Week Three Recap: WBC's

It's Sunday night once again and so now the internet gets another wrap up on my experiences with ICT.  The topic of the week was Web Based Courses.  Though I have not taken or taught any WBC's in the past I have still been close enough to them from a number of angles to have something of an opinion.  For starters, they're excellent.  One of the greatest advantages to living in this digital age is the ability that we have to conduct such things as lessons online.

In my first year of university in Minot, ND I was fortunate to spend a day in Minot High School shadowing a teacher.  One of the things that resonates in my memory of that day is watching the man I was shadowing conduct a lecture via correspondence with no more than a dozen rural students. Though I received only a brief overview of the online program, the fact that this was happening certainly exceeded my expectations of what I was going to see that day.  I have also been exposed to the idea of distance education through my father who has taught more than a few over his years working at Assiniboine Community College. The third party that I have discussed WBC's is my cousins who live in a hamlet outside of Tulon Manitoba.  In each of these cases, the main point was that WBC's are great for students who live in smaller schools.  The best thing about WBC's is that they make all sorts of course content available to all students regardless of where they live (assuming there is internet.)  Obviously I think this is great for most of Manitoba as the majority of schools are in rural communities.

I can not stress enough how much I am in favour of WBC's existing, however I am not sure that my calling is to create and moderate one myself.  Though I do consider myself tech savvy in comparison to the baby boomers working in the educational system, I feel this type of work may be best left to a more organised individual.  A huge part of why I want to teach has to do with the in person aspects. For instance I find that I excel with classroom management and my experience as a performer makes me much more adept at interacting with students in person.  More than adhering to my strengths however, I find that I need human interaction throughout the day to stay sane.  I am not sure that moderating a WBC would fulfil that need of mine.

Web Based Courses are an excellent resources to people all over the world...but someone else should teach them.