INTRODUCTION
In recent years the popularity of online education has increased significantly. This is in part due to its accommodation for anywhere, anytime learning, but it is also owing to a greater selection of high quality courses, as well as the emergence of more engaging learning management applications. Although the growth of online learning is quite substantial, there are still many who believe that electronic courses are inferior to those that offer face to face contact. This endemic belief can stem from an appalling experience with online learning or simply because it is a non-traditional format that for some may invoke fear, anxiety or even complete disdain for that which is different.
What follows is a narrative exploration of the writer’s journey through teaching an online course, and the queries, struggles and victories that ensued along the way. Far from being separate from the digital environment, this paper reveals that our humanity remains front and centre amidst the online world. We are neither married to the technology nor divorced from it, but we emerge from it changed as teachers and learners. This story demonstrates also, that when teacher becomes learner, students find the courage to express themselves in a myriad of ways, including the powerful use of “digital moments”.
Digital Moments / Oct, 2013 7