Guest Blog: New Media Production’s First Experience with Online Learning

Dr. Emuel Aldridge
Lecturer, New Media Institute

New Media Production left the physical classroom this summer and moved online for the first time. Nineteen students, the most ever for a 4110 summer session, seized the opportunity to learn skills and earn credit toward the NMI certificate.

As an instructor I entered the online experience with a good deal of trepidation. How could I lean over a student’s shoulder and point out problems with their code while I was in Athens and they were somewhere else? The actual experience was much smoother than I expected. Somehow, in the midst of summer internships and vacations, the online students did amazingly well. They completed the same assignments as students during the previous semester in our physical classroom, while managing to ask fewer questions. 

My main concern was how to deal with the questions that normally arise in class and are addressed in person. I used two strategies. Students had to upload their work to a website. Sometimes they would upload it when they had problems and then I would login to their account and check it. Other times they would send along a zip file of their work via email.

Because of the large amount of written communication with some students, I felt like I knew them fairly well, but it always felt odd to not have met them in person. Gradually, now during the fall semester, I have met several, including one just last week. If there was one thing I would like to change about the online experience, it would be to somehow have the opportunity to get to meet all students in person. But I know that really isn’t possible.  Next summer, I plan to hold required video conferences to try to bridge the gap.

The online experience also produced side benefits for the classroom version of 4110, because the online course experience convinced me that my current students can do a lot more work outside of the classroom than they were doing in the past. The course is more structured than before with weekly assignments and expectations clearly delineated, and also more ambitious. I am asking, and receiving, more work from them. This semester’s students are doing much of their work outside of the classroom, and covering more ground than any New Media Production class has ever.