Disembodied Learners

I wouldn't have believed the following if it hadn't actually happened. My students and I were chatting about one thing or another when one of them mentioned that she weighed 350 pounds and had problems with her walking. The shock came not from any weight revelation but from my realizing that I'd forgotten that my students had bodies. We were engaging totally cognitively, and the other aspects of their lives had dropped away.

Learner Digital Identities

There are ways to enhance learner telepresence as well. Encouraging this other side of the build helps instructors humanize learners. It helps them consider the whole learner instead of just one aspect, the way I was focused.

On the down side, this may turn into an exercise in stereotyping from very little information.

However, would it not be better to have more information than less in pretty much every situation?

There are some ways to build more opportunities to share telepresence. One could be the encouragement of building learner profiles, albeit without revealing too private information.

R.E. Weiss has some steps to humanize the online classroom.

1. Add tone through emoticon, selective language, and parenthetical elaboration about tone.
2. Use expressive language.
3. Create biographies, which may include information such as "hometown, previous schooling or experience, hobbies, educational goals, and future plans." (Weiss, 2000, p. 49)
4. Create a virtual break room or lounge for learners to share ideas with each other.
5. Model appropriate interaction that emphasizes mutual safety and trust. (Weiss, 2000, p. 50)
6. Create an ethical community of learners with fair, mutually respectful and open interchanges.

The human element adds richness to the online learning experience.

Weiss, R.E. (2000, Winter). "Humanizing the online classroom." Principles of effective teaching in the online classroom. 47 - 51.