What does it Mean to Teach Online?

Comprehending concepts

         The tail end of December 2019 brought the pandemic to the teaching scene and a few months later, we found ourselves teaching in a virtualized context that was new for many a teacher. Now, do pay attention to the word ‘virtualized’ that I used instead of the term ‘virtual’. Here it is where we need to grapple with the meaning of ‘virtual’ rather than ‘virtualized’. Why don’t we explore what it really means to teach online as a synonym for ‘virtual’ and not for ‘virtualized.’

         In my home country, Costa Rica, fellow educators do only use ‘virtual’ for the kind of teaching they found themselves doing from home—some kind of remote teaching. Filling in our students’ blank slates through this type of teaching is not what must be labeled as virtual teaching. What happened in Costa Rica and in many other countries around the globe was that remote teaching was just the virtualization of whatever we were doing in a F2F classroom, including all our bad teaching practices. For sure, many teachers wholeheartedly prepared their lessons to discover that their ‘empty vessel’ learners were not assimilating the course content satisfactorily. In the farther reaches of their minds, these educators could not comprehend why the learning process was not happening as planned. Could it have been possible that they had not really understood the difference between teaching F2F and in a virtual classroom?

         Because the confused mind of an educator is in enmity against online learning and teaching, educators could not really assimilate the quintessential idea of what online teaching is. To start with, remote learning or a virtualized curriculum is not online or virtual learning; we are talking about two very different teaching scenarios. My simple but compelling argument here is actually coming from Cambridge Dictionary ("virtualize.", 2023) that defines ‘virtualize’ as changing “something that exists in a real form into a virtual version (= one that is created using a computer).” In other words, when teachers were sent home to continue with their school year, university term, etc., they were simply asked to ‘virtualize’ what they were doing in the classroom by means of their laptop or desktop computers, which were probably connected to a sort of Learning Management System (LMS) to help them with homework, assignments, tests, handouts, etc. Mistakenly all sorts of instructors are using ‘virtual’ as a catch-all term for anything they were doing online with their students. Priming the pump of knowledge here, it can be concluded that these teachers never taught an online class.

         Virtualizing one’s curricula is, was, and has been a solitary sport. When educators were told by their employers, many of these professionals had not received a diploma accrediting them as ‘virtual educators.’ When the coronavirus began its global rampage early in 2020, in Costa Rica the Ministry of Education might have considered that the pandemic was meant to be short and allowing teachers to virtualize academic programs was a relatively low-risk activity. I’m not going to criticize what was or was not done by the Ministry of Education in my country, but it seems to me that it happened in many other places around the world.

         What does it mean to teach online but in a virtual setting then? Based on Bluestone (2022), there are certain characteristics that a virtual classroom must have. If these elements are present, we have an educator working in a true virtual environment.

Teaching online or virtually does imply the usage of a suite of online tools that may or may not have been fully present while educators were in remote, virtualized teaching; it was not virtual because the program was not born as an online curriculum.

         Albeit a false assumption of what online, virtual teaching is, learners also drew upon their background knowledge on how to behave while in school. A virtual curriculum also prepares students to face the new challenge. Though I like the idea of working hard in short, focused bursts in classroom activities, I bet that the constant complaints teachers had in regard to assignment submissions, homework delivery, and so on were truer than true because students barely put in their learning milage. And all this happened because a virtual, online course is not created in one go. Virtual, online programs do require that teachers don’t stifle their creativity in lesson planning and objective achievement.

 

References

"virtualize". (2023, August 18). Retrieved from Dictionary.Cambridge.Org: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/virtualize

Bluestone, Z. (2022, November 16). 7 Characteristics of a Virtual Classroom. Retrieved from MemberPress.Com: https://memberpress.com/blog/5-characteristics-virtual-classroom/

 

Suggested Reading Comprehension Exercise.

Now that you have read the blog entry, read the following statements, and decide if they are true or false. The answers are provided below.

True/False: The term 'virtualized' is used in the text to highlight the distinction between different types of online teaching.

