Elevator Speech

Three days ago, after I enrolled in my online classes, I was working on one of my assignments; one of my Soldiers asked me, “Chief, what are you doing?”

I said, “Homework.”

Larry laughed and thought that I was joking.

Then I replied with a loud and direct tone of voice, “I am doing my homework.”

He was shocked because the way I said it.

Then I told him, “I’m doing my homework, because I enrolled in online college.”

Larry asked me, “What is online college?”

I said, “When you go to college you attend classes in a classroom.”

He said, “Yes.”

I told him, “It is the same thing, but you doing everything online with your computer. Get close to computer, so I can show you. First I log in with my user name and password. This window shows me the two classes that I’m taking.”

Then I clicked on GEN/105.

“In this window, I have access to my books.”

“That’s cool, because you don’t have to carry them,” he said.

I then told him, “Here is the Discussion window; where all the magic happens. Here is where everyone, the other students, the professor, and me log into the class forum. Don’t let the name fool you; it’s a classroom no matter how you want to look at it.”

“Sergeant V. do they give you a specific time to log in, so everyone is there at the same time?” Larry asked.

I laughed and said “No man, it’s impossible, because everyone in my class is back in the States and I’m here in Afghanistan. Usually when they are sleeping I am awake doing my work or vice versa. We call this concept Asynchronous Communication, which means not everyone is connected at the same time.”

Larry asked, “How do you get grade?” “How do you earn points?” “What do you need to do to pass your classes?” “Or is it that just by turning your paper at the end of the week you are good to go?”

“Well, first you have to turn in your assignments. Second, you have to participate on the discussion question and post your answers in a long thread, but we, ‘college...