Images
To accompany the 'arrival stories' collected during the first stage of data collection, participants were invited to submit an image - a photograph, graphic, video or even a composite image - that encapsulated something about how they understood their place as an online distance learner. Images were submitted via a dropbox on this site in the days and weeks that followed the interviews. Click on any of the images below to enlarge.
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It's a photo taken at my parents Golden Wedding anniversary last week in Cambridge. Obviously I was not able to attend in person by I managed to link via skype (the photos show my parents, siblings, nieces etc. around my projected image). It was fun for the 10 mins it lasted but now having seen the photos I'm really quite gutted to have missed it and it reminds me how poor a substitute an electronic presence is compared to actually being there. This is not an attack on the value of e-learning educationally only that I as an electronic presence can never feel as much a part of a community as when I am a physical presence. My undergrad experience was one of total immersion in campus life - living in halls, joining numerous societies, most nights in a campus bar or in someone's room with a small crowd, rarely leaving campus. I think I've learned more being on-line (but then I'm twice the age I was then) but in terms of feeling some sort of sense of belonging to a community or being at some sort of institution it is but a poor reflection, to use a biblical analogy (1cor.13), and to stretch it a bit further I'd much prefer to "meet face to face".
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