I think requiring training protocols for faculty who teach online indicates a lack of understanding of both technology and teaching.

“Online” is less a modality these days than it is a complex of possible connections between people. These connections can be optimized, ignored, underutilized, creatively leveraged. But the internet exists around us whether we engage with it or not in our classes.

And the internet is not ideologically neutral. And it’s a complex system. And it’s oppressive as much as it has any potential to support justice. But you can’t take a course or module and learn how to do online teaching.

Pedagogy, like the internet, has history. It’s ideological. It’s embroiled in power, with potential and pitfalls.

The pivot to remote learning is a collection of cool tools & party tricks. But if you want your faculty to work thoughtfully online with students, it’ll take a more complicated conversation about how connectivity matters to knowledge & learning across our fields & communities.

It’s a good time to approach the tangle of pedagogy and technology as a complementary, dynamic, community conversation. Ride the interest in “moving online” into real conversations about how connected and online spaces change the definition of learning, relationships, content.

I think that’s easier, more rewarding, more interesting, more manageable, and more helpful than absorbing a litany of best practices decoupled from your own expertise with your discipline and your students.

I know modality does change a lot, and should change how we design. But many of us have been using technology and teaching students and thinking about the crossover for years. COVID doesn’t mean we have to jettison what we know in order to do something new to fix this situation.

There’s no solution and no way to train for online teaching. I love working with my colleagues on this stuff. I haven’t met one faculty member yet who couldn’t do “online” well if they engaged with their colleagues to talk it through.

Give faculty the support they need. Trust faculty. Resource faculty. That’s the end of my rant but really it’s not a rant it’s a love letter to the smart people I work with!