TheVirtual Vision Quest

I started small by experimenting in a class with a discussion list and email and even co-founded an electronic bulletin board for the discussion of religious ideas and ideas about religion. Some students were as cyber-challenged as I, fortunately. Some probably assumed I knew what I was talking about and doing, fortunately. As it turned out, most students were not computer wizards and I was not alone in experiencing even those first, small steps as a real experiment.

It was important that I be fully honest with the students from the beginning as to my computing knowledge and skills and acknowledge that we were all in this experiment together. Technological help was available even if I was not the one who often gave it. Allowing the students to see my limitations seemed to help them not be embarrassed to admit their own. So, in spite of reading all about telecomputing, in practice I worked in a collaborative learning-by-doing atmosphere where I was a learner too. We could thus all genuinely try to help each other. As long as I did not pose as an "expert," I was free to make mistakes and try again…and again.

What follows is a montage of my experiments and experiences with one particular way that may serve to demonstrate that while the use of educational technologies can not in themselves transform poor teaching or mentoring into good, and while such technologies are not absolute essentials for good learning and good teaching, a good use of selected technologies can both enhance the learning process and help in its being more enjoyable. For, as Thomas Aquinas said, "There is no joy in life without joy in work."

The particular educational experiment I speak of is electronic collaborative writing in both classroom and totally online environments. It will be argued that such writing does foster a student-centered experience and that such experience is both pedagogically sound and needed, certainly in my department and discipline of religious studies where students' abilities to interpret, evaluation and integrate are far more important than just the transfer or processing of information. In my experience (and not based on a priori theorizing), this kind of experimental experience has significantly transformed the learning process for learners (students) and for their mentor (professor), me.

From Computer Jester to Quester

A Continuous Experiment