Life Online… Are we ready?

Thinking about the effective use of online tools

It’s been a bit more hectic than usual, and my blog has been severely rejected. That’s not to say that I haven’t been busy, I have, however postings have been in the form of learning content amidst work and life rather than the traditional blog post that finds it’s way to the forefront. What I’ve been up to, well you can check out my ever evolving basecamp portfolio to find out, but what’s on all of our minds now is “the new norm”, whatever that means.

Here we are in world where “social distancing”, “online meetings”, “new technology”, and “asynchronous and synchronous online interactions” are becoming our new norm. For how long, who knows. In the midst of it all one can’t help but wonder if an external source is pushing us in a direction we should already have been prepared to go on our own.

I saw online learning, meetings, interactions, and work as the wave of the future a number of years ago. That year for us came when my mid-high school son had a gun pulled on him just off of the high school campus, but no-one in any level of authority saw it, and he said he wasn’t going back to school. So what did we do? We sought other learning opportunities for him. That meant, a technical school for a 2 year culinary degree, early college, and online school to carry him through is last two years of high school. His brother enrolled in early college and online school that same year and in the end what I saw was a couple of brothers who were learning things I thought they should have been learning all along, not only at home, but in school.

They learned finance and economics that applied to them instead of the high school “academics” that really wouldn’t lead them into a sustainable life. They left behind the coursework that might help them get into the best colleges, which they both did anyway, and the academics that weren’t giving them what they needed to navigate life. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a learner at heart, an academic who will always love to learn and grow, but I think pubic education in K-12 should be about teaching students what they need to know to make it in this world, expanding horizons, created well rounded humans, the focus should not be test scores and entrance exams. When they are mature enough to choose a path, then pick up the gauntlet of teaching and learning things like calculus, anatomy, and other material that pertains to their chosen path, if those subjects are part of the path they wish to pursue. With the availability of online learning today, it’s time we recognized that sky high student loans are not the choice of many young learners today who can and will find a different way to learn and navigate their futures. There are so many options in this new world it can be daunting for those who didn’t grow up in the midst of it, but change is in the wind.

So here we are, pushed into online learning in many ways. Pushed into it through a virus around us that still promises to reveal what the final impact will be. The question is, a virus pushed us in that direction, but were we ready? I don’t know that we were. As instructors, teachers, and professors amongst others, strive to find an effective way to teach online… I can only hope that they turn to the research and the people who have invested their time in trying to learn what makes for effective online teaching. It surely is not just turning on Zoom and recording a lecture from a remote place, a lecture that may be viewed live, or recorded so students can turn to it as they have time while they navigate these major changes themselves.

Yes, Zoom, Skype and the like are great tools when used effectively, and for now they are the best way to get through the end of this year while keeping our students on track with their education. My hope and my plea is that instructors look for the best ways to set up their courses, that they either learn about engaging students on line, or they turn to someone to help them pick up the mantel and prepare an online course to either roll out for the next semester, or to hold on the sidelines to pull in at some point in the future so they can effectively stand in the gap should something like COVID-19 happen in the future.

We have the tools, why not use them?