Spring08: Meet and Greet

With the beginning of the new year and the new semester, I thought I would use this Classroom2.0 blog space as a way to keep a kind of running diary of the semester. I haven't really been sure what to do with this blog space since I keep some other blogs already (http://bestlatin.net), but it would probably be useful in all kinds of ways to keep a running record of a new semester, charting the ups and downs. Luckily, it is mostly ups! I love teaching my classes, and the beginning of the semester is a fun and exciting time.

The theme for this blog post is MEET AND GREET. I have such a good time "meeting" the students in my online class. I am able to make a memorable connection with them right from the start of the semester, each one, individually. That is so different from the "cattle call" experience of teaching in the classroom, as I recall (I've been teaching fully online since 2002, though... so my memories of the classroom are increasingly dim, ha ha). Because everybody is not herded into a small classroom for to meet all at once all at the same time, the pace of the online course lets me do a "meet and greet" with each person individually... yes, it's Walmart, and I gladly put an online shopping cart of learning into their hands, ha ha.

The Spring semester starts officially on January 14. I always try to make my classes available at least one week early, and this time I even managed to do it a few days earlier than planned, on January 2 (yesterday). I got the websites ready to go, set up the course management system (Desire2Learn - ugh! more about that later), and then sent out an email to all the students in the classes letting them know it was ready to go. I've got three courses (Myth-Folklore, World Literature, Indian Epics), with a total of 100 students combined. I encourage students to get started early on the classes, and there are always students ready and eager to go.

Of the 100 students, 35 of them already wrote me back that same evening - students are definitely online creatures, and I don't have any trouble contacting them this way (although I later try to minimize use of email in class, and do the communication through blogs and discussion boards). Over the next couple of weeks, all 100 of them will be checking in, but because they do it one at a time, I can keep up with them easily. I use Gmail to manage my email, and as the initial email comes in, Gmail automatically adds that to my address book, plus I upload the student's image from the photo roster, so I can put faces to names. The first email is totally open-ended, with them asking any questions they have about the class. Mostly they are just eager to get started and don't have any specific questions, but if they do have an urgent question or concern, I can address that right away.

Then, they set up a Bloglines blog and do an Introduction post there - a few students also did that already last night, so I had some blog posts to read already this morning: yeah!!! I read those Introduction posts as they are published, and then the students read each other's blogs at random throughout the semester, a few blogs per week.

Anyway, I've got lots of administrative work to do today, setting up the script that randomly assigns the blogs, creating a "Comment Folder" for each student in the course management system, etc. etc. - but the names are no longer just names, but are now getting connected to people... so much more personable than the classroom classes I used to teach, even if I do not meet all these students face to face.

:-)