Learning: Getting Started...

It's the first of February, the day I've contracted to begin a faculty exchange assignment in Eger, Hungary. My husband and I arrived in Eger last Thursday, and the intervening days have been full and interesting. I'll backtrack to those days, as well as to the (seemingly) months of preparation in upcoming posts. However, right now I want to get this blog started with today.

I'm inviting friends and family to read the blog, as well as my colleagues and students. The focus will be on teaching from Hungary, since while I'm here I'm continuing to teach a post-masters level course in instructional technology online through my home institution, Valdosta State University. Some people say that a big advantage of online teaching is the freedom from geographical limitations--both students and teachers. Well, this will be a test of that theory.

I am a very interactive and involved online instructor--one might even say compulsive. I get to know my students very well through lots of online discussion and feedback, and through synchronous activities, mostly using Wimba Live Classroom. Having experienced an early start in distance learning via two-way interactive television back in the 90's, I have enjoyed reintroducing video and audio in my online classes, now that the technology has become more robust. Am I going to have problems with my class structure now that I'm six hours ahead of my students? No doubt. Can we work around the time difference and maintain the level of interaction I value? We'll see.

So one purpose of this blog is for me to analyze, reflect upon, and communicate what it is like to teach from a FAR distance, that is, out of the normal support situation, and with very different competing concerns that the usual University office administrivia that takes away from instructional time. In parallel, I will be holding a weekly seminar on the Eszterhazy Karoly Foiskola (note to self: need to learn to type accents and diacritical marks) in which I describe to interested faculty what has gone on that week in my class. They are interested in seeing how a professor dedicated to lots of interaction in online instruction goes about it.

Exercises in reflective teaching--after all, I'm up for post-tenure review this fall! All of the posts in which I focus on this purpose will have a subject line that starts with "Teaching".

"Learning" is what I really expect to be doing a lot. Whether it's understanding the Hungarian language (whew!), dealing with keyboards and cell phone directions in Hungarian, or using an unfamiliar washing machine, library, or subway system, the next four months had better include serious learning on my part! When I comment on these experiences, the subject line on the post will start with "Learning".

The blog isn't going to be all academic and dry, however. I want to make this a place for my friends, family and colleagues to follow our adventures and share our travels. I know I'll want to post a lot about "Culture", that is, what you don't know about Hungary, and to share our "Fun". Posts that focus on those two areas will have subject lines indicating the content--if you want to skip the teaching and learning posts--go ahead!