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Educator's Voice

Volume 4, Issue 5
May 14, 2003

Keeping Virtual Teachers and Teaching Real

When eCollege^SM asked me to write an article for its newsletter, I was greatly honored to think that a junior college art teacher could write something for a national audience. This opportunity is a direct result of the wonderful new technological world in which we educators now live. It is my sincere wish that all educators would now join us in the joys and tribulations of using this new technology. Through the wonders of the Internet, we teachers can find almost any information, pictures, videos, and maps instantly. With a data projector, these found materials can be shown directly to the classes. Both Internet and on-campus classes can be sent to sites for information far more extensive and current than any printed text could achieve.

An example of a teacher using online material is my good friend and fellow colleague, Dr. James J. O'Donnell, currently Professor of Classics and Provost at Georgetown University, Washington D.C. It is with his permission, and my hearty endorsement, that I show you his short video, which sums up the opportunities that we have available to us.

I have had a lot of fun for 35 years by helping my art students each year with real-life art projects, such as: a stained glass window for the bell tower of our school, relief animal sculptures for the March of Dimes fund drive, a huge mobile for a local private school, billboard designs, painting a truck and van for the Jaccs's haunted house, murals for a local park's walls, and many more. Therefore, I wanted to keep this same first-hand experience of art as a part of my Internet courses. The first semester that my drawing class was offered online, I included this tangible element by printing out their final drawings on large, oversized ledger paper to allow them to be displayed and judged in the same end-of-semester exhibit with our on-campus students. Those who lived too far from Tyler to get their award ribbons were sent their awards by mail.

That participation was my first small step into adding more reality into the IT art class. When I put my design class online, I told the students that they had a long heritage of design classes doing school and community art projects. I asked if they would like to do similar things, even though, as an Internet class, many of them would never even set foot in Tyler, Texas. Currently, we have done several projects completely online for some classes. Recently, we did a combination of online and actual meeting at the Tyler Hotel Sheraton for the construction of its chosen computer-generated rose design. The student who designed the winning rose was one of the Virtual College of Texas students from a college and city other than Tyler, Texas. However, the student was so excited that her design won that she made the trip to Tyler to assist a group of local students from the class in actually constructing and installing the rose. To see the completed circle from "virtual" to "reality" gave me a great feeling of accomplishment.

There are many ways that we educators can keep our Internet teaching and ourselves "real." The main thing is to be the same good, concerned, conscientious, instructors on the Internet that we are on-campus. Your personality as an instructor can, and will, come across to your Internet students, as surely as it does to your on-campus students. To practice what I preach, I answer emails as quickly as possible, and I always warn my students if I will be off-line for a while. In return, I expect and require the same quick turnaround from my students in both response emails and when sending attached art work. I add little things, like sending attachments to my students emails: animated cartoon animals encouraging them to try harder, or animations of balloons rising to say congratulations, and an animated fireplace burning warmly when school was closed for snow and ice. These personal touches, in conjunction with the actual contests and projects, have kept my students aware that I am a real person, and that they are a real part of a real art class that does real things, even though it is all done in a primarily virtual environment.

If you are not into Internet teaching yet, then you don't know what you are missing! Yes, you can believe some of the horror stories you have heard other faculty telling each other about it, but the feelings of satisfaction you get, once you are past the tough beginning stage in Internet teaching, are very real. Your students' work and emails will reflect the reality of getting and understanding your information. It is what I call that "light bulb" of recognition that you see over their heads in the on-campus classes. To me, their epiphanies are the most real rewards of teaching. If you value reality in your classes now, then give IT your best effort, and I can assure you the virtual world will be equally as real and rewarding.

       --C. J. Cavanaugh, Jr.
          Art Instructor / Coordinator
          Faculty Innovation Center
          Tyler Junior College, Tyler, TX

          email: ccav@tjc.edu
          website: http://arts.tjc.edu/ccav

C. J. Cavanaugh, Jr. has been teaching studio art and art appreciation for 35 years at Tyler Junior College in Tyler, Texas. He began to use computers as a part of his drawing classes as early as 1978. Cavanaugh is an award-winning commercial artist as well as an art teacher. A continual goal in his classes is to include "real-life" art examples and to use the most up-to-date art equipment. When Internet classes began to be established at Tyler Junior College, it was only natural that his Drawing I class be "recreated" to be taught electronically. eCollege thanks him for his contribution to Educator's Voice!

TIP

Using Announcements Effectively

As many of you may already know, eCollege^SM has released new enhancements to our course platform. One of these features is the ability to add dates to Course Announcements.

How it works:
In the Author mode of Course Home, you (course authors/instructors) will see the start and end dates of each announcement. To edit the display dates of the announcement, simply expand the announcement, and choose "edit." When creating a new announcement, you can choose the start and end display dates. In Author mode, you will always see an archive of ALL announcements - those that displayed in the past, present, or will post in the future. Your students see only the ones for the dates specified. (If you don't specify dates, the announcements will be posted for the duration of the term).

What it means:
You can now determine exactly when to display and withdraw announcements on the course homepage. One of the things you can do is create multiple announcements at once and selectively post them at certain dates, over the duration of the course. So, you could have all of the announcements that are standard for a course (a Welcome Announcement, for instance) ready and available and assign dates for the system to automatically post the announcements on the date(s) you've set up.

Using Announcements:
The Course Announcements feature can be used to make your life as an instructor a little easier:

• Use them to welcome the class
• Use them to answer similar questions from multiple students via email (this will lessen your email load and give all students additional course information)
• Use them to post reminders for assignment due dates and/or upcoming exams
• Use them to summarize each unit's threaded discussions - "unit wrap-ups"
• Use them to alert students of changes in the course schedule and/or of emergencies that may come up

And, if you do use the Announcements area often, it's probably a good idea to tell students - in the Syllabus, for instance - this as well. :)

       --Errin Klein, M.A.