully believe in the power of education to build community, grow thoughtful, active citizens, and promote solutions to the profound issues of our time. I love my work. But if we close our schools down entirely during these difficult months—offline and on—for the greater good, or because online options aren’t working for everyone, it will be alright. Students will learn, as will we, from Italians singing on their balconies. From a parent helping an elderly neighbor. From the ways, both positive and negative, that we respond to this crisis. Some of the learning will be heartbreaking. Some of it will be a light coming through a crack.

And then again... maybe the connections we are facilitating, and the tiny semblance of normalcy are our contribution during this time. Maybe they're consequential. I keep vacillating.

Are you teaching online? Please weigh in.

37 Comments

Eve's Blog

I've been blogging since 2010. When I've got writer's block in every other way (frequent), this low stakes riffing to think has been a constant. Over the digital years, I've had a half dozen or so blogs including a travel blog and a reading blog, both on Blogger, and an all-purpose blog on tumblr where I wrote about education, social equity and anything else that sparked me. I also posted some of my published print work on my website. My shit is all over the internet. I'll be using this space for the occasional blog post, now.

Eliza

3/18/2020 07:57:52 pm

As a learning support provider, I worry about my most vulnerable students and the progress I’ve seen them make this year, some just finally beginning to turn a corner... they are ones I’m most eager to keep engaging with after spring break.

Eve

3/25/2020 04:28:11 am

Thank you for being the first to post here, Eliza. As I see teachers around the country working online, it's clear that the connection is *it.* Eager to hear how your work goes, after spring break, and how your students are faring. I hope this will be a space where teachers will continue to talk, over the next weeks and months. Please share this page with educators far and wide.

Giunia

3/18/2020 11:00:51 pm

Thank you for the invitation, Eve. I have mixed feelings about this. When we were told on a Saturday, more than three weeks ago, that our universities would not reopen on the following Monday, and then on that very Monday that we would have to make plans to teach online "for the week" I was in denial. I managed to send out an invitation to my students for a synchronous class at our regular time on the following Wednesday. Machiavelli was on the menu and we talked about the virus as "fortuna" and of preparedness for it as "virtù". Against all of my expectations, it felt fantastic to reconvene as a class at such a difficult time, and the students were very grateful and happy.

I am recording the live sessions for anyone who cannot make it.

For my son Leo, who is in his last year of high school, the online classes have been a welcome routine (both schools and universities have been closed here in Italy for more than three weeks)

It certainly is a tough equity issue. But I think it can go many ways. I have been thinking a lot about victims of abuse at this time, for whom having a contact outside of the home can be a lifeline, or just a source of comfort.

I think the key is to see all this as the extraordinary emergency it is, and be very lenient and understanding with all the challenges we and our students are facing. This is one time when, whatever we are teaching, our presence is more important than content or skill.

Much solidarity and love to all of you.

mar garrido link

3/19/2020 05:39:53 am

Imparto asignaturas prácticas -Proyectos de Creación Audiovisual- y virtualizarlas es prácticamente imposible. Aunque hay contenidos teóricos que si se pueden compartir on-line, hay un componente práctico muy importante que se lleva a cabo con equipos de grabación, iluminación y edición no lineal profesionales que solo están disponibles en los equipos de la Universidad.
Intento reinvertar los contenidos y llevarlo de la mejor manera posible, pero las clases presenciales y el contacto directo con cada uno de los alumnos es insustituible.

3/25/2020 04:40:29 am

Me interesa mucho como van los classes de arte plastico (¿se dice asi?). ¿Que pasa sin materiales y máquinas? ¿Que esfuerzos creativos floreceran con estas restricciones? Por favor, dejanos informados. Y p f, comparte esta pagina con tus redes profesionales.

Caitlin Atkins

3/19/2020 06:16:00 am

I am nearing the end of my first week teaching online. I am trying to remember that less is more. I do think that continuing to teach helps to preserve a sense of normalcy, and our (optional) office hours on Zoom provide students with critical personal connection and interaction.

Continuing to teach is also an opportunity to ensure that students think critically about what is happening in our world. My high school juniors listened to Code Switch's podcast on xenophobia around coronavirus and participated in an online discussion board. My sophomores will soon begin reading the Great Gatsby - there is much room to talk about how the current pandemic throws many of our national issues around wealth inequality, etc. into sharp relief.

