Changing roles for online teachers of technical communication

Document Type

Syllabus

Publication Date

1-1-2020

Abstract

In 1994, when I developed and offered my first course in distance learning, Advanced Professional and Technical Communication, I had the benefit of basic training and instructional technology survival skills offered by New Jersey Institute of Technology’s (NJIT) media services group and learning network practitioners. We spent many hours videotaping lectures to develop content for this technical communication graduate course. Also, I had the advantage of a residential asynchronous learning network called Virtual Classroom® developed by the NJIT Hiltz-Turoff research group in 1986. With good support and content, I felt ready and eager to take the course online. The technology issues were challenging, and the amount of time to maintain the course was prodigious, as many experienced online teachers had warned. However, as the semester progressed, I was unexpectedly frustrated by my inability to transition my face-to-face teaching presence into the online environment. I found myself in a position where I needed to change my teaching style, and I did not know how to do that. I was not alone. A colleague, who began teaching technical communication online during the same period, described the change in persona: “I felt that a lot of my skills, the things I would traditionally rely on, I didn’t have anymore. I don’t have my body language; I use a lot of body language. So you use a lot of exclamation points. But smiley faces are not my thing. It took awhile, thinking about all that good stuff and wondering, how do I get that back?".

Identifier

85121566120 (Scopus)

ISBN

[9781351842501]

Publication Title

Online Education Global Questions Local Answers

External Full Text Location

https://doi.org/10.1201/9781315223971-8

First Page

89

Last Page

99

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