Kevin Norris

English 665/Final Copy

Professor Rodrigo

October 7, 2014

                Having a steady online teaching job has always been a goal of mine. There are several
reasons. First and foremost, I like the flexibility of an online class.
Throughout the years, I have taken several online courses, some at the
University of Phoenix and some at Northern Arizona University. I was able to work
around my children’s schedule, which enabled me to participate in their lives.  I have also taken several computer courses (e.g.
web design). Before going back to school full time this semester at Old Dominion
University, I worked at Tidewater Community College. I taught English as a
Second Language. Some semesters, I taught 12 credits and found myself missing
my children’s activity, something that is, in my opinion, unacceptable. I had
decided that teaching online would be the best fit for me. Though my experience
with teaching online was anything but perfect, I still want to find a steady
job teaching online.

When I first heard that Virginia Beach Public Schools was going to be offering
online classes, I got very excited. Therefore, I attended training in 2010 to
teach online classes for Virginia Beach Public Schools. Each summer, I applied
and each summer, I only received a brick and mortar classroom assignment. This
routine repeated until last year, I really buckled down, sent out a resume,
listing all my credentials, and was so excited when Bruce Harrison said, “Hey
Kevin, you want a job this summer.”

            “This is going to be easy,” I said to myself, “I can work
at four in the morning, two in the morning, whenever I want.  And the best thing, no behavior problems.” I
believe some of the students felt the same. Little did I know, the experience
would be one of the most challenging experiences of my teaching career.

            The big day came-the Friday before the start of class. I
tapped my pen waiting for the four-hour employee in-service to begin. We were
going given all the pertinent information pertaining to emailing, calling
parents, basically the expectations of what the teacher was supposed to do. After
going over the expections, we had to create a News Item. Mine turned out OK and
I thought I had the hang of it. So I thought.

            Desire2Learn is a Virtual classroom that is designed by a
company. The classroom is already built for the instructor. However, the teacher
has the power to modify modules, create quizzes, create News Items, basically,
modify the program to meet the needs of the students. The primary
responsibility of the teacher is to create News Items, give feedback, contact
parents, take phone calls, give reminders and repair broken links. Needless to
say, I didn’t put enough space in the padding of my first News Item,  and what the students saw was far different
than what I saw and what I intended.

            The above picture is a screen shot of a New Item.

Giving feedback wasn’t that much of a problem; except at first, I was giving feedback
on everything. I spent eight hours a day writing notes. Then, as I was
imitating a student (we could pretend we were the student), I noticed another
class. Because I’m a curious creature, I checked to see what the other teacher,
a seasoned online instructor, was doing. 
   Wow, I was being way too zealous. She only commented on a few things;
therefore, I modified the time spent on comments and limited my comments to major
assignments such as essays and multimedia productions.

            The latter of the list was probably the most difficult. First, not only did I have to figure out how to link from the module to the course content, I had made sure I wasn’t breaking copyright regulations. At first, fixing the broken links was very difficult. I didn’t know how. However, like everything else and after a couple of student complaints, I was able to do fix the broken links.

The above link is a screen shot of the Content Area.

The above is a screen shot of the Drop Box area. 

I had always thought that students took online courses because it was something
they wanted to do and that contacting parents would be at a minimum.
Nevertheless, I found myself calling more parents during six weeks, teaching
27sttudents han I had called during the whole school year, teaching five
classes totaling about 150 students. Nevertheless, that wasn’t the complicated
parts. With the new laws, students have more rights. I had to make sure that
the parents I called were not students who were over 18, which made calling on
the fly very difficult.

            Then the phone calls came. One of the requirements was to
set telephone office hours. We were required to have one during the morning, one
in the evening, and one during the weekend. I set two during the morning, one in
the evening, and one during the weekend. However, I did not receive one phone
call during my telephone office hours’ time. I received calls and texts at
11pm, 12pm and 1pm. Of course, I got in the habit of staying up later.

            Another one of the requirements was to offer an online
conference with students. I set up my online conference using FUZE, which is a
free conference site. No one showed. Furthermore, we were required to have two
face-to-face conferences. No one showed.

The  above is a screen shot offering conferences.

            Then time ran out. After offering to allow students to go
back to the first semester to make up work and offering extra credit, some students
still failed. Then I encountered something I have never experienced before. The
text read, “You make me want to commit suicide.” Write away, I began making
phone calls. I called several people from downtown, who instructed me to call
every number that was given (six in all). However, only one number worked. I
left a message. I sat back and waited for the phone call. The call came while I
was working. The student’s father apologized for his child and stated that she
was simply angry because she failed.

            Overall, teaching online was an enlightening experience.
It turned out to be more work than teaching in a brick and mortar assignment.
Nevertheless, the prose outweighed the negatives. The flexibility is priceless.
I look forward to teaching it again next summer.

            Digital Component Using Flash (Double click the red button and then the spacebar)

http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/27699408/

Comment on this page