The web is SO interactive... why are so many online colleges so minimally interactive?
In every vibrant online community I've been a part of, there's an "expert" population. People who really know about [whatever the community is focused on], and are willing to freely give their time to spread the word and help newbies, because they like the topic and they like teaching. So you have 1,000 different newbies all asking the same 5 questions, having made no effort to discover the answers to those questions by reading previous posts, and 5 or 10 folks semi-patiently re-answering them, but also discussing more-advanced topics among themselves. Every now and then, a moderately-experienced person will come along, and will stick around if the more-advanced conversations teach them something.
In an online college situation, there are rarely any resident experts, pretty much by definition. And people outside the class (who could form the expert group, or even be the mid-range crowd) aren't allowed to drift in. The community is just too small to take on a life of its own.
Thanks for your insights! What you're saying makes sense... BUT... I'm still hopeful that it *could* work...
First, there is a paid resident expert -- the teacher/mentor/professor. Now, I realize in a lot of online courses, the prof is all but MIA, but it doesn't have to be set up that way. I also realize that a prof can have a strange effect on the conversation -- bending it so students conform to what they think the prof wants to hear, BUT if instructors had some background information on how to interact in the online environment, *perhaps* it would have a more stimulating and less delitorious effect.
Second, I've taken a number of courses online for my doctoral program. And we have VERY vibrant discussions. Of course, not everyone participates equally, but enough people do participate to make it worthwhile. There are some factors at play there: we are all professionals, we're all relatively smart and hard working (the ones that weren't just didn't pan out), and we get to know each other (ok, we have an unfair advantage in that we get to know each other in the real world, too, but they piggy back off each other). Courses with Masters level students tend to be much more of a mixed bag -- some people with great insights, some people who's postings pain me. I suppose that's the way most online courses are. BUT ... if you have something online for HG+ kids -- either electives or early college -- then it seems like you'd end up with a lot of opinionated people, many who are experts at whatever level we're talking about, and you COULD end up with a good online community, yes?
