Surprises Working Online

By David Patterson

Pasta . . . curry . . .zinfandel . . . other flavorful treats were brought by online students to the home of a sociology major, who was enrolled in the same distance learning course. We gathered with the anticipation of meeting, face-to-face, those with whom we had “chatted” over the Internet for nearly a semester. These online students came from all parts of Massachusetts, and though out-of-staters such as our Floridian were unable to attend, they were kept up to speed through our usual mode of communication: e-mail.

Students were alive with the excitement of talking to one another about taking—for the first time ever—an academic course for credit through umassbostononline. It seems that these students had signed up for “Universe of Music” not only to complete an arts requirement or to learn more about music, but because they possessed a genuine curiosity and sense of adventure about learning.

During dinner, students asked me, “How many times have you taught this course online?” To their surprise, they learned that it was my very first time. I had been a holdout in becoming involved in the new wave of information technology. However, like the students, my curiosity finally got the best of me, and so this past fall I embarked upon the prospect of designing and leading a course completely bound up in computers.

To my surprise and delight, just about everything needed for our study about the universe of music could be found on the Web. Out with the expensive textbooks and their CDs and in with an electronic text fused with hyperlinks for adventuring out into the amazing world of music. We have compared human heartbeats and pulsars with musical rhythms, seen and heard aboriginal instruments of Australia, and taken virtual lessons on Indonesian gamelan instruments, to mention just a few class projects.

And there was yet another surprise! The scope of the papers submitted electronically—as attachments—was not limited to text alone. Students visited sites with video clips, audio clips, photographs, maps, charts, and much more.

Wondering why a distance-learning course should have a “live meeting” as one of its requirements, we saw firsthand perhaps its greatest purpose. To nobody’s surprise, we found that the value of the experience was in venturing forth from the virtual world and into the real one, finally meeting those with whom we had surfed along the Web.

Least expected was the impact two semesters of online teaching would have on my classroom. I did not figure these Internet encounters with the students and the possibilities of the Web becoming so quickly and naturally intertwined with a lifetime of teaching. But learning is always fraught with surprises.

David Patterson, professor of music, has taught at UMass Boston for nearly 30 years.

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