Seymour Papert says, "The scandal of education is that every time you teach something, you deprive a child of the pleasure and benefit of discovery." On-line courses provide a place to discover and learn rather than a place to teach. Rather than assimilating the knowledge broadcast by me, you will construct knowledge anew. You will learn best by doing rather than simply being told: constructing as opposed to memorizing.

Informational Architect
Because the computer easily accommodates interdisciplinary approaches to study, we can use it to develop and to extend our ability to think critically and to make connections between discrete bodies of information. You have to begin to think of yourself as an intellectual nomad, a kind of informational architect. The electronic facility to make connections speeds up the processes of skilled reading, creative thinking/tinkering and knowledge-building. The instantaneousness of links also permits and encourages sophisticated forms of analysis.

    Thomas Friedman, in The Lexus and The OliveTree describes it this way: "When dealing with any nonlinear system, especially a complex one, you can't just think in terms of parts or aspects and just add things up.....With a complex nonlinear system you have to break it up into pieces and then study each aspect, and then study the very strong interaction between them all. Only this way can you describe the whole system."

    The Lion, the Gazelle and the Turtle
    Every night the lion goes to sleep in the jungle knowing that in the morning when the sun comes up, if he can't outrun the gazelle, it will go hungry. Every night the gazelle goes to sleep in the jungle knowing that in the morning, when the sun comes up, if it can't outrun the fastest lion, it's going to be somebody's breakfast. But the one thing the lion and gazelle both know when they go to sleep at night is that when they wake up in the morning, when the sun comes up, they had better start running.

    Conversely, turtles become roadkill. You don't want to be a turtle trying to avoid becoming roadkill. Better to be the lion or the gazelle in this knowledged-based building process.

    Not Your Traditional Course
    The winners and losers in these courses will be differentiated by brainpower, resilience to withstand frustration and a willlingness to try.

    On-line courses are not for the weak of heart or those simply looking to avoid class time. Experience dictates that on-line courses often require more time, more ramping-up-to-speed and a greater willingness to build knowledge independently.

    Students in on-line courses must be self-motivated and willing to work with frustration and failure. It is easy to procrastinate; however, these courses are designed around the act and art of independent thinking, research and writing. They are participatory! Successfully completing each assignment will mean working carefully through all the steps of that assignment and being prepared to discuss your work and questions you have about that work when we meet on-line and in postings to the class discussion list.

    The Frustrations/Joys of Learning
    As a child you learned to walk all on your own. Oh, mom or dad held your hand, but essentially trying to remain upright and stable was your responsibility. You did it on your own. In the process you fell, stumbled and generally looked foolish.trying. Did you throw up your hands, pout and say, angrily , "I'm not gonna do this."? No. You learned from it. You became resilient and modified your steps. You kept trying until you got it right. Riding your first two-wheeler without training wheels was the same process: try, wobble, fall and try again, Failure became part of the learning process. In fact, learning theorists tell us that failure is an essential part of learning anything. Major League ballplayers fail all the time and learn from their mistakes. Hopefully you will fail in this class. In fact, if you don't fail, you're not stretching or trying very hard. When things will not go well, and I can almost guarantee they won't, hopefully you will learn from those failures.

    In this course you are encouraged to learn by doing. Doing means taking on a challenging task worth doing. You cannot sit back passively, as in a traditional classroom, and let the information come to you. This is exploratory learning. You have to go out and build knowledge on your own and, much like learning to walk, talk, ride a bike, boil water, drive a car - I think you get the idea - you are ultimately successful if you are resilient and willing to fail.

    Learning, of whatever kind, is an adventure. A problem exists for which there is currently no ready-made solution. A challenge is posed for which the requisite skills are not yet established. A plan is disrupted by an unanticipated event. In each case the effect of what one does is uncertain. Sometimes the uncertainty is exhilarating; but sometimes the possibility of too much work or failure is threatening, frustrating or confusing. The continuing engagement which learning requires may be dangerous. The urge to withdraw and protect yourself becomes stronger - fear and/or flight. Resilience is the emotional tolerance needed to survive.

