Hootcourse: Link between social networking and learning platforms

Hoot course is a very useful tool for a couple of reasons. With a younger  cohort of students, it makes use of a familiar communication tool that  they use every day and incorporates it into learning. Thus, as an instructor, I enter into the students’ world. I meet them on their own turf and invite them into a common learning environment. With older students who do not use Twitter every day, Hootcourse serves as an introduction to a communication tool that is as common to younger students as telephones and televisions are to older students. In order to survive intellectually and professionally, we need to help our students remain relevant and contemporary. Sometimes, that means pushing them beyond their comfort zones. Although Hoot Course may not be the perfect learning platform, it  bridges an important social networking tool to a blogging tool that can be embedded in a more sophisticated classroom platform. It can also combine the social networking environment with a traditional F2F environment.  Hootcourse is not meant to be used alone, but combined without learning tools it can be part of an effective learning system. I intend to use this tool again.

My biggest challenges in transitioning from F2F environment to an online environment

It’s hard to believe, but I’m in my 10^th year of teaching online! At this point, all I feel comfortable saying is that I have learned a lot about online learning and I know the difference between online teaching and F2F teaching. That may sound like a simple – even silly – statement. But I didn’t always know the difference. In fact, when I started teaching online, I was completely unaware that there was a difference between the two, other than the fact that one was in real space and time and the other was in virtual space and time. The hardest transition for me was developing a new set of teaching skills specifically designed to capitalize upon the strengths and advantages of virtual space and time and minimize the disadvantages. The training and resources available to faculty now are so much better, but even if I had the advantage of those resources, I would still need to expand my consciousness as a teacher in ways I did not imagine in F2F teaching.  I had to learn not just about making myself present in virtual time and space, but how to use my own virtual presence to draw others into a virtual instructional space that was engaging and transformative. My ability to achieve these goals is developing over time. I realize in the course how little I know and how much I have to learn.  Between the technologies available to teachers and the research about teaching and learning that is continually coming out, I have realized that I am always going to be transitioning because virtual learning is dynamic. The day I say “I have transitioned’ will be the day I hang up my laptop.