With a personal appearance from the online teacher

Abstract

While online students may wish to see their teacher on video, there may be practical, pedagogical, affective or political reasons for hesitating. Drawing on my own experiences of online teaching both on a Masters programme and a MOOC (EDCMOOC), the paper raises questions about approaches to teaching, misrepresentation, surveillance and teacher agency. I conclude that though there are problems in these areas, they exist apart from the use of video technology and should not be conflated with it. Moreover, video use does not need to entail a monologic pedagogic stance but can be used to renew and create dialogic opportunities for teachers and students. The paper situates its questions within Bakhtinian ideas about the monologic and the dialogic, parody and addressivity.