Who Am I Speaking With or To?

My very first experience with online learning was at least two decades ago.  It was before anyone had ever envisaged a world of online learning or online degrees or anything approaching either of those two. It was when all we had was text messages, in other words before Java scripting enabled real-time conversations through the Internet.  I was involved, at home, with United Synagogues of Conservative Judaism, and my involvement at the regional level had me very interested in Rabbinic studies. Those who know me well, know that at one I had thought about being a rabbi. When I received mail that advertised an online course in Talmud study I grabbed at the chance.  In those days, it required me to look at e-mail only.  Email responses and early web pages accessed through a tool like A O L Online or even before that, CompuServe, allowed me to see dialogue from other participants.  We would be given a challenge to read about a Talmudic decision and the text that was used to arrive at that decision and we could argue the case back and forth. It was a fascinating experience throughout and I enjoyed every minute of it. However, something very special was part of this process that I have seldom if ever seen again. Every one of us was required to post a digital picture if we could as part of our introductions to each other AND THEN, every time our posts appeared after that, our picture was there for others to use to put a face to a name.  It doesn't seem like a lot but if you put that idea together with all that we teach about the importance to the culture of the classroom of recognizing the individuality of our students and help them each to have a voice and presence in the classroom equally, it only makes sense to have the same goal online.  I have tried this fall, in my online teaching, to encourage students to post a pic with their ID in WhatsApp which we use to communicate and, even now, at the end of the semester, there are those who  have not complied.  I believe that posting pictures and including them each time we post online, regardless of the venue, above and beyond what Facebook does, is imperative going forward.  Just like we learn to recognize each other through our voices and our mannerisms, we relate to each other by how we see each other and our visual representations, whether virtual or real, are important. We need to have pictures everywhere when teaching and learning online.