Two Cheers and a Pint of Worry: An On-Line Course in Political and Social Philosophy

Abstract

During the past decade there have been numerous efforts to reinvigorate distance education; some of these have involved video technology, but others have made use of computers and advances in the design of computer software. In 1995, the State University of New York, funded by a major grant from the Sloan Foundation, embarked upon the creation of an "on-line" learning program--a set of asynchronous and distance learning courses delivered solely via computer. In whatfollows, I detail the genesis and structure of a course in political and social philosophy that I designed (and taught) for this project. After some preliminary comments on the "virtual classroom”. I illustrate the design of the course, and then offer a brief qualitative assessment. I close the essay with some cautionary reflections on computer-mediated education. Athough my initial skepticism about such courses has been modified, I still believe that there is something valuable about the direct, face-to-face, encounter of teacher and student that is not easily compensated for in computer-mediated learning.

Towards an integral pedagogy in the age of ‘digital Gestell’: Moving between embodied co-presence and telepresence in learning and teaching practices

“…The connections and relations between practices of embodiment and learning have been explored in miscellaneous contexts (Dall’Alba and Barnacle, 2005; Heath, 1998; Maiese, 2013). This includes, for example, the professional activities of train dispatchers (Willems, 2018), makers (De Vaujany and Aroles, 2019), academics (Valtonen et al, 2017) and managers (Pittaway and Cope, 2007), as well as the pedagogic activities in universities and business schools (Tomkins and Ulus, 2016).…”

What's Lacking in Online Learning? Dreyfus, Merleau-Ponty and Bodily Affective Understanding

“…Much on‐campus learning takes place at set times, in particular places with culturally inculcated significance, and in the presence of committed peers who are jointly engaged in a shared project. Each of these features might constitute a helpful motivational and affective support for committing to and engaging with the learning process (Heath, ). For each of the above points, I think the appropriate response is to concede limitations of online learning and attempt to mitigate these in course design.…”

“…One family of such worries is inspired by reflections on the bodily basis of an important kind of understanding, and skepticism over whether this bodily basis can be inculcated in the absence of actual, flesh‐and‐blood, classroom interactions (e.g. Dall'Alba and Barnacle, ; Dreyfus, , ; Ess, ; Heath, ; Maiese, ). This paper focuses on the ways in which such worries arise in the influential work of Hubert Dreyfus (, ).…”