Social Outings: Making Virtual Connections a Reality

November 13 2010 by Jake Frodsham in School Section |No Comments

I have often talked with people about the job I have as an online teacher. One question that almost always comes up is the question of providing students with social experiences. In the cyber world we try many different ways to encourage positive socializing: We have online chatting before class, students exchange IM’s, facebook, e-mail addresses and although it’s never happened in my classroom I’m sure that they exchange phone numbers, on which they probably text more than talk. Although there are virtual connections made there is no replacement for live personal interactions.

This past week I was able to go and meet with several students in a pumpkin patch called Whistle Pig, in Noxen, PA. When we got there we were struggling to get students to gather together for a picture. Like any new setting with new people it was challenging to encourage socializing. After finding students from common classes, sharing a hayride with some over-shaken soda, some s’mores over the fire, forging through a corn maze and picking pumpkins in an open pumpkin patch, there were some wonderful friendships formed.

I spent the better part of an hour lost in a corn maze with some students and parents. We were able to learn about each other as we encountered dead end after dead end. I think I may have found the single worst group of six people you would ever want to ask for directions, but after three to four times as long as most groups, we found our way out, and in the process we had a great time.

When I ask parents about the social aspect of cyber schools they most often reply in two ways: They either tell me that they don’t want their children learning social behavior from their schools, or they tell me of the positive self-esteem building experiences they have seen because of their school of choice.

A friend of mine who is also an online teacher had two students who would constantly chat in their online sessions. Through the year they formed a friendship although they never met. When there was a large event that they were both able to attend, one of these young men was very nervous to meet. He was nervous because he had never been good at making friends. In his previous school, students had picked on him because he was in a wheelchair, and this fact had never come up in their online encounters. Both young men went to the outing and when they met there was no hesitation or question of their friendship because of the relationship they had built through the year. The student in the wheelchair had a huge self-esteem building day that may not have been possible in another school setting.

Is it different to socialize in an online school? Are there challenges to overcome? Of course there are. Can we ever replace the daily interactions of students with each other, teachers, and administrators? No we can’t. However in a lot of ways I don’t think we want to.

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