September 2004 — Web/Net
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Why I Teach Online
Identity is established through e-mail, discussion and papers written. As I get to know students in a physical class, I also get to know students in the virtual class. The odd problem associated with this is that when a student walks into the office, I do not know that student until I hear the name. Then, the two of us have a history of discussion and communication. Fortunately, later software versions allowed for the posting of images, which lets students post pictures and permits me to use images to aid them in the writing of certain papers.
Plagiarism, my other growing concern, is the same issue in a virtual class that it is in a physical class. Part of what we as English teachers have always done is pay attention to the voice and tone of the writer. It d'es not take long to learn the tone of individual writers. That voice comes through whether the writer is in the classroom or in their living room. When that voice changes, I begin to look for reasons for that change. I am also aware of tone and voice in the discussion area of the Web site and in the voice that comes from the e-mails of individual students. It is really no harder to keep up with the online students than it is to keep up with the in-class students. The disadvantage of finding plagiarism in online writing is that you cannot see who is doing the writing like you can when a student is sitting in a desk in your physical classroom. I have always worked under the assumption that if a student was paying someone to do the work, they would hire someone who was a good writer, not just a mediocre writer.
Online students do not have higher averages, better work or greater levels of eloquence. The advantage of finding plagiarism in online writing is that there are online tests for plagiarism. You can take a sentence or phrase from the paper and do a search, which will tell you if an equivalent line or sentence is found. One more factor is that my assignments have specific characteristics that students must meet in order to complete the assignment: an essay strategy and specific assignment requirements. These characteristics are not met in the common Web site offering online essays. One last factor in insuring against plagiarism is the requirement of proctored testing; thus, the final essay in my composition class must be written with a proctor. This requires students to show a picture ID in order to write the final. Once submitted, each essay is checked for its consistency with the work done by the student during the semester.
The Great Student Equalizer
By 2002, I found that the majority of my students were taking online classes to meet their work or life schedules. Mothers, plant workers, salesclerks at the mall, and students holding two or three part-time jobs can take a few online classes to better their job potential. They are willing to spend the time late at night or between jobs taking the distance classes because that is the only time they have to take classes.
Studying and teaching online initially takes more time than learning or teaching in a classroom. But, come to think of it, the first time I taught a "classroom" class, it also took more time than it did later. Online teaching is an evolution of ideas and processes; you do not take everything from the classroom and put it on the Web. Online teaching is made up of some lecture, some text references, some links to active sites that help students understand the intention of the course, the inclusion of images and sound (if possible), and review of ideas and basics through testing and articles posted for reading.