That said, I think it's important for teachers to reflect on the true goal(s) of teaching during this time. The goal cannot be to cover the same content that would have been covered. If the goal is to provide structure, normalcy, connection and a platform for continuing to think critically about our world in these times, our strategies and assignments will need to change accordingly. Perhaps this will force us to reconsider aspects of our teaching that should have been re-evaluated anyhow.

Phaedra Mastrocola link

3/19/2020 09:54:03 am

Caitlin, thank you for these thoughts. I am a lower school teacher in spring break and have yet to begin to online learning. I especially like your last paragraph as it is captures exactly what I’ve been thinking. Would you mind if I post a snapshot of it on my Instagram acct: artmeta_with_msmastrocola? I will credit you in any way you prefer of course.

Caitlin R Atkins

3/19/2020 03:06:51 pm

Please feel free to post! You may include my name and high school teacher in MD if you wish, or can simply post my words without credit. Either is fine!

3/19/2020 06:18:23 am

With regards to equity, though, I think that my school is in a unique position. We already give all of our students iPads (for better or for worse) and have ensured that all students without reliable internet access will be given a hotspot. Certainly many other aspects of home life come into play, but it is perhaps those students with the most challenges at home that most need to structure and connection online learning at its best can provide.

Lisa Schalk

3/19/2020 06:39:03 am

Hi Eve, As you might remember, I teach nursery school, specifically three- and four-year olds. Before we went on Spring Break (two days earlier than anticipated), our Director asked us to prepare some information packets for families “in case” (how naive and hopeful we were we then) we did not return to school after Spring break ended. She asked us to think of “materials” and “activities” to suggest parents consider to fill the hours and days ahead with their young children. She also asked us to suggest ideas for daily “scheduling,” which initially many of my colleagues and I thought a bit ridiculous. Families know their young children, already have their routines, vary greatly in terms of circumstance, etc. But now that we are into the reality of “isolation,” I realize how important some semblance of routine is for children - for all of us. And if parents who might not be familiar with what this looks Iike might need some help, then let’s help them as educators is what I say. I tend to agree with those who have already responded above. Yes, life experience through this unprecedented time will surely yield its most important lessons about humanity, compassion, solidarity, solitude, and more. But I think to offer children of all ages a chance to hold on to connection through education, and some sense of routine, is important. I hope this is helpful. Lisa

3/25/2020 04:50:19 am

Thank you for your thoughts, Lisa. This situation holds particular challenges for early childhood educators. Please continue to keep us apprised.

Bill Liebeskind link

3/19/2020 06:42:31 am

Bill Liebeskind Here's hoping it fails. Let's find out that teaching must be done live, with people together interacting. IN REAL TIME. Learning in isolation is not a world I want to be a part of

3/25/2020 04:52:20 am

Curious to hear if you still feel this way after your first days teaching online. Working with you to create your art sharing/art crit site, I can already see how important the connection to and among your students is. Please share this page with your educator networks far and wide.

John Foster

3/19/2020 06:57:58 am

Hi, Eve--We're on Day Two of online learning; as someone noted in a comment above, keeping to routine is good for our students (and for us). I do think I have fewer challenges than some of my colleagues: I teach English, not a lab science, and I teach high school, not lower school, so I feel that have less pressure on me to reinvent things.

And, as one of my colleagues says, much of what makes the online classroom effective makes any classroom effective: he is a big believer in the exit ticket, for example, and has used that tactic routinely for years. Here are some links he gave us:

Brown University
https://www.brown.edu/sheridan/teaching-learning-resources/teaching-resources/course-design/classroom-assessment/entrance-and-exit/sample

The Owl Teacher (aim at elementary school teachers)
https://theowlteacher.com/24-exit-ticket-ideas/

Christian-based Homeschooling
(“If you were writing a quiz for today’s material, what are 2 questions you would put on it?” is a most excellent question.)
https://teach4theheart.com/10-exit-slip-prompts-that-will-work-for-any-class/

Scholastic
https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/blog-posts/rhonda-stewart/using-exit-tickets-assessment-tool/

3/25/2020 04:53:48 am

Thank you for posting and for the links, John. I imagine the home schooling community has a lot to teach us, during this time. Please come back to this page and let us know how it's going, moving forward.

