I am currently taking a course on using Moodle, developing a professional development course to run on Moodle and helping a variety of teachers create their own Moodle courses. I am excited about the possibilities of extending the classroom experience with Moodle, as well as, developing a 100% online class. As I build my course I find myself thinking about the curriculum and its presentation very differently then when I taught face-2-face. In all educational experiences, learning takes place as a result of the learner’s interaction with the content materials and other members of the course. This requires communication. So how do you foster communication in an online experience?

I had a professor who ran a 100% online course. The hardest part for me participating in that course (my first 100%) was feeling connected. She did two things that made me feel part of a group.

1. She kept a social type of forum going. Not related to the class but commented on the red sox, weather and movies. The kind of chatter you hear as you enter or leave a face-2-face class. This helped us to get to know each other and feel more comfortable responding to each other in the content forums.

2. This next was the key – she commented on almost everything we did, she used our names and directed us to other comments by the name of that student. She found sites for our specific needs. She made it personable. She was “in class” and commenting a couple of times a day. This made us want to check in and see what happened. This is a habit I still have today I am always popping in to see what’s transpired in the other online classes I am involved with. She was engaged and that made us engaged. Just as in a face-to-face setting the personality of the instructor helped set the tone for the group. She was upbeat, conversational, and made relevant comments so you felt your contributions were important, not just posted and stuck up there on the site.

An online course is not a static thing but flowing and changing. Right now to me the course I am developing seems flat. There is no one around to give it personality, no one to respond to, nor discussions to participate in. If you look at any face-2-face class curriculum they are also pretty flat. It is only when students and teachers get together and interact do they come to life and learning takes place.