Hybrid Theory

(Don't make fun of me for making a Linkin Park reference...)
From a few Google searches, I wasn't able to find any specific descriptions of hybrid courses being offered elsewhere, but I did find a lot of general descriptions of the concept on other universities' websites. For the most part, they appeared to be the same. Like our class, they are described as courses that have a reduced amount of in-class time in favor of more online-based activities. One even specified that there may be some content for students to look into even before the first lecture, much like there was for us. I also found a New York Times article covering a specific hybrid course being offered at MIT, which was a little different in that it involved online assessments. The idea was pretty much the same though.

In our course, I feel that the online portions were well-connected to the physical portions of the course. The online activities we engaged in related to lectures and discussions very well. However, for me, the majority of the learning in this course seemed to come from the readings, which were kind of ignored by the lectures and online assignments. I actually felt that I didn't need to pay any attention to the lectures to succeed as long as I was doing the readings and paying attention in discussion sections. So, while all aspects of the course were obviously connected and important, the "hybrid" part didn't really do much for me as far as my success on class assessments.

I'm not really sure which part of the course was more informative for me about my fellow classmates. I didn't spend a whole lot of time reading everyone's blog, but I think there is something to be said for inferring a lot about a person based on the way they express themselves in assignments like this. However, I think I was still a lot more informed by the offline interactions I had with my classmates, such as presentations and class discussions. I don't feel a lot better about my use of blogs and wikis because of this class, because in my opinion this isn't anything like actual blogging or wiki use. We rarely edited or had any use for the wiki, and our blogs were done for assignments. If anyone actually read these blogs outside of those involved in the class, I would recommend they find something better to do with their lives, because it's my impression that most of us put minimal effort into this part of the class. Following that, I think that online components should be used with caution going forward for UW professors. I liked learning from the online resources we were directed to, and having the LIS 201 blog as a reference point was very useful, but acting like what we do in blogs and wikis for class will apply to the outside world seems like a reach. I use the same skills for writing online as I do for writing any other assignment. Maybe I'm alone here, but I think there's very little value (besides convenience) of putting these types of assignments online. I'm glad they're here, but we shouldn't act like they're more than homework assignments.

With all that criticism out of the way, I do think that a lot of what we learned in this class gave me a better perspective on my own online experiences. I was even able to see how the historical topics we covered in the beginning of the course related to the technology we use in today's "information society." I especially thought the online blog assignments were good reflections on things I do outside of class, such as using online avatars and using social media. The challenge of not using technology for a weekend even inspired me to try to live without using some social networks, and I think I've become a better person for it. There were some duds in the set of articles we read, but overall I was able to appreciate the relevance of what we learned to the world we live in today, and I think the substantive part of the course was very good.