Head in the Clouds
The internet has transformed teaching at AUB to such an extent that one may safely claim our heads are now in the clouds. Ever since the learning management system WebCT (now called BlackBoard) was adopted at AUB, our lives have been taking a different turn. The chalkboard and class handouts have been replaced with online course material within a much more interactive framework. Although we have not yet reached the stage of the “paperless faculty” envisioned by a former dean, teaching and learning will never be the same again at AUB.
Back in 2001 I took to WebCT like a fish to water although my computer experience was quite limited. I was the first teacher to use an LMS in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences though I’ll have to admit I didn’t plunge deeply into it till 2004. By that time my teaching had become substantially web-enhanced.
This year – after years of training in online and blended learning (most of it voluntary) - I have finally transformed one of my courses from face-to-face into blended/hybrid format, meaning I have placed enough material and activities online to actually eliminate more than a quarter of class contact hours in that course. Moodle, the LMS AUB now uses instead of WebCT, has definitely made its mark. Lecture notes and assignment submission, glossaries and discussions, team projects, wikis, videos, and other supplementary material are now all accessible on or through Moodle. Without it, most faculty and students would be like fish out of water.
I enjoyed teaching online – and still do – and when the process was still new, I researched it thoroughly, giving conference presentations and publishing a number of articles about it. The next step after web-enhanced and hybrid/blended courses would be a far riskier one: 100% online course delivery. I doubt that AUB will ever want to reach that stage. Besides, from my latest continuing education interactions with Illinois Online Network participants, I have gathered that many blended courses were created as a step back from the fully online format rather than the other way around.
Having one’s head in the clouds does not mean floating in the cloud altogether. One’s feet must be kept firmly on the ground.
Note: While the term “cloud” is used metaphorically here, “cloud computing” in the strict technical sense of the term could mean hosting of data and applications on remote servers such as those of Google and Microsoft. See, for example, this InfoWorld definition of “What Cloud Computing Really Means” and this University of London Computer Centre blog entry: “Moodle in the Cloud”.
Posted by May Mikati on 22 June 2011, 4:07 PM
The internet has transformed teaching at AUB to such an extent that one may safely claim our heads are now in the clouds. Ever since the learning management system WebCT (now called BlackBoard) was adopted at AUB, our lives have been taking a different turn. The chalkboard and class handouts have been replaced with online course material within a much more interactive framework. Although we have not yet reached the stage of the “paperless faculty” envisioned by a former dean, teaching and learning will never be the same again at AUB.
Back in 2001 I took to WebCT like a fish to water although my computer experience was quite limited. I was the first teacher to use an LMS in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences though I’ll have to admit I didn’t plunge deeply into it till 2004. By that time my teaching had become substantially web-enhanced.
This year – after years of training in online and blended learning (most of it voluntary) - I have finally transformed one of my courses from face-to-face into blended/hybrid format, meaning I have placed enough material and activities online to actually eliminate more than a quarter of class contact hours in that course. Moodle, the LMS AUB now uses instead of WebCT, has definitely made its mark. Lecture notes and assignment submission, glossaries and discussions, team projects, wikis, videos, and other supplementary material are now all accessible on or through Moodle. Without it, most faculty and students would be like fish out of water.
I enjoyed teaching online – and still do – and when the process was still new, I researched it thoroughly, giving conference presentations and publishing a number of articles about it. The next step after web-enhanced and hybrid/blended courses would be a far riskier one: 100% online course delivery. I doubt that AUB will ever want to reach that stage. Besides, from my latest continuing education interactions with Illinois Online Network participants, I have gathered that many blended courses were created as a step back from the fully online format rather than the other way around.
Having one’s head in the clouds does not mean floating in the cloud altogether. One’s feet must be kept firmly on the ground.
Note: While the term “cloud” is used metaphorically here, “cloud computing” in the strict technical sense of the term could mean hosting of data and applications on remote servers such as those of Google and Microsoft. See, for example, this InfoWorld definition of “What Cloud Computing Really Means” and this University of London Computer Centre blog entry: “Moodle in the Cloud”.
Posted by May Mikati on 22 June 2011, 4:07 PM
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