Online Education…in a Physical Classroom?

Posted in SchoolsStudents on Jan 22, 2011 - 11:38 AM

One of my classes for this semester is "Writing for Media." In this class I will get to snack on the practice of and theory surrounding media writing. The professor has put the entire class on the internet. The class is even held in the Mac Lab in the school library. Our writing assignments will be done on blog posts in the school's online education companion, epsilen.com. Also part of the course, I have created a twitter.com account, which is supposed to be used to follow and tweet about media happenings.

As a person who can be painfully addicted to the internet, I have a serious problem with this class.

When I am at school, I try to avoid the internet as much as possible. At home in California, my hometown is so drab and far away (I don't have a car) from interesting cities and events that the computer is my only source of information and entertainment. I can stay there for hours, and the sedentary element of it has become a problem for my health and well-being. I worry that this class will draw me into those habits when I'd rather focus on studying and reading.

Even the syllabus was online, which was an issue because since I study without a computer, I sometimes reference the syllabus (as opposed to signing in to epsilen) to see where I am. The e-syllabus is also editable, so the assignments are being built as we go along - a little unsettling, as I have to check every week to find out what's going on and stay on track. I have only thought of one idea to counter this issue - have a set computer time in which I complete these class assignments and graze on various news media.

I actually have not actively looked into media for a long time, because television media is too dramatic, and online media can easily send me on a loop of being stuck online. So far the sources I view are very interesting, and Twitter actually makes it easier to nibble on things happening in the country and around that world. I will do my best to get along with this class, but suggestions are welcome.

At this point I use this site, Wordpress, email and now Twitter to communicate online. Until I find some practical uses for them, I will avoid a facebook or youtube account. But in the end I may have all of them and more as an internet presence and residence becomes ever increasingly critical to success and involvement in the world.

I already follow IDEA @goodideafolks. You can follow me @zuleikairvin.

Tags for this entry:
media, online education, twitter

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