True/False: In Costa Rica and many other countries, remote teaching was a direct transformation of traditional classroom teaching into an online format.

True/False: Some educators struggled to understand why their remote teaching methods were not yielding the expected learning outcomes.

True/False: According to Cambridge Dictionary, the term 'virtualize' refers to converting something physical into a computer-generated version.

True/False: The author believes that many instructors use the term 'virtual' inaccurately to describe their online teaching practices.

True/False: The text suggests that virtualizing a curriculum was a collaborative effort among educators.

True/False: The Ministry of Education in Costa Rica took significant steps to accredit teachers as virtual educators during the pandemic.

True/False: Bluestone's characteristics of a virtual classroom provide a framework to differentiate between virtual and virtualized teaching.

True/False: One of Bluestone's criteria for a virtual classroom is having socially connected student groups.

True/False: The text implies that the creation of an online curriculum happens all at once and doesn't require ongoing development by teachers.

 

Answers:

True

True

True

True

True

False

False

True

True

False

 

What Does It Mean to Teach Online? by Jonathan Acuña on Scribd

What Does It Mean to Teach ... by Jonathan Acuña

Bin Lids Sculpture, INA – La Unión, Cartago, Costa Rica

Picture taken by Jonathan Acuña (2019)

Ready to Teach Online? What... by Jonathan Acuña

Deontology or Utilitarianism?

What is governing our morals?

         In terms of deontology, “we are morally required to do certain things because we have certain moral duties or obligations to each other” (The Open University, 2020 [a]). Many people around the world are beseeching national and local governments nautely not to desert them, but then they get to discover that 75% of the world’s wealth is in the bank accounts of a handful of individuals. If the richest 20% of the population on the world get about 75% of the world’s income, what are they morally required to do for people who live with less than US$5.50 a day (about US$165 per month)? A country like Bangladesh, e.g., which houses thousands of sweatshops for many affluent investors of all kinds of clothing companies, is -deontologically speaking- being mistreated as a means to get more and more profit for wealthy people’s companies. What rules should then govern everybody to righteously rule the way they treat others especially when financial resources are in the way?

         This is not about a mother who admonishes her children for being unfair with one another when she gives them their allowances. There ought to be rules everyone would “reasonably choose to govern the way they treat each other” (The Open University, 2020 [a]). Based on Immanuel Kant (Manson, n.d.), “each person must never be treated only as a means to some other end, but must also be treated as an end themselves.” Going back to the sweatshops in Bangladesh, these individuals are being treated as a means to get more profit for affluent investors’ companies; these Bangladeshi workers are not being treated as an end themselves in which their lives, as well as their families, can become a better, more stable one with food served ready to be eaten, clean warm clothing to wear, financial resources to provide their children with education and a safe place to live. Deontology “sees people as a source of value and never just as a tool to help achieve some desirable outcome” (The Open University, 2020 [a]). And this is not a callous comment, but poverty is a global issue many people avoid’s.

         From a utilitarian standpoint, Bangladeshi sweatshop workers’ happiness and wellbeing do not count equally when compared to the affluent investors’ way of living. If utilitarianism helps individuals decide “primarily on the rightness or wrongness of policies or actions in terms of what they bring about: their results and consequences” (The Open University, 2020 [b]), not much it is being done to bring wellbeing to those sweatshop workers (along with their families) or to minimize any feeling of unhappiness or threat of social harm (or injustice) they suffer. Utilitarianism also considers that in order to “lessen harm and maximise good overall” (The Open University, 2020 [b]), any affluent investors’ right could be sacrificed, something -of course- that is not perceived with a fine candor by the Bangladeshi’s bosses.

