Intro: People like to complain. They'll find virtually any reason to complain, regardless of the stakes. Case in point: right now, people on the internet are fighting about the correct way to cut toast. Inevitably, what starts as a light-hearted poke at our differences turns into an actual row. Whether this is because people are misdirecting other frustrations or people have genuinely strong feelings about toast cutting or the internet just makes everybody a little fighty from time to time, I don't know. The toast isn't the point; the complaining is. Now... what was I going to talk about, again? Oh, right. Online education. --- Body: Truth is, I love online education. Love it. Now, I'm not going to say it's perfect; we all know it isn't. And frankly I'm not all that interested in even doing a quote-unquote "fair" comparison with traditional, face-to-face models of instruction. Today I just want to gush. I think we need more gushing. Maybe that's what you sohuld do today: find something you love and gush about it, to a friend, a colleague, or on a blog or social media. Just get some love out there. Anyway, a little info and/or background. The vast majority of the teaching I do is online. The programs I teach in are offered not just through our UA South distance campus network but also through Arizona Online (that just won an award, by the way, great job, all!). This means, by and large, that I teach from my home studio, where I'm recording this, and never (well, not never, but rarely) find myself in the same room as my students. And that's okay! When it does happen, usually at commencement or some other function, we joke about "nice to finally meet you" when we've already spent hours upon hours talking and working together over the years. While I do teach in-person for the Honors college and I'll be beginning some hybrid offerings next year, most of my classes are entirely online. And it's awesome. It's just so convenient! Now, I'll preface this with "not all the time for everyone," and I get that, but, again, let's focus on the positive here. Let's say we have an online synchronous video class meeting at 6pm on Tuesday. Let's say I have a student that's also a new single parent. Let's say that student can't find childcare for the two hours our meeting is scheduled. Now, I'd be happy to let that student bring the baby to the traditional classroom but let's be realistic and say that it's entirely possible it could end up being a distraction. Babies are adorable but they tend to be loud and smelly. That's just the way of the world. But, since our class meeting is online, that new parent can sit at their desk, show off the baby on the video and enjoy the 'ohs' and 'aws' from the rest of the class, and, should the baby need changing, simply turn up the computer volume, go into the other room, and take care of it. Life (and class) goes on. Not to mention the student doesn't have to worry about loading the baby up into the car and making the trip to campus! The ways in which our technology changes our experience of the world is something I'm very interested in and may talk about at some point. I try not to get _too_ heady or academic on the pod, though. So the new-parent scenario is just one example. Almost every semester I have students contacting me, saying, "Hey, my shift got changed this week and I'm going to miss class. Are there notes or something I can get? I really don't want to fall behind or miss anything." No worries, just watch the recording and throw any of your questions in the group chat. Hey, presto, everybody's on the same page. That student's knowledge of what happened or was discussed during that class meeting isn't dependent on the quality of the notes they get from another student. That's a powerful thing. One thing I've noticed about my online classes is just how personal they can be. I grew up with AIM and ICQ, so chat is kind of baked into my being in a way, which is very usually true with my students, as well (though, not the AIM or ICQ part). Whereas some students would never come to in-person office hours, whether it's distance or lack of transportation during that time or maybe social anxiety or perhaps there's someone they might see in the building that makes them feel uncomfortable or unsafe, jumping into a text chat like Slack or a video call using Zoom means that I can make that connection with that student that may not have otherwise happened. And yes, there's the phone, but who uses phones for calls these days, anyway, amirite? Note that I never said anything about email. That's important. ...and the topic for another pod. There's a lot more I'd like to say about this but I'm going to leave that also for another pod. I'm heading to Denver next week for the OLC Innovate conference where I'm hoping to talk to folks much smarter and more talented than me about how to make online education even better and I'll report back on that. I'm hoping even to snag a couple conversations for the pod with some of the amazing people that will be there. You can live vicariously through me at the conference by watching the #OLCLive and #FOMOfest hashtags on Twitter, though I'll be tweeting from my @ryanstraight account, not the pod's account. In fact, if you want to join me for a conversation about online education, whether it's in person in Denver or online via whatever platform we want, let me know. Let's gush! --- Outro Once again, thank you for listening to this little podcast-thing of mine. If you found it entertaining or informative or useful, please do subscribe and rate it on the podcatcher of your choice, whether that's iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, Spotify, or however you listen. And, as usual, I'd love to hear from you. You can find me on Twitter at newprofcast. Show notes, transcripts, and more can be found on the website at thenewprofessor.com. Until next time.