There can be little doubt that social networking has become a significant part of many of our everyday lives.  An article last month in Wired Magazine explains that not only has the phenomenon taken hold in our personal lives, it has become a coveted aspect of the online industry with the largest internet powerhouses vying for the opportunity to take advantage of the wealth of personal information we share everyday on such sites.

Focusing on the contentious relationship between Google and Facebook, the article seems to portray an online rivalry of sorts between social networking and the algorithmic based internet search engines.  In the fall of 2007, Google executives were excited by the prospect of obtaining if not all at least a stake in Facebook.  According to Fred Vogelstein, author of the Wired article, Google’s leadership realized that Facebook has managed to change the online behaviors of its members.  The volume and nature of personal information exchanged on Facebook is a marketing gold mine for other internet companies, including Google.  While sharing personal information on the internet has become not only taboo but an outright “no no,” Facebook users not only use their real and often full names but also their real email addresses to connect with their real friends and “share their real thoughts, tastes, and news.”  Whereas internet giants like Google have struggled to tap into such personal information, Facebook enjoys a unique privilege in which its users willingly provide substantial volumes of such information.

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Ed Strong was one of my grad school professors at Tulane.  On one of my early postings on this blog, I mentioned his name with a list of professors who I found notable for their teaching abilities when I was in college.  Ed found that posting and sent me a note.  We have remained in touch off and on through email and Facebook.  A few months ago, Ed sent me a link to one of the postings on his blog, Cabbages and Kings, and stated that I was one of his few Facebook friends who might be interested in the post.

I clicked on the link and found an interesting post where Dr. Strong shares his teaching philosophy.  He originally wrote the piece for his application for a tenure-track position at the university where he works as a full-time visiting professor.  You can read his post yourself or my synopsis below.  Either way, I think it is worth sharing.

Dr. Strong has a unique and varied teaching background.  His first teaching opportunities were with the Army where the teaching philosophy focused on the notion that only three teaching points could be absorbed and retained by students in an hour-long class.  From the Army, Dr. Strong went to INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France which uses a teaching style similar to that found at the Harvard Business School:  individual instructors are required to undertake extensive preparation, often in conjunction with other professors teaching the same or similar classes.  His time at Tulane, as he explains, brought a very different teaching experience.  Dr. Strong writes, “…I spent 34 years at Tulane, a school whose culture held that the instructor was – once the classroom doors were closed – answerable to no one for what went on in the classroom.”  From these experiences, Dr. Strong’s teaching philosophy has settled into a somewhat eclectic and, by his own admission, ever-evolving one.

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Following up on my article regarding Adult Online Learners, I asked Phil McNair, our Vice President for Academic Services to discuss some of our efforts for more interactivity among our students.  Phil’s guest article is printed below.

A concern of many students attending college online is that they are not having a “real” college experience: no football games, no dormitories, no cafeterias or gyms or face to face interaction with fellow students.  Perhaps the biggest difference between online and traditional education is the social component; the sense of community (or lack thereof) one develops over time while engaging in learning activities.  Academics is one component of a learning environment, but not  the only component.  Traditional schools spend a significant amount of resources on the non-academic aspects of their programs with corresponding impacts on their tuition and fees. The budget for facilities maintenance on most large college campuses approaches the annual budget of APUS.  While this reality means that online schools should be able to offer courses for lower tuition than land-based schools, it does not necessarily signify that the two types of learning environments are otherwise equal. 

In short, community matters.  Much research has been done to validate that students who feel a sense of connection, or community, with their school are less likely to drop out than those with weaker ties.  The renowned retention expert Vincent Tinto has published numerous articles that identify community, along with academic quality and support services, as one of the key factors in influencing student behavior.  Students stay where they feel they belong; without a sense of community they may not feel like they are part of something to which it is worth belonging.

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