I was hoping to give myself some clarity as to how I feel about online learning and degrees with the term paper from the professorate class. It is about is clear as a cup of mud. One the one hand, it has the potential to reach so many more people. On the other, it seems so unengaging and that you could mail in the effort. I have taken a few classes online, and they were simply exercises in information regurgitation from prerecorded lectures and PowerPoints. We had ‘discussions’ on forums about various topics. The level of discussion never seemed to approach that of in-person discussion, in my opinion. Knowing how much work went into my Master’s degree, I felt cheated that people could represent themselves the same way I do with an online Master’s degree. The University of Nebraska-Lincoln offers a MS in entomology both online and traditionally. Again, I get it that online courses allow people to gain more knowledge at nearly any stage of life. It allows people access to a college education, provided they have internet. I would have to agree that online learning is not effective learning. Call me an idealist, but I think higher education should still be about developing critical thinking. From my interactions with online learning, I don’t see that happening. It feels more like checking boxes to get a piece of paper that will allow you to check more boxes.

Before that soapbox got slid under my feet, I was going to bring up the concept of the flipped classroom. That is essentially what you describe in the last paragraph. It does seem like a good way forward in our technology crazed world. Having never experienced that type of classroom, I do wonder about student engagement. Would they read and come prepared to discuss?

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To your point about speaking perfectly, I am terrified of that. I’m constantly second guessing ever scrap of grammatical knowledge I have. Sometimes I get lost in making sure my sentences are grammatically sound instead of the message. Akin to a bad speech that leaves everyone remembering that it was bad and not what it was about. I think sometimes I am the Oprah of commas. This, word, gets, a ,comma, that, word, gets, a, comma, everyone, gets, a, comma,.

In seriousness though, I don’t think we should be scared of taking a position on something. That position will be documented; but, if we change our minds, we can show that change through our blogging. We are then able to explain the thought process that lead us to the new position. You would hope that people would follow that journey, and not be cheap click bait folks.

That is a good way to think about blogging. For me, the struggle is that I just hate sharing things about myself on the internet. I did hate running too, but the realization was it is the easiest way to exercise. Using that logic, I’m trying hard to use Twitter. I think it is a bit easier to use that instead of blog. However, it is hard to develop and transform ideas using only a couple hundred characters. I did like that suggestion from one of the readings that blogging is a great way to develop your ideas.

Maybe trying to keep it rolling after classes are over could work. There isn’t much to do on the Eastern Shore during the summer. I do know that this would be one of the first things dropped if I needed more time for real work. I also believe that a hiring committee is going to care more about publications and other qualifications. I would rather focus on that. I’m sure if a blog was popular enough you could leverage that; but, I don’t anticipate my blog reaching superstar status.