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News From the Alumni House
Going Back to Yale -- Online
October
2002
by Sarah Hickerson '87
Sarah
Hickerson '87, a.k.a. Helena Hilara, lives and works in England.
I'm not a technophobe, but for me to end up taking an online course required a most unlikely
conspiracy of events. First, I didn't delete the e-mail from AllLearn:
the Alliance for Lifelong Learning -- a joint venture of Yale, Stanford,
and Oxford -- without reading it. Second, I actually linked to the
Web site. Third, the woman who is notoriously terrible with "non-essential"
online communications signed up.
Try this. Go to www.AllLearn.org
and try failing to find something that makes you think, "Yep, I
want to do that."
How about a course
on September 11th and its aftermath? Or one on Mozart's The Marriage
of Figaro? I was seriously tempted by one on 20th-century Irish
fiction or by "Shakespeare from Screen to Script." The course catalogue
is a gloriously skinny Blue Book, all pedigreed professors and sexy
titles.
The one that I finally
chose, "eClavdia: Women in Ancient Rome," was irresistible. The
line, "E tu, Bruta, what was your contribution to
the Roman Empire?" was a call to arms. Diana Kleiner, deputy provost
for the arts at Yale, teaches it, lecturing on such topics as "Women
Movers and Shakers in Pompeii" and "Brainy and Battered Third-Century
Women." I struggled with deciding to enroll for, oh, five minutes.
A quick cost-benefit
analysis: Can I afford it? Do I have the time (4 to 6 hours a week)? No. Really, no, no, no. What's the return on investment?
Ah, now there's a question. Learn something, just because I
want to? There's no purpose, except the sheer pleasure
of learning?
Still a little uneasy
about online learning, I was reassured when the course materials
arrived the week before the course started. There were two books,
a set of two CD-ROMS, and instructions about when and how to start.
Things got underway
with an e-mail from Katrina Dickson, the course moderator. Dickson
sent weekly e-mails with details of upcoming assignments, discussion
topics, and technical advice. Our first assignment was to choose
a Roman online identity, and explain our choices on the message
board. I loved it that "Sabina Nutrix, imperial wet-nurse," was
a lactation consultant in real life. The nice lady from Tennessee explained that she had chosen an identity as an actress because
it was so far from her real-life persona.
There were about 30
of us, and the beauty of the virtual classroom became quickly obvious
as we made our introductions. We covered the globe, from North America
to Europe to Taiwan, and ranged from a high school senior to 1950s
graduates. There were lawyers, a doctor, teachers, a museum curator,
full-time mothers: Even at Yale, we could never match that kind
of diversity.
The course is structured
around the assigned readings and the CD-ROM lectures by Professor
Kleiner, but the real backbone is the message board. Katrina Dickson
initiated discussion "threads," some of which were related to the
week's assignments. Others were discussions of Roman society, art,
and women.
The stars of the show
were the Roman women whose lives we looked at through the art that
portrayed them, their cities, their homes, their children, their
men, and their professions. From Livia, model of Roman feminine
virtue, to Plautilla, condemned to death for her role in an attempted
coup, we came to know the women at the top of society. From midwives
and prostitutes, we became acquainted with the women at society's
bottom. We also learned to appreciate how much can be said with
a hairstyle, how a Roman city is put together, the different styles
of Roman wall painting, and about ancient birthing techniques.
The other two "Roman
women" were Professor Kleiner and Katrina Dickson, Clavdia Maior
and Clavdia Minor respectively. Professor Kleiner's lectures were
well-produced, authoritative, and beautifully structured. She also
has a dry professorial wit, displayed when she dropped in a picture
of Hillary Clinton while talking about Roman empresses with attitude.
And Dickson encouraged us with grace, humor, and boundless knowledge.
So ditch the cost-benefit
analysis and take it from me: Virtual learning has a lot to recommend
it. Doing it for fun has many advantages -- you can spend time pursuing
threads that take your fancy, without worrying if they will come
up in the midterm. Since "eClavdia" has finished, I have a big hole
in my life, but my goodness, I'm enjoying my sleep. |
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