On-Line Class Meetings: The Good and the Bad

I had my first on-line synchronous class as a student yesterday. We all signed into Adobe Connect and had the ability to see everyone on video and hear audio too. The screen looked like the Brady Bunch of eager grad students. But my audio didn't work, and the video had a delay. And the sound quality was pretty bad. Class was an hour long and there was precious little valuable interaction. I was able to participate with the chat board, but the teacher never looked at it, until too late, and while other students could respond too, I felt like I was just a distraction.

I would have gotten so much more out of spending an participating in the discussion board on the Blackboard site.

Then this morning I want and saw a class that a teacher here was running (a high school Spanish class) on-line using Elluminate. The kids (from home) seemed to be participating, and learning. Such a difference. So I am left wondering how to feel about it all. . . there is good and bad in everything, I guess I won't give up on it quite yet.