The Telecommuting English Teacher
I have to admit something: After about a year of fighting the insane traffic of my beloved Mexico City, I’ve often found myself daydreaming about teleclasses.
What would a 30 second commute be like? Where all you had to do was walk down your hall, and turn on your computer to hook up with your student via internet?
You could say goodbye to traffic. Goodbye to wasted time if your student didn’t show. No more saying no classes because you would arrive home too late at night.
The benefits are plenty, and they’re not just for the teacher. Students could take classes wherever, and whenever they wanted to. Classes would be cheaper in theory. Few to no books to buy. An endless source of customizeable content on the web.
I’ve read of AJ’s experiment with this, but and correct me if I’m wrong, it just didn’t seem to fly.
Why? Why would something, with so many advantages to offer, be so hard to actually do?
Today I came across two articles via edtechtalk.com , (sorry but I lost the exact link where these articles were mentioned) that got me thinking about the whole idea of teleclasses again. It seems to be working for them…
A Tutor Half a World Away, but as Close as a Keyboard - New York Times
and
For students, outsourcing makes help only a half world away.
I wish I remember where I read this, but a recent survey on university students who did online courses said that they liked online for convenience’s sake, but missed the human contact.
check your email?
good luck with the tele-commuting, but I think it would lead to insanity…
there is something important about getting outside of your four walls, about skin-to-skin contact. I think you may like the first day or week, but soon you will be craving human contact that isn’t virtual…
Comment by james matthew — March 14, 2006 @ 10:55 pm
I took four University courses online while I was living in South Korea teaching English (I can simpathize with living in a big polluted city and getting around every day). Some of the aspects of online learning were great: working by my schedule, not having to travel to classes, eating and sitting in my underwear while “at school”, etc. But overall, my impression was that it was easier to BS my way through the courses. Required readings were easier to avoid doing or simply block quote. I got good grades, but was happy to be back in the physical classroom after my return to BC. Like James has said, interacting in person is powerful and hard to replicate on line. I like learning in person much better.
Perhaps it comes down to learning/personality styles. Maybe the reason online courses get good reviews is because the students who take these courses are the technologically minded (or it could be that the courses often are easier to “cheat” your way through - many students would appreciate this).
In answer to your question from a week ago: I have just recently started blogging. Here’s the URL if you are interested: http://mark.lamden.org/respons.able.life
-Mark
Comment by Mark — March 15, 2006 @ 2:47 am