WebCT in Utopia: how Dante, iPods, and the Lilliputians led to e-learning enlightenment at one university

University Business, July, 2005 by Robert Viau

In addition to these weekly MP assignments, I also open discussions on general interest topics and current events. During the fall semester we had some lively online discussions around the presidential election, which involved my students' iPods through downloaded speeches from the National Conventions. This spring we have discussed the tragic Terri Schiavo case and its ethical, social and political complexity. In both cases, we have been able to make connections to the texts we are discussing, the overarching course concepts, and Life beyond the classroom.

General interest topics that are built into our course management system's discussion system, though only marginally connected to the course, are useful for honors community building and sharing: favorite books, authors, movies, paintings, musicians; current events, politics, entertainment, television; university, honors and community events; and service learning or community service opportunities.

Speaking of community service, my students are required to complete 20 hours of service learning relating to the Utopia/Dystopia course. Most of the time they spend working on Habitat for Humanity projects. My students post their hours online, and they reflect on their service learning experiences as well.

Since Habitat for Humanity is an outgrowth of the utopian/dystopian community of Koinonia, Ga., we have a specific pedagogical connection for Service Learning that is rather rare in academia. In the past, I have begun the course by taking students on a field trip to Koinonia and the nearby Global Village, both of which we then discuss upon our return, both in class and on WebCT.

A LILLIPUTIAN LESSON

Finally, e-learning technology has provided some truly remarkable opportunities for real intellectual engagement and transformation, of not only my students but of me and my colleagues. For each section of Utopia/Dystopia, I select a faculty facilitator who comes to every class, participates in class and online discussions, and takes half of the class when we split into breakout groups.

A few years ago my facilitator was my department chair. In my small group we had been discussing Gulliver's Truvels, specifically the passage concerning the Lilliputians' burial methods. Originally, the Lilliputians believed that the earth was flat. So they buried their dead head-downward. At the end of the world, they thought, the flat earth would rotate and the dead would then be properly positioned to be Launched into heaven.

Lilliputians now know that the earth is not flat, but they continue to bury their dead head-downward anyway by tradition. I asked my students if they could relate this passage to beliefs they held that might contradict scientific evidence. Before I knew it, some of us were challenging the Literal interpretation of scripture.

At the end of the class, one of my students had a meltdown. "You don't understand," she shouted. "In the honors program at my high school, not only were we all Christians--we all went to the same church. I'm not used to encountering differences of opinion!"