Commentary on Course Organization

I want to say a few words about the online organization of this class and its goals (you might use some of this info in your Experiential Learning Report to be written at the end of the semester). The experiential learning in this class is based on learning and working in online environments (versus face-to-face). One of your tasks at the end of this semester will be in showing your understanding of this experience, what you’ve learned from it, what practical skills and orientation you obtained, as well as how it served your better understanding of the subject of the course.

The learning goal of placing students in such environment for this particular course is based on the fact that information systems (as the subject of the course) normally include heavy use of computers in communications, orientation, learning and decision making. In the IS major this introductory course is further enhanced with all those chapters that are in the book - as separate courses. From this point of view, being exposed to computer-mediated activities on your own (without the teacher standing behind your back) is important for the understanding of benefits, difficulties, and problems that have to be addressed during IS use and development. In this course you actively use an original IS, which includes Moodle, Internet, and your local systems, augmented by you, as producers/developers and consumers at the same time (so-called prosumers), with additional system components (like Blogger, Zoho, and others that we will use later), with shared files, user-created content, Q&A knowledge base, learning accounts in these systems, spreadsheets, databases and various means of sharing and publishing information across the set of networks (local and the Internet) – the topic of the next week.
Also, as you’ve noticed, the labs as well as exploration of the material require sufficient feedbacks on the work done, that just cannot be offered in an hour and a half of face-to-face lectures. You probably noticed that in this course you have almost an uninterrupted flow of feedbacks from me and other students (those who ask for help or require some guidance from my point of view – get it whenever necessary). This is impossible in face-to-face formats. I am actually spending much more time on this course than coming twice a week to school. My local network shows the course situation on several screens (along with my ongoing research in artificial intelligence). Your course connectivity is close to modern corporate "always on" status too. This allows for dynamic adjustments, additional explanations, and corrections (impossible in traditional environements). Such flexibility is becoming more and more important in the real world settings when change management is continuous and dynamic with similar continuous and dynamic availability of employees to accept changes, corrections and additional info for adjustments in individual work. And here understanding and experience of IT beyond traditional monthly reports is indispensable.

For organized students the possibility of time management and deciding when and how much time to spend at each particular learning episode is important especially combined with saving time on doing this without commuting efforts. Of course, such benefits are not for all. There are students that feel better in the class and cannot work/learn on their own. This is why the course format is announced in advance and only those who feel that online format is better for their situation are expected in these classes.