Virtual Utopias: How to Create the Perfect Online Course

By Gene Tanta.

Published by Ubiquitous Learning: An International Journal

Format	Price
Article: Print	$US10.00
Article: Electronic	$US5.00

In brief, my vision for an educational online academy entails: (1) centering learners’ experiences, (2) encorporating collaborative/constructivist educational theory, (3) and including cross-discipline/multi-modal primary and secondary materials.

Approach:

(1) To offer facilitator-led discussions of learner-experience with multi-modal texts. (2) To collage learning opportunities that matter to learner, facilitator, and world. (3) To subjectively select ethical, spiritual, and intellectual stimuli that represent an unapologetic pluralist reality. (4) To collaborate in the construction of knowledge across disciplines. (5) To foster the love of making creative and critical connections by example.

Goal:

(1) To enjoy the journey of discovery wherever the open mind may lead. (2) To encourage independent thought by juxtaposing experiences with life, texts, and interpretive acts. (3) To note and celebrate our limits and points of strength as active participants in the process of our own educations.

Keywords:	Model Independent Thought, Online Facilitation, Higher Education in the Humanities, Collaborative/Constructivist, Centering Learners’ Experiences, Cross-Discipline Discourse, Multi-Modal Primary/Secondary Materials, Unapologetic Pluralist Reality, Foster the Love of Making Knowledge, Enjoy the Journey of Discovery, Encourage Skepticism and Curiosity

Ubiquitous Learning: An International Journal, Volume 1, Issue 3, pp.83-92. Article: Print (Spiral Bound). Article: Electronic (PDF File; 1.590MB).

Dr. Gene Tanta

Ph.D. Candidate, Graduate TA, English, University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, Chicago, WI, USA

Born in Timisoara, Romania, in 1974, Gene Tanta immigrated to Chicago in 1984 with family at the age of 10. He earned his MFA in Poetry from the Iowa’s Writers’ Workshop in 2000. Rather than finishing a second MFA (in Painting and Drawing) he went to Mexico to draw people’s heads and act as an international observer on the Zapatista bus caravan in 2000. Gene translates contemporary Romanian poetry. His publications include: Epoch, Ploughshares, Circumference Magazine, Exquisite Corpse, Watchword, Columbia Poetry Review, The Laurel Review and two collaborative poems with Reginald Shepherd anthologized in Saints of Hysteria: A Half-Century of Collaborative American Poetry. Currently, he is a doctoral candidate in Creative Writing (Poetry) at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee where he also serves as Art Director for Cream City Review.