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OK, here's what is confusing me about all this talk about online courses. They've been pushing a bit on that here, too, although it isn't taking off. But what I have done is a kind of half-step toward online courses by creating web sites and discussion lists that supplement and extend the in-class experience. This is a kind of hybrid activity--does it fall under this heading or maybe something like "Slouching toward Bethlehem"? At 01:03 PM 4/12/99 -0400, you wrote: >Janice and all: > >The fact that _only_ Cathy has raised her hand to say that she has >anything to say on the on-line course issue confirms for me that this >group is not ready to present papers on the topic. The fact that, as >Janice notes, "many of us are doing the online work, ready or not" and >many for the first time in 1999-2000 from what I can gather, does not >encourage me further. > >I guess the resolution to the issue depends on what you think the forum >is for. If it is to be a pooling of limited experience to talk to each >other, then we might as well take this topic, either that or "the >efficacy of advanced neurotransmitters in imagining [note the use of the >conference theme!] multicultural/multilinguistic ornithography." > >If, however, the goal is to share with the wider (ie. international) >writing community something about which we are uniquely knowledgeable, >then I'd say we should wait another year before launching this topic, so >that we can speak from a perspective of experience. Let's get more than >one or two with experience behind them before we go proposing the topic. > >If I'm the only naysayer, I'll shut up, but I haven't noticed much on >the list since Cathy raised her hand to say she for one could/might be >interested in saying something on the topic. Is this the silence of >complacency? end of term? ignorance? acquiescence? How, in short, am I >to read my colleagues' (doubtless pointed, maybe even guilty) silences? >Oh for Tania's ethnography so that we'd know how to construct the >inter-e-textual gaps! > >Boy, can you tell that classes ended here on Friday? Anyway, the worst >part about being a naysayer is that I don't have an alternative >proposal. Did one emerge at the SIG in Atlanta, Anthony? > >Rob Irish > > Roger Graves Assistant Professor DePaul University