In July 2020, I embarked on a professional learning journey to convert one of my face to face courses into an online course. I took the time to carefully craft a road map to achieve this feat with all the enthusiasm of a naïve, excited, undergrad taking on a first time internship experience and expecting to apply all the things I studied at university.
For initial conversion I selected an academic course named Caribbean Travel and Tourism so that I can learn the rudiments of building an online course using materials meant for face-to-face learning. But as I began to follow my plan, and started to think about how to use existing materials to teach the course online, my bravado faltered.
How can I possibly preserve the rich and sometimes heated interactions and in-class discussions that derive from hot topics such as the impacts of mass tourism on small island states, cultural and heritage effects on tourism, or the economic dependence of tourism in some Caribbean countries? Online?
I started to transfer some of my teaching resources into documents that can be uploaded onto a Learning Management System but found that the substance and tone did not convey the same energy or level of provocation that I can induce if my students and I were in the same physical space. Also, I soon realized that, for each module, I needed to create supplemental materials to accompany each topic, find a way to facilitate vibrant online discussions, and craft assessments that allow for both individual and group work.
Frustration set in at the point where I kept checking back to confirm that the learning outcomes were the same for both face to face and online versions of the course, and in recognizing that I needed to spend considerably more effort and time to create resources that reasonably compare with in-class training. I want to give my students as meaningful, enlightening and engaging an experience as if we were in real, live classroom sessions.
So, I trashed my course conversion scheme.
Then, I considered that perhaps the Caribbean Travel and Tourism course needed an overhaul anyway. With the disruption in the tourism sector brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, the discourse on Caribbean Travel and Tourism is constantly shifting. Plus employers in the hospitality sector, like all others, are now placing more emphasis on soft skills. How can these be integrated into an online course which teaches candidates how to identify best practices for sustainable tourism in the region?
In the end I decided to press pause, re-calibrate my timelines, acquire some more professional development training, and then make another attempt at converting my course. I need to get used to this new vehicle for connecting with my students. This is like trading in a Toyota for a Tesla!
References
Darby, F. (2020). How to be a better online teacher: Advice Guide. Chronicle of Higher Education: https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/advice-online-teaching