Kate

3/19/2020 07:03:57 am

Check out on youtube !!! : “ If Coronavirus doesn’t kill you than Distance Learning Will “

3/25/2020 04:55:08 am

Love this, Kate. The humor and creativity on social media is a light.

Deanna Chappell Belcher link

3/19/2020 07:59:30 am

I keep vacillating too. For some students, who would be harmed by missing school, missing exams, not being able to graduate, sure. My sister teaches the kids who have failed Regents exams in the past and this year they get to try again. Odds are (statistically speaking) that if they don’t pass this, they will give up and drop out. No way is she gonna let them down. So she scrambled to get kids the tech they needed, let them take books home, and converted her google classroom to full online. I am so proud. *** but it is worth noting that she is able to do this, and the kids are on board, because of the in-person relationships they have built this year, AND her reputation at her school as the slightly wacky fun teacher who WILL NOT let you down. ❤️

3/26/2020 07:54:44 pm

Deanna, have the Regents been cancelled, since you posted this? What's the fallout for your sister's students?

Thank you for posting!

Dean Spencer

3/19/2020 09:23:04 am

Actually the largest learnings I am hoping from from this crisis is that there is such a thing as the public good, that we don't need all the things we've been led to believe that we need, and that it actually is important to select competent leaders (both elected and appointed) who are capable of seeing beyond short term greed. If anyone missed it, an increase in outbreaks of communicable diseases was only one of the predicted impacts of climate change ... so in some ways we are looking at the beginning of a new normal, as scary as that sounds.
As for the students we have now and in the near term future, the optimist in me is hoping for a combination of both. My middle school students (and I!) are also only a week in. All of us are learning more tech skills that we didn't have yet, and we'll probably pick up more. And they are already acutely aware of how much they miss the personal interactions with each other that are part of their subject learning, not only social. Yes, they'll keep learning things during the Time of Distancing if we aren't teaching them --but I suspect it will be pretty dominated by the moneyed producers of content who helped bring us to where we are, to we need to be able to use these platforms to provide some hope of balance.

3/25/2020 04:58:04 am

Absolutely, Dean. It's teacher agency and student voice against the neoliberal education industrial complex, right now. Here's hoping we win. Please come back to this page and post again, as you go forward with your virtual teaching. And pls. share this page with educators far and wide.

Rasha

3/19/2020 11:03:26 am

Benefits and drawbacks. We have successfully connected with about 80% of our families online. It’s been wonderful to have these tools available. That said, I really want to figure out how to support that other 20% and help them stay connected to the school community. In some cases, online learning is forcing adults to connect more that they otherwise would.

daniela

3/20/2020 05:29:55 am

eve! as always, thank you for encouraging dialogue, 'big picture' thinking, and bringing ppl together.

as an educator at a progressive school it is entirely unrealistic to mirror my 'program' online. our methods are liberated from grades and tests, workbooks and textbooks. often, even in social studies and math, we ask students to engage 'on their feet' and with paints and cardboard. the intangible, juicy morsels we experience every day (a kid stepping up to support another, a spontaneous exploration that leads us down an unknown path in the middle of the class) will be missed. we cannot do *this* work together, online.

on the other hand, the self-directed nature of our program will come quite in handy. my students will begin, as they wouldve after spring break, their independent research projects. and they will do fine (with much facilitations on my part, which is always part of the process). i AM concerned about being unable to mentor them through the reading and note taking stages, face-to-face, as they engage with adult-level texts, but it will be fine. it is what it is. seems like our end-of-year play based on the renaissance ppl they pursue will take a different format this year (i'm curious to hear what they want!).

collaboration is integral to our program, and, so, it is my task to figure out how to continue fostering it in our new setting. i must say, as daunting as it can feel, i am somewhat interested in exploring this possibility. how can students continue supporting one another? what tools can we use (and i want to use as few as possible) can make this happen?

at the heart of my school's pedagogy lies the idea," learning from children," and this i will do. continuing to preserve student voice throughout this strange time will be crucial. prioritizing the social-emotional is fundamental to their growth, i think, right now, and always.

more thoughts to come.

besos y abrazos

Royce Howes

3/20/2020 06:59:45 am

My first thought is that a primary value of on-line teaching is to provide a structure a schedule. It is important to make contact with students who are known to me, all those individuals.