         Ethical rules people should live by are unfortunately not backed up by legal or political structures in all countries around the world. Deontologists who can gather round policy makers can help them consider rational individuals in their countries “as an end in themselves and not as a means to something else” (British Broadcasting Corporation, 2014). Workers, e.g., are not tools to more affluent lives if they barely have something to eat. Utilitarian ethicists can aid governmental officials and congresspeople to consider that “everyone’s happiness and wellbeing counts equally” (The Open University, 2020 [b]). By all the unwritten laws of morality humans live by, the pursuit of happiness and wellbeing is not exclusive of the richest 20% of the population on the world who get about 75% of the world’s income; it is part of what humankind aspires to get.

References

British Broadcasting Corporation. (2014). An End-in-itself. Retrieved November 19, 2020, from BBC.CO.UK.

Manson, M. (n.d.). The One Rule for Live. Retrieved November 19, 2020, from https://markmanson.net/: https://markmanson.net/the-one-rule-for-life

The Open University. (2020 [a]). Global Ethics and Duties. Retrieved November 8, 2020, from FutureLearn.Com: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/global-ethics/3/steps/905608

The Open University. (2020 [b]). Good and Bad Results, Harms and Wellbeing. Retrieved November 8, 2020, from FutureLearn.Com: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/global-ethics/3/steps/905609

 

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Comprehending Human Rights

Are they legal, political, moral, or natural?

 

         “All human beings have the rights that are enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights” (The Open University, 2020a), but are all individuals enjoying what each one of these rights entail? The fact is that even though the UN is upholding the fact that all humans have these rights, some people enjoy them plentifully, but others look like they have despised some of their rights because they only enjoy a handful of them.

Why is it that some people have all or just a portion of them? The explanation can be simple if we focus on a nation’s legal or political structures that support them. As pointed out by The Open University (2020b), this “depends on certain legal or political frameworks respecting and upholding them.” The absence of this type of enforcement means that citizens do not have those rights legally or constitutionally extoled in their magna cartas. “Governments enshrine certain rights by passing laws and police forces and courts enforce them” (The Open University, 2020b). North Korea’s political framework, e.g., does not support the freedom of speech enshrined in Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the legal upshot of this is that the North Koreans have the very same right as a calabash to publicly disagree with governmental decisions. Yet all individuals living in repressive regimes are entitled with this speech right but in their own countries. This sounds rather contradictory, but it is the reality they have to live. This is like a working horse being held from its hind legs when plowing the land.

Human rights are moral rather than legal. The question then lingers: Are human rights for all individuals? Sure; this is a resounding yes! However, it needs to be understood that “human rights are fundamental moral rights that any and every human being has and which we should seek to uphold, establish and defend everywhere, at all times” (The Open University, 2020b). In the eyes of politicians, -for instance-, moral rights do not and should not interfere with a nation’s legal system. Take the case of the United States in 2017 when “Amnesty accused the U.S. government of setting the tone for a year of ‘hate-filled rhetoric’ that fueled bigotry and persecution across the world” (Meredith, 2018) when six Muslim-majority countries’ citizens were banned to travel to the United States. Based on this example, no human being should be discriminated because of its creed or religious beliefs. Morally speaking this can be labelled as an unethical decision yet legal.

To end up, human rights should also be considered “natural rights.” A natural right “supposedly transcends any political or historical situation and does not depend on being established by any legal or political institutions” (The Open University, 2020c). Human rights predate the foundation of civilizations; “natural rights are thus rights that morally ought to be respected, even if in practice, they sometimes are not legally or politically respected” (The Open University, 2020c). Human rights are natural, moral fundamental rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but that are unfortunately not backed up by legal or political structures in all countries around the globe.

References

Meredith, S. (2018, February 23). 10 Global Hotspots for Major Human Rights Violations in 2017. Retrieved November 9, 2020, from CNBC.Com: https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/23/amnesty-ten-global-hotspots-for-major-human-rights-violations-in-2017.html

The Open University. (2020a). Global Ethics and Human Rights. Retrieved November 6, 2020, from FutureLearn.Com.

The Open University. (2020b). What are Human Rights? Retrieved November 7, 2020, from FutureLearn.Com: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/global-ethics/3/steps/905606

The Open University. (2020c). Natural Rights. Retrieved November 8, 2020, from FutureLearn.Com: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/global-ethics/3/steps/905607

 

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What does Justice Demand of Whom?