    Learning can indeed be confusing and frustrating - you didn't learn to walk or talk in a day. The natural tendency of many is to bail, drop the course or withdraw into anonymity; Those students don't have resilience. How you deal with frustration, confusion, problems and searching for solutions is telling. If you allow frustration or a problem to lock you up and plop you into intellectual gridlock, then you are no good to anyone and you will not survive the course or life.. If, conversely, you are resilient, look for other ways to solve the problem, take deep cleansing breaths and try again, then you are designed to survive......anything. It's all in the way you approach the course...life. I guarantee there will be confusion, frustration, and downright, kick-butt hostility toward, the computer, the course and me. And yet, in a recent E-mail I received:

        "I did it!!! I did it!!! I did it!!! I'm so excited - can you tell???

        Not too fancy but they are there and I'm so relieved. Now I just need to work on the graphics and making it look a little more interesting.

        But I did it - I did it - I did it!!! Hooray and Good night,"

    More often than not the acronym - Picnic - applies and that translates to "Problem In Chair Not In Computer.

    On-line Courses Often Require More Resilience
    Defensiveness and resistance are often reactions to frustration. In and of themselves, they are not wrong; here, however, they simply get in the way of meaningful problem solving. Resilience, the ability to tolerate frustration, is essential. Even when learning is going well, there is always the possibility ( and I hope for a lot of this) of surprise, confusion, frustration, disappointment or apprehension- as well, of course, as fascination, absorption, exhilaration, awe or relief. Learning is a gamble and a risk: often hard and protracted, confusing and frustrating, and it is necessary to be able to stick with it to recover from setbacks. Failure is an integral part of learning

    The ability to hang out in the fog, to tolerate confusion, to dare to wait in a state of incomprehension while solutions take their form, is a vital aspect of resilience. Good learners are those able to ride out the frustration, knowing that good learning involves exhilarating spurts, frustrating plateaus and upsetting regressions.

    These courses require that you be prepared to do all your work at your computer. You will post all assignments on your web page. Most students find they need to work at least 9 hours per week to be successful in these courses.

    Location is Irrelevant
    You will do this knowledge-building from the comfort of your computer, whether at home, in school, at the office, in a car, on a boat, or in a plane either in Suffolk County, California, USA, North America, Europe, Asia, Africa or .....the world. If you can connect electronically, you can take the course. Regardless of your location, together we can establish a community of learning and embark on our journey into cyberspace collaboratively.

    Additional Points

    • On-line course work is frequently neglected because of personal or family circumstances. Unless there are compelling reasons for completing a course, some will fall behind and drop the course.
    • Some students prefer the independence of distance learning; others find it uncomfortable. Those who have the independence, resilience and willingness to work do well. Those who don't usually fall behind, get frustrated, and don't complete the course.
    • Some people learn best by interacting face-to-face with other students. On-line courses do not afford as much opportunity for this kind of interaction.
    • Distance learning courses give you greater freedom to schedule your work, but they also require more self-discipline.
    • Distance learning courses require you to work independently from written directions, without face-to-face explanations by the instructor. You can, however, E-mail your instructor and classmates as often as is necessary.
    • On-line courses require at least as much time (usually more) as attending face-to-face classes and completing assignments for campus courses.
    • On-line courses use technology for mentoring, communication and learning. You will need to be comfortable, or willing to get comfortable quickly, with uploading and downloading your assignments, as well as moving them in and out of your word processing software. Some help from either your colleagues or me will be available, BUT you should already possess basic Web, E-mail and word processing skills to enjoy and be successful in this learning modality.

    Ultimate Goal

    I hope to make the on-line experience intellectually immersive and allow you to synthesize the scattered symbolism of the experience into a visual alphabet and multimedia experience. And even if you grow tired of the adventure, the temptation of the quest is enough to win the war against your impatience.