I am an art teacher who has sent only one lesson on-line so far. Starting March 31st, I will be attempting to continue teaching my curriculum for the remainder of the term, but with a difference. I imagine shifting the focus of the learning objective from "the materials" to a theme, "Art is a Conversation". The guiding question is "In what ways is Art a conversation?" / I like the comment from Giunia (above), "be very lenient and understanding with all the challenges we and our students are facing. This is one time when, whatever we are teaching, our presence is more important than content or skill." I will now read the remainder of the comments before submitting another comment. Thank you for this forum, Eve!

3/20/2020 07:24:26 am

Thanks Royce. Just jumping in with a small piece of advice for all along these lines. I just realized that I made a big mistake in trying to assuage concerns by students about all their grade hinging on the final exam. I gave them optional OpEds to write for a few points each without realizing that there is a potential added amount of grading for me of about 900 pages. Make your calculations carefully :(

3/25/2020 05:09:14 am

Thank you for posting, Royce. I am actually supporting a public high school art teacher, right now, in his virtual teaching. We're doing some exciting stuff. I look forward to comparing notes. Please keep commenting!

Ann

3/24/2020 09:34:05 pm

Maybe I'm too late to enter this very interesting conversation, but I have just found the page and hope later comments like mine will still be viewed. I find the challenge of teaching what kids want to know about COVID-19 is as important as how and where it is taught. Whether online or not, the ability to provide answers and information in an ever-changing environment is a huge challenge. I think students want to know why, how, and where this health crisis is unfolding despite the different or unusual places they are learning. The settings may not be typical, but the desire to know as much as possible is.

3/25/2020 04:24:32 am

Not too late at all, Ann. Thank you so much for posting. I hope this will be a space where educators will continue to talk, over the next weeks and months. Please share this page with educators far and wide.

Amy Curtis

3/26/2020 11:48:50 am

As a second grade teacher in a Quaker school, my curriculum puts equal emphasis on the social/emotional learning as on the academic; our teaching is largely experiential, project-based, and interactive; the importance of community is key. Verrrryyyy hard to translate into this new, virtual world. Here are my early reactions, one-week in:

In an all-school faculty meeting on Wednesday, March 11, we were told that the next day would be our last day with students, that we would have Friday and Monday for training on a variety of virtual learning platforms, and we should be "ready to launch on Tuesday for an indefinite period.” The next day, Thursday March 12, felt wrenching, as we went through the motions of quickly packing up student materials — including newly decorated “Home Journals” — and forcing cheerful goodbyes. When I imagine returning to campus, I see the classroom as evidence of that traumatic day, with poignant relics: the sign-in board with a cheerful message and student comments, portfolios, my in-box of “finished work", published poetry on the walls exactly as we left it on that day. A mini ghost town, repeated in so many classrooms.

In Lower School we are primarily using Seesaw and I am also trying a smattering of Google Classroom and Zoom - a huge learning curve for me. Armed with new tech know-how, we were reassured that the expectation for teachers was NOT to recreate our normal curriculum, not to even try. We were tasked with uploading assignments by 4pm, and daily attendance taken by 9am. With that framework, I tried my best guess to discern what on earth is not-too-much- yet-just-enough amount of “work flow,” -- keeping in mind that family situations are all over the map in terms of want, need, and capability vis a vis telework situations, siblings, device access, and stress. Trying to maintain a sense of community while drowning in confusion, tech glitches, and emails from confused parents, I put some “Morning Message” type recordings and photos up with invitations to students to chime in— a fair approximation of a brick-and-mortar morning message. The reading-writing-math assignments that students turned in were sometimes hard to locate due to the variety of modalities; I tried to comment on every item to acknowledge their efforts. I questioned whether or not to “chase” after missing assignments. (No. Parents are overwhelmed is the message I am hearing loud and clear.) Concurrent with all of this was a constant stream of email and phone calls with equally stressed (though sometimes inspired) colleagues - sometimes helpful, sometimes counterproductive. The whole package was a full time-and-a-half frenzied endeavor for someone not used to eyeballs on the screen for prolonged periods.