Getting what is due to everyone

         Justice suggests that “everyone [is] getting what’s due to them” (The Open University, 2020a), but how true is this statement? Millions of people across the world complain that they do not get what is due to them because of their local or national governments, corruption in authorities, power groups, and so on. Their adventure to get what is due to them is plunging them to the deepest woe especially when a motley procession of debonair, white-collared authorities talk to pacify them, and then their words are taken away by the wind and nothing happens whatsoever. When all this takes place, one gets to reflect on what justice really means.

         “There are many different descriptions of justice” (The Open University, 2020b), but what is it? Well, justice can be defined as what is good with everyone without harming others; it is the equity and fairness any human should be treated regardless of their race, creed, social status, age, or wealth. Justice also has to do with equal access to social services a society (through its institutions) can provide its citizens with no distinction. Moreover, justice has to do with the balance between what is good and wrong, and this wrongness has to do with how one affects others or how these others are affecting me and mine. Probably there are many more ways of defining this elusive, rather indomitable ethical construct called justice, but in the end the road takes us back to what is due to them.

         What does justice demand of whom? To give a fair answer to this question, it is essential to visit the construing of justice and the currency of justice. In construing justice, it is necessary to analyze “the level of equality, fairness, deservedness or reciprocity” (The Open University, 2020a) people are exposed to and expect to have from fellow citizen, government authorities, or any other stakeholder. Based on how justice is construed, injustice, in the eyes of who are treated unfairly, is dainty in its way of mistreating them to a point where they feel social systems are plunging their hooks into them to protect the privileged. What is due to them becomes a way to make people feel angered and respond with outrage because their rights are not being met.

         “What is being distributed justly” (The Open University, 2020a) is linked to the currency of justice. For the underprivileged the only thing they shy at is the sight of unjust distribution of what they demand from their governments or social structures: “material goods and resources, liberties, welfare, ... equal life opportunities” (The Open University, 2020a), and so on. These individuals feel that injustice may be creeping from behind in coquettish ways to gobble up what is due to them. Justice, in this particular context, is not something societies are saving for leaner times; justice must be close knit to the social tapestry that guarantees basic human rights for everyone.

         In mankind’s exultation for the declaration of human rights, it looks like the underprivileged repeatedly say to justice, begone from me forever. While we extol the Declaration made by UN on December 10, 1948, the world continues to witness that people are deprived of them. Consider how Afghan girls are not allowed to get any education especially in areas under Taliban control; it is a basic right that is not being respected nor is it made respected by UNICEF. What about the right to assembly in Maduro’s Venezuela or in Ortega-Murillo’s Nicaragua? We find citizens who cannot come together and collectively express, promote, pursue, and defend common interests. There should be political freedom, but the Organization of American States (OAS) cannot guarantee this right for all inhabitants in the Americas. These are just two examples that show us that people do not get what is due to them because of their local or national governments, corruption in authorities, power groups, or the lack of political pressure mechanisms to make rights come true for all.

References

The Open University. (2020a). Global Ethics and Justice. Retrieved November 5, 2020, from FutureLearn.Com: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/global-ethics/3/steps/905604

The Open University. (2020b). What is Justice? Retrieved November 3, 2020, from FutureLearn.Com: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/global-ethics/3/steps/905603

 

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The case of international migration

 

         International migration, which like a serpent coils around the whole world, “is estimated to be almost 272 million globally” (International Organization for Migration, 2019). Nearly two-thirds are labor migrants (International Organization for Migration, 2019), who will probably go back to their home countries as soon as their work is over. But there are, based on the statistics provided by the IOM, 96.67 million individuals who migrate to permanently move away from their motherlands due to a full gamut of reasons to escape from social, economic, and climatic conditions.

