Page 11 - Campus Technology, May/June 2018

ONLINE LEARNING joe barnhart Working the Online Crowd:
Humor and Teaching with Tech
Infusing online courses with a little fun can make a big difference in engaging and motivating students.
SUBJECT: NEVER RUN WITH NITROGLYCERIN OR A BUCKET OF CAMEL SNOT.
Well, you could, but it would be your funeral.
But seriously, using humorous subject lines just might be a way to
engage students being taught with technology; more specifically, students in online courses. Humor doesn’t always mean jokes that start, “A priest, mountain goat and ballerina enter a bar.” It can be a subtle way of looking for a student’s funny bone and tickling it enough to spark motivation to finish a course.
I teach for Western Governors University as a faculty member in the IT College. Technical Writing and Capstone courses are my specialty. It’s an excellent gig: fantastic students with professional backgrounds working hard to earn degrees while life circles the wagons. Everything is online. It’s a totally new experience for me, having spent the rest of my 30-plus years of higher education in brick-and-mortar settings.
Humor is a tough nut to crack. In the face-to-face classroom, it works great to keep the troops awake and actively breathing. Effective tech-
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CAMPUS TECHNOLOGY | May/June 2018
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