Online Classes

My Perspective of Ellen Laird "I'm Your Teacher Not Your Internet-Service Provider"

If you're a college student or an instructor you will have to take or teach an online class of some sort. There are different types of online classes; hybrid class where you only go to the school once a week and the regular online class where you don't go to the school any day of the week. As a student that has taken a hybrid class you know from your own experience what it is like. However, as a student you don't know what it's like from an instructors' perspective. Ellen Laird, author of "I'm Your Teacher Not Your Internet-Service Provider," tells about her online class. In this article Laird expresses her opinion on instructing an online class.

Lairds tone in the article is sarcastic. For Example, The syllabus is not a restaurant menu (Laird 418) clearly in this metaphor she isn't giving her classmates a food menu. She is explaining how the students just pick which assignments to do and finish on time, yet she makes the syllabus for "a fixed set of requirements" (Laird 418). Also, Lairds tone seems distressed with teaching the online courses. Throughout the article Laird complains on how the students aren't following the syllabus and talking to her like she was one of the students.

"The honeymoon is over. My romance with distance learning is losing its spark." (Laird 417) Liard stated this in the beginning of the article, so what she means by this is when she started teaching the online course she was excited. After a while it became the same old thing every year. I can understand where she is coming from, because after you do something for so long it gets old. Liard could do something new with the online class, yet she goes by the same requirements every year. She could start a survey to see what she could do different with her classe