Here follow my reflections on Topic 5, and more generally on the whoole ONL course.
When starting the ONL course I was clearly a dark green ignorant in the field of online learning. I had never attended an online course, nor had I organised one by myself or in collaboration with other teachers. Thus, I had all to discover and all to learn. I have certainly learnt a lot during the course, on how to actually participate in an online course, on the collaboration with other people from different countries and disciplines, on certain IT Tools, and on certain of the theoretical aspects of online Learning, such as the Fish model or the five stage model. This positive learning experience does not necessarily mean that I will start an online course for students, but I have certainly understood that it constitutes a possible dimension of teaching, that my students (who belong to a younger generation) perhaps expect from me to a greater extent than what I may grasp. For the time being I am considering starting an online tool for a discussion forums with certain peers, ie academics working in the field of international tax law in different countries. I had simply not thought of this before, and realise now the possibilities opened by modern technologies. We could communicate easily to discuss our academic findings, write common articles, prepare common presentations, etc. In the longer run, I now understand that an online course may bring certain features that are unavailable through face-to-face teaching, and I also know more about how to actually organise such a course, even if there is certainly a lot left to learn. Therefore, while I was dark green at the beginning of the course in the area of online courses, I am a little lighter now.
On a more philosophical level, this course made me think about higher education, and its future. I can certainly see many advantages with online learning. But I also see some threats. The plethoric offer of online courses, the possibilities to choose courses and to customise one’s education, and the general loss of motivation observed over a course, make me wonder how universities should design the higher education of tomorrow. The world is becoming more complex, carreers are tougher, so students need both material knowledge and the right attitude to survive in this jungle. Is online education the proper answer to these challenges? It may certainly bring certain valuable contributions, but for those who can attend traditional universities, I believe that they should not at least fully replace face-to-face courses with online courses. Traditional teaching has a structure, is demanding, requires flexibility by its own lack of flexibility, exposes to social contacts, in a way that prepares to some extent for the future professional life. Real Professional life, at least as it is now, in many respects resembles more traditional teaching than online teaching. Working from home and meeting online has many advantages, but one also misses certain important aspects of personal development. At the same time, exclusive traditional teaching has clear limitations, which can largely be compensated by online treaching. Therefore, for the future of higher education I would more see online education as a supplement, than a replacement of traditional teaching. In other words, a combination of both appears as the superior method for university teaching. I feel grateful that I could attend this course, as without it I had not been thinking about these issues, and I would not have thought about the great assets that online courses can bring to traditional higher education.