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The Virtue of Online Learning

 

My life-long interest involves the relationship between virtuality and virtuosity. These words enjoy multiple significance, but for now I might suggest that virtuality has to do with e-learning and online processes in general, and virtuosity with the excellence of the learning experience as evaluated and conferred by the full community of learning participants (in music, the virtuoso is identified and acclaimed by performers, conductors, critics, audience members, historians, etc., etc.). My goal is to query this relationship (virtuality to virtuosity) through hybrid instructional (and creative/artistic) designs. 

 

My general hypothetical idea that hybrid instructional designs, blending online and on-land interfaces, are optimal for students engaged in arts studies. Powerful online interactions can add to an excellent experience as much as, if not more than, genuine on-land (or face-to-face) interactions. Content or subject matter delivery and study can be excellently served through the communal, asynchronous and iterative processes of online courses (threaded discussion). Due to the nature of our culture's penchant for online interactivity, learners are inexplicably (that means they can't explain it) bored by course room lectures and conventional content presentation practices (like uninterrupted video demos). However, I also believe that most learners feel lost without the face-2-face connections that traditional, synchronous, on-land experiences provide. I propose that a blended design which moves content and subject matter presentation through virtual space and interactions while employing on-land meetings for discussions, detail work, and evaluative interactions may be an ideal framework for a blended course design – one that supports the evolution of a virtuosic learning experience.

 

I feel confident that any measurement of success will show that students are enabled to achieve useful and meaningful learning from such designs. I'm also convinced that an entire learning community's "sense" or "feelings" about an educational experience, and how this sense or feeling "correlates" to achievement assessment – is what leads to a virtuosic experience, if you will. That’s where the “virtue” of online learning exists for me... in the students’ sense of an excellent learning experience.