Currently, this week of spring break is providing a breath of fresh air to pause and help me clear away the extraneous from the indispensable. I was flattened by our first impulsive week, and I am leery of recreating another bout of fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants decisions. (Not for lack of resources, not by any means; at every turn, another virtual educational resource provides another list of virtual educational resources, multiplying exponentially like… um, that other thing that we know is multiplying exponentially… unfortunate analogy, I know!) I am resolved to try again on Monday. I hope I can stay focused on the essential rather than add to all the clutter, which creates such undue stress. Wish me luck!

3/26/2020 12:32:44 pm

Thank you for sharing your experience so generously, Amy. You will undoubtedly keep a beautiful community going during this time.

3/27/2020 05:24:47 am

It/s Friday, one week into all of this. I've never felt more like saying TGIF than I do right now.

Highlights of the week: Logging on for the first class Meet and seeing my students faces, all smiles. Beautiful children so happy to see each other, to see me, and to be able to scream and shout and tease each other, albeit from their bedrooms. Did it really matter that my goal was to teach them something? Not really. The important thing was the connection that was being made. I introduced the lesson with a two minute speech about togtherness and being separate. And about how we were artists (I'm their art teacher) and that artists are sensitive and that many artists thrive in situations like the one we are in. I encouraged my kids to embrace their creativity and make great art, even now. And on the bottom right of my screen I noticed some chat comments from my students. "He's right. We can do great stuff!" "I'm drawing the emptiness outside my window."

Another hilight: My Stagecraft students, who are so technically slick, have created their own backgrounds. Rather than view them in their messy bedrooms they are sitting in front of pizza shops, Hawaiian palm trees and rock concerts. So fun!

Another hilghlight: The quality of my student's work is phenomenol. I told them that I've been trying to teach them all year how to work on their art independently and quietly. Now they don't have a choice. As a result, the work is super high quality. Funny how things turn out.'

BUT BUT BUT===Online learning is a real mess. I've spent seven hours a day answering student emails and organizing their work, grading it, sorting it into a million folders. My phone beeps every few seconds with another message about something that in a non virtual world wouldn'tt happen. I ask my students how things are going and they tell me they are swamped. Way too many assignments, ten million notifications. If you invite them to a group chat, they are reminded of it at least twenty-five times. Same for assignments.

I suppose a lot of this will get worked out over time. We can find better ways to communicate with each other. We can figure out whether Zoom or GoogleMeet or Blah Blah Dot Com or Zippety Doo Dot Com is the better platform. What we mustn't forget (and I think many of us have forgotten) is that we are teaching CHILDREN. Our goal MUST BE to keep them young and keep them curious and keep them free from the burdens that we as adults have to deal with.

Our kids are experts at online comunication. But what they do for fun with their computers and phones is far different than what we are tryihg to do with them virtually. We need to understand the situation and figure out how to make this work without taking their childhood away. We've already screwed it up enough.

Emma Tsai

3/27/2020 07:14:11 am

Hi there. We started this week on Monday, and it's been pretty hard for me. An overwhelming number of questions and messages all day long and I lose sense of time and I don't get that one on one I love so much about teaching teenagers. Every day is a little better, but...And then I am also managing my first grader's home schooling.

Debbie

3/27/2020 10:17:32 am

I teach 7th grade reading and Language arts in S.W. Florida. We've finished our first week of preparation, organizing, and learning new on line platforms. Our students start virtual learning on Monday.

However, I've already "zoomed" with 14 and it was fun!

At first, I was very apprehensive and not very optimistic. As this week has progressed and all of our admin and staff have come together to help each other, I am becoming more optimistic.

Here are some good things about this:
-no school shooters (sad, I know)
-no lock downs or fire drills
-no students throwing things, throwing up, talking, etc.
-I can go to the bathroom when I need to!
-I can eat when I'm hungry, drink when I'm thirsty.
-State testing has been cancelled!
-Our secondary students have had Chrome books for three years now so they are pretty familiar with them.
-No dress codes!
-Students who normally are occupied with advanced classes, sports, dance, etc. now actually have some free time to dream, imagine, be with their whole family, read, create, etc.
Cons:
-I miss the face to face interaction with my colleagues and students.
-Students miss the interaction with their friends and other adults.
-I'm worried about some of my students having so much time on their hands.
-I'm concerned that virtual learning will not be the best for some students. I know that I would rather sit in a classroom, than be on the computer all the time.

