Contacting

Contacting Eric Beckman

E mail: eric.beckman@ahschools.us

Voice mail: 763-506-6256

I return communications regarding class within 24 hours.

While teaching my first online class in the fall of 2012 I worked to stay in contact with my students. My hybrid Politics and Law class included a contact page, linked here. This class was within the school district where I have taught face to face for over fifteen years, so I suggested communications within the district e mail and voice mail system with which students and families were already somewhat familiar. In the course students mostly used messages within Moodle to contact me. Unread messages forwarded to my school e mail account which I check frequently. None of these contact modes are intrusive outside of school, so there was no need to limit contact.

I did encourage students to use resource on the course Moodle site and in the help forum before direct contact. This could prod students toward more self direction and allow students to help each other with the course. My goals for this and other classes include both independence and collaboration for his students.

I blogged about all of this and more for Collaborative Communities in E-Learning.

Reflection: I modified this page significantly from its initial form in order to bring it up to the standard set by the course assignment. Initially I replicated the contact information from my Online Politics and Law class in the fall of 2012, but this was backward rather than forward looking. Revisions to this page have made it an example of language to use in guiding students how to contact me. Also, I changed from third to first person. The rest of this site is written in third person, as I was directed when I began it in E-Learning for Educators. The Collaborative Communities subpages, however, are authentic assessments of my learning in that class, and, as such, are in the first person. My communication as an e-learning facilitator would be in the first person, and as a result I need to put these artifacts in that voice.