         From a mere empirical standpoint, “it can be stated that it is wrong that [migrant] people suffer when others could help but fail to do so” (The Open University, 2020a). At last the IOM’s statistics has drawn migration’s secret, and now it can be better understood that governments will not thin the numbers out. International migration, as a global ethics problem, is “closely connected to acute events (such as severe instability, economic crisis or conflict) as well as long-term trends (such as demographic change, economic development, communications technology advances and transportation access)” (International Organization for Migration, 2019). Empiricism, e.g., is telling us the experiences of Venezuelans who are running away because of severe political instability and due to their home country’s economic crisis, of Syrians who find themselves moving away their homeland because of conflict, and so on. While most of us huddle close to our loved ones, these people find themselves struggling with their lives.

         From a mere attempt to construct a model of how the world works, national governments and the UN have failed to help these 96.67 million migrants who moved away from their homelands to other countries. If Hondurans, e.g., decide to walk from their country all the way to Tijuana in Mexico to have a chance to be admitted as refugees in the United States, this fact is telling us how the Honduran government and its economy, and probably the UN, have failed to aid all these people with decent job opportunities to support their families. Another example here is to question what seems to be wrong with the Afghan political structures that have forced nearly 2.7 million people to move away. “Pakistan hosts nearly 1.4 million, including some second- or third-generation Afghan refugees who have never lived in their home country” (Reid, 2020). Since the Soviet Union’s invasion in 1979, Afghanistan and the UN have not provided these people a solution to a problem that has been there for 40 years. Being rather pessimistic, it would be much easier to find the Last Supper’s goblet than to give migrants a chance to stay in their homelands and to live a happy life next to theirs.

         From a normative point of view, who are the individuals who should be doing something to stop global migration and provide them with a quality life? It looks like migration has not been addressed properly when you just get to see barren efforts by international organizations and the lack of interest in nations whose citizens are just moving away. Their countries can be seething with life, but that life is snatched to the last bit by just a handful of individuals. It cannot be denied that UNHCR has established “a comprehensive and coherent approach in the overall institutional response to international migration” (UNHCR - The UN Refugee Agency, 2006), but more than 96 million people will migrate this very year for many reasons that will not be taken care of after great efforts. In short, “huge inequalities between people across the world, in terms of resources or relations of power, are a bad thing, and wrong” (The Open University, 2020a), and the UN will not stop it that easily especially when states are not interested. Here we have one of the horsemen of the apocalypse taking his eight-footed steed to continue spreading despair among migrants and their families.

         Global migration is a global ethics problem. “The estimate number and proportion of international migrants already surpasses some projections made for the year 2050, which were in the order of 2.6 per cent or 230 million” (International Organization for Migration, 2019). This statistical fact simply is showing us that international migration is something that has gone out of control. Millions of individuals, at a world scale, are and continue suffering because of their need to run away from their home countries. The UN has the fact and figures of migration; the theory and construction of models about how the world works are known by national governments and international institutions dealing with this global issue, but not much will be done to stop these people from suffering. Normatively speaking, nations and international agencies know what needs to be done; they know they ought to do something, but not much can be achieved when there is no will among national and international stakeholders.

References

International Organization for Migration. (2019). World Migration Reprot 2020. Geneva, Switzerland: International Organization for Migration. Retrieved November 1, 2020, from https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/wmr_2020.pdf

Reid, K. (2020, June 19). Forced to flee: Top countries refugees are coming from. Retrieved November 1, 2020, from WorldVision.Org: https://www.worldvision.org/refugees-news-stories/forced-to-flee-top-countries-refugees-coming-from

The Open University. (2020a). The global ethical standpoint. Retrieved November 1, 2020, from FutureLearn.Com: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/global-ethics/3/steps/905602

The Open University. (2020b). Doing Global Ethics. Recuperado el 29 de October de 2020, de FutureLearn.Com: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/global-ethics/3/steps/905601

UNHCR - The UN Refugee Agency. (2006, September 1). Global Migration Group. Retrieved November 1, 2020, from UNHCR.Org: https://www.unhcr.org/global-migration-group.html

 

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