Maybe after next week, I'll feel differently.

Cheryl Hajjar

3/27/2020 12:32:07 pm

I teach Studio Practice in visual art and I return to teaching for the first time since our March 7th shut down on March 31. I also happen to be a student in a silk screen studio class that has gone on-line as if March 12.
It has been useful to have someone model this virtual teaching for me. But I know that everything I had envisioned for the second semester will be different. I miss being in a studio filled with presses, screens and inks in my entire body. Art making and teaching for me is incredibly visceral.
Most of my “teaching” is about one-on-one and small group interaction in the studio with the work and a wealth of materials at our fingertips. Now I am bogged down with ordering sets of materials to ship out to students in their homes, some who live on other continents! A lot of organizing!
My instructor has been wonderful in expanding the experience to be open-ended and I am hoping to do the same with my students. One thing that I will focus on is not ignoring what is happening in our world. I will ask them to pay attention to their day to day, right now and each day, under these circumstances. I will not try to replicate what we had but ask them to work along with me to create a new studio practice, in our own homes. We will meet synchronously to open up ideas, share, discuss, critique and build a structure. The bulk of the work will be asynchronous, however. And I plan do do my own work alongside theirs during that “studio” time. I want to experience this new way of learning directly alongside them.
I am excited to begin...but also nervous. My hopes are that we all come out if this with new perspectives on teaching and learning, and good health!

mia corvino

4/3/2020 05:56:54 pm

Hi Eve and thanks for giving us a place to share! I am an ELA high school teacher of 11th and 12th graders- I have two upper level classes and two lower level classes. I also have two teenagers, a sophomore and a senior, and a college sophomore, who was instructed to get out of her dorm as abruptly as we were asked to abandon our classrooms. In our department group chat before we went "live", there was a solid week of panic, resistance, and apprehension; the learning curve has been steep for all of us, but I am so happy to see their beautiful faces again. While it isn't the same and it isn't working perfectly, I see the need to maintain our connection with these young people, to support them, to listen to them, to keep them thinking, and to give them a break from this crisis they are living through.

So, no matter what "school" looks like, a sense of routine, normalcy and continuity with each other and with beloved teachers may be saving some of these children. During the time my children had "off", I was watching them steadily retreat into the silence of snapchat, instagram, netflix, and video games. They needed an escape, but eventually I had to force them away from their screens to interact with me. They are reluctant to process their emotions, especially my senior. Thankfully, his teachers got back in touch with him just in the nick of time, and though he won't readily admit it, he loves reuniting with his classmates and having structure in his days.

As for my students, they are documenting their experiences in their journals and while this is the best writing I have seen from most of them, one sentiment is universal:
"I never realized how much I loved going to school."

Catherine Klein

4/10/2020 08:30:28 am

As the weeks go on, and we adjust to a new normal as adults, I wonder what this means for some of my students.

I am worried about my students:
The ones that never log on
The ones that log on at midnight
The ones that used to log in, but now don’t
The ones that weren’t logging in but now do
The ones that ask for help
The ones that don’t
The ones that say they miss school
The ones that say they never want to go back
The ones whose parents work all day
The ones whose parents lost their jobs

I hope all my students are ok. This time is hard for adults, but don’t forget about the children.

Wayne-Daniel Berard

4/11/2020 11:54:12 am

I’m a career educator, 46 years — elementary, middle, high school, and for the last 33 years, college. These years have shown me this: that on-line education proceeds from the (perhaps unconscious) presumption that we are essentially computers, ongoing pieces of software and hardware. And so of course the best way for computers to “learn” is via computer technology — we need to be programmed rather than educated.

But this view is simply false. We are not machines; we are living organisms, made of mind, body, emotions, and those indescribables that often fall into the category of “spirit.” People learn best directly from other people, because all learning, regardless of subject, is learning about how to be a person! Most of the facts and figures I “learn” I will not retain, but the impact of the person sharing them with be — well or poorly — is permanent. And in every course, I am not so much learning physics or accounting or philosophy but how to be a human physicist, a human accountant, a human philosopher. Even in an IT course, I am not learning how to be a piece of technology (I hope to hell), but a human technologist. This, to me, is why online is essentially a contradiction in terms. Computers can only “educate” other computers. Interfacing is for the faceless, the soulless, the non-human. No thank you!

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