The Virtual Educator

Well, the logistics of this process have been more difficult than I originally imagined. Earlier this week, I attempted to observe a virtual school teacher and their interaction with students via three way calling. However, the host teacher I am working with was unable to use three-way conferencing with me on the line. Currently, she said this virtual school's teachers use broadband-based phone service and that it had recently crashed, but that the features hadn't all been restored at that point. Additionally, because she is working mostly with high school Seniors, the students don't often make set appointments to work online or over the phone with the teacher. She basically catches them when she can and this can be all hours.

Still, this hasn't derailed me at all, and I still plan to observe teacher-student interaction first-hand by the end of the week. Further, this has given me an opportunity to talk to the virtual school teacher I'm working with and find out more about the unique working conditions, both with logistics and pedagogy. For me, revelations continue to be had.

My host teacher has spent much of the week attempting to "track down" students who haven't been working adequately in their online English course and are in danger of not graduating for failure to complete their fourth English credit. She said in this case, the phone and e-mails are the primary method of contact, but noted that as it pertains to this issue the traditional school teachers "have one up on us, because you actually see them." With the virtual school, she said it is often necessary to employ the help of the school-based guidance counselor to help locate and communicate with the student. Although the middle school virtual school students often make set appointments to work with their teacher, with the older students, she said "we are at the mercy of their schedule" and only tutoring is usually made by appointment for students who are having trouble completing assignments independently.

There were many other unique traits of being a virtual school teacher I discovered through conversations with my host teacher, but some of those that were most interesting to me are as follows:

- This particular virtual school's teachers don't have a union. While many traditional schools' teachers are union members, often for personal protection for job security and to have a unified voice in negotiations and legislative issues, it isn't common in the virtual school environment apparently.

- Because the teachers don't have direct physical contact with the students and the students aren't meeting as a class, often the hostility or escalation of emotion that can come with attempting to discipline some students isn't an issue. Though it doesn't happen often, she said the only issue there is perhaps the need for a virtual school teacher to report child abuse, having been confided in or otherwise discovering it through working with the student.

- Most virtual school teachers work in blocks of 2-3 hours and take breaks in between. In this particular virtual school, the teachers must be available to students 8 a.m.-8 p.m. Monday through Sunday. Because the teachers are expected to return assignments within 48 hours and return communication within 24, the teachers must work just as hard or harder than their traditional school counterpart in order to keep up with grading and communication.

- The virtual school teacher has a lead teacher for their subject area, a primary instructional leader for the subject area and then a learning community leader, much like a principal. In general, there is less bureaucracy.

- Many of the issues with student attendance and credit completion that face the traditional school are seen in the virtual school, such as teen pregnancy, students who don't complete work or "attend" classes. The host teacher says she has had about five students this year who have had babies. Often, she said, these students aren't heard from again and don't complete their coursework once the child is born.

Researching the currently available scholarship on virtual teaching and learning, I found the book E-Moderating: The Key to Teaching and Learning Online by Gilly Salmon. I've come across Salmon's work before in readings on virtual learning and disagreed with his assessment that new technology only does the same thing as old technology, only more efficiently. Still, what I discovered in this book was worthwhile. Primarily he discusses the new role of the teacher in virtual schooling, moving from being the center of knowledge in many classrooms to becoming an electronic moderator, or e-moderator, who helps to guide students on their own learning journey. Salmon says these moderators need new skills, attitude and knowledge in order to be
successful in the virtual classroom. The primary idea is that these people are more attuned to the process of coaching and presiding over student learning, engaging students in their own knowledge construction rather than traditional transmission teaching. It's essentially taking the constructivist classroom model and taking it a step farther with digital tools, making it even less teacher-centered.
Salmon explains that "the essential role of the e-moderator is promoting human interaction and
communication through the modeling, conveying and building of knowledge and skills" (p. 4). and that the e-moderator/teacher does so by "using the mediation of online environments designed for interaction and collaboration."

In continuing to study the role of the virtual school teacher, I'm still met with constant surprises and a slew of emerging questions. One that really sticks with me regularly though is this: Is online teaching and learning the future of education? And if so, who are the teachers of the future?

Basically, I guess it all comes down to changing paradigms. Despite rapid change in technology over the past three decades, teaching in many places is still largely teacher-centered and transmission based, with more constructivist classrooms cropping up in more areas, particularly in elementary grades. But if online learning continues to develop and gain widespread legitimacy, or maybe even seen as superior someday, it could change the entire landscape of the public school system as we know it. This might sound far-fetched, but I believe that virtual teaching and learning have already altered higher education, particularly in the world of advanced degrees that were previously impossible to obtain outside of attending a traditional classroom regularly. This I can personally attest to.

References
Salmon, G. (2004). E-Moderating: The key to teaching and learning online. 2nd Ed. RoutledgeFarmer: London.