WEEK 1

 

After "Introducing myself", "Comments on the guidelines and ground rules for discussion" was the topic  I liked the most on first week. Reading all my classmates posts, gave me a wider point of view about setting up rules. I learned methods not only for discussion but also for email exchange in virtual environment.

 

In my position, one of the hardest job in virtual classes is to make students follow certain "etiquette" while posting on forums or requesting for help via email. Even when they are sent all the previous material, they are supposed to read it and follow instructions, this week I learn that we, virtual tutors, can not take for granted that they are simply going to follow rules if we haven't discussed.

 

Sean not only posted the rules, he also invited us to discuss if we agree with them. I now understand that most of the incongruences we have had with some students is because we never discussed  the rules, and even when the rules we post in our site are almost alike those I have to observe in my class, they work properly in my class because everybody agree that we have read, understood and were willing to work by those rules.

 

I have something very important to teach my colleagues, somehow I feel we had disrespected our students by simply demanding they to obey instead of asking them to discuss the rules and feed us back about them.

 

I feel positive now that we are about to have a new beginning and that everybody is going to be comfortable as we are going to first agree how are we going to behave and later we will do the course homework.

 

 

 “Are you asking me or telling me?” ― Irvine Welsh, Filth