Looking back....
Been doing some of that, the last couple of days... two separate tracks, but leading the same way.
By the end of 2005, my last contract as a face-to-face OU tutor will have disappeared into the archives. From my first encounter with online learning, I knew that was the way I wanted to go, but it still feels strange having arrived there! Tonight I've been throwing out redundant stockpiles of printed tutorial handouts & thinking how different things were in the year 2000 when I was "performing" F2F three times a week in a blur of medication....
Last night, I was throwing out old computer-related stuff, but daughter #3 intervened to preserve our Very First Computer. She's too young to remember it, but happily plugged everything together & played with Mavis Beacon v2 (DOS). We reconstructed a timeline of our family computer history - first PC spring 1994 (how many people nowadays know that Olivetti made PCs?), first Internet-enabled PC spring 1997 (IBM Aptiva), right up to today's hybrid home network with broadband.
I know I had a life before computers, but it seems a long, long time ago in another world.
By the end of 2005, my last contract as a face-to-face OU tutor will have disappeared into the archives. From my first encounter with online learning, I knew that was the way I wanted to go, but it still feels strange having arrived there! Tonight I've been throwing out redundant stockpiles of printed tutorial handouts & thinking how different things were in the year 2000 when I was "performing" F2F three times a week in a blur of medication....
Last night, I was throwing out old computer-related stuff, but daughter #3 intervened to preserve our Very First Computer. She's too young to remember it, but happily plugged everything together & played with Mavis Beacon v2 (DOS). We reconstructed a timeline of our family computer history - first PC spring 1994 (how many people nowadays know that Olivetti made PCs?), first Internet-enabled PC spring 1997 (IBM Aptiva), right up to today's hybrid home network with broadband.
I know I had a life before computers, but it seems a long, long time ago in another world.
posted by bluefluff @ 3:10 AM
3 Comments:
At 03 November, 2005 06:45,
Bill said…
Hello Lynne,
It seems a long time since A171! As a student I'm also a fan of online learning, but I sometimes feel that the divide is growing between those who embrace the online environment and those who find it daunting.
At 04 November, 2005 03:09,
bluefluff said…
Hi Bill - long time no blog!
Not sure whether there's a bigger divide, or just a more varied range of people on the online side than there used to be.
I run online tutorials with low particiaption (whereas maybe five years ago there was a novelty value that kept people intrigued) but my F2F tutorials occasionally left me talking to an empty room this year, too.
In my more cynical moments, I wonder if this has more to do with a general drift towards wanting something for nothing ("I've paid my fees - give me my points")rather than the on- or off-line location of the learning space.
Good job I'm not cynical all the time, eh? :-)
At 04 November, 2005 11:47,
kat said…
Online learning is still very new to most people and they think it is an individual or a passive form of learning. Believe it or not there are people out here who have barely heard of online forums and those who have are still talking about them rather than participating. Those who want a simple transfer of skills and want to imitate rather than learn for themselves will never take to conferencing or blogging. Additionally many people are still not confident enough with computers or in using the Internet. And of course there is always the fear of looking like a complete fool. It is one thing to look like a fool in a classroom but quite another to be permanently on record as one.
My first computer was a mainframe. :-)
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