An email encouraging UC faculty to compete for significant grants designed to produce and try a first batch of 25 online courses by 2011-12 fell into my box yesterday. More on this topic later. I have to correct homework, read paper drafts, make sure my web pages for Hist 163 (sin) and Latin 1 are up to date, and then think about this online issue as clearly as I can.

Information can be found at the UC site, including the request for letters of intent and the application instructions. The home page for the site shows that the planning phase has started and the implementation phase is March ’11 to December ’12.

This initiative is generating comments, for instance this critique by Professor Wendy Brown, on economic and ethical grounds. The NYT just published an article describing some of the pitfalls of such instruction at the University of Florida. Most interesting in the article: the study made of two comparison groups in a micro-economics course: one in a large lecture hall, the other online. Results: the online group scored significantly below the large-lecture group (by half to a full grade below).

For the moment, however, I have to do my own distance learning: telepathic understanding of my students’ efforts and failures, as well as my own. More later.