[tweetmeme]One of the most difficult parts about being an online teacher is finding interested students. Of course, many of us have experience and feel confident about our teaching, but that is not enough to get students’ attention. The Internet is a pretty buzzing place and you’ll have to take your game up a few notches by keeping in mind a few things… more »

As EFET gets rolling, I’d like to note down some lessons learned. Specifically for Dimdim, the environment in which we teach, needs to be tested by all teachers prior to taking on any lessons. (Would you enter a gun fight with a blindfold on?) So, here are the some basic guidelines I’ve developed by teaching lessons of my own and watching others teach.

Comfort Building- A main pillar of EFET pedagogy is comfort and learning is not optimized until we build the trust between student and teacher. Here are technical suggestions which can be used to build comfort and trust:

1. Avoiding the “share screen” function: Of course, there might be a need for showing a student your screen, but it only should be reserved for technical guidance while using software. Otherwise, your student will see him/herself on the video display of your messenger. This can be distracting and lead to discomfort.

[An example of technical guidance: let's say I want to show a student how to navigate a pronunciation program, which I use in the IPA class; I would "share screen" and show her click by click how to advance through the program.]

2. Sound or Video lagging issues: If your video/audio slows down or gets choppy, try your best not to dwell on the technical problem for more than 10 seconds. If the issue persists, tell your student “I need to restart this call” and then hang up. Call the student back to see if the sound is better.If lagging continues, turn off all unneeded programs and windows. Suggest your student to do that too. Your last option is to turn off video and only use audio for the rest of the lesson. Do not restart either computer during a lesson because it will break the lesson mood in a serious way; it also wastes a lot of lesson time.
3. Sharing Web pages and Presentations with Students: Make sure to increase the font size when you share anything,. Always use 16pt+ font for displaying web pages and presentations.  Highly Recommended! >> Students can click “Full Screen” to see your presentations more clearly.
4. Using the Clock Counter Wisely: The timer at the top right of a Dimdim session is very useful for everyone in the meeting. It is a good idea to link up with your students on Skype or QQ BEFORE jumping into Dimdim. (The clock counter starts as soon as the host STARTs the meeting.) By starting the lesson this way, you get audio and video working correctly first. Then, you can enter the room with better time keeping.

“Learning” from the Computer-Based Instructor’s point of view really boils down to building blocks and the stacking of those blocks.

It all starts with facts, for example, “rain is water” or “rain is wet.” Sounds simple enough right? With facts we can build concepts, such as, “when rain falls it makes the street wet.” Now, we take another concept like, “my car slides off the road in wet weather.”  THEREFORE, and here’s the principle, “driving in the rain is dangerous”or “driving in the rain could easily cause an accident.”

It is the understanding of those underlying facts and concepts, when matched together, which leads us to larger principles. Sometimes we confuse facts as concepts or concepts as principles, but they are all building blocks for understanding the world around us.

Got Questions?

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