Interaction in online courses

Origin:
1740–5 0; inter-  + act

interact. Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/interact (accessed: June 13, 2012).

I like the division because it emphasizes the "act" part.

The first time a taught an online class with Blackboard I learned a couple of things about interactivity.

First, I had a student that had taken a class from me before. He sat at the back of the room and never said a word. I noticed that he was quite active on the discussion board. When I saw him at an art opening I remarked that he was more active on the discussion board than he had ever been in the classroom. I asked him why. His response was short. "I don't like speaking in public."

The second thing I learned was by accident. I had to be out of town for a conference and I posted an announcement telling the class that I would have limited access to the Internet but that they should continue the week's discussion.

My previous pattern of discussion board activity was to check on it hourly and to "encourage" the students by commenting on every post. Despite that, the discussion board was a pretty boring place with each student posting and then replying to my reply.

In fact I never looked at the discussion board while away.

When I returned to town on Sunday I opened the discussion and I was amazed. Without me constantly posting the students had begun to talk among themselves. The exchanges were interesting and numerous. Instead of interacting me with me, the students were interacting amongst themselves. Lesson learned. Teacher: do not dominate the discussion.