Virtually Being There: Creating Authentic Experiences through Interactive Exchanges

Abstract

had become keyboard dependent years before. Nonetheless, I recognized in myself the same panic that Kelly displayed every time I ventured into unknown technological territory. And, though I empathized with Kelly, I also realized that computers could be both significant learning tools within her future and a means for her to reach beyond the instructional isolation she might experience there. When I moved from my public school position to the university methods in 1997, I brought with me a desire to place my students in active, authentic learning environments where they could frame their university knowledge in the reality of secondary classrooms. I wanted them to experience the excitement of reciprocal teaching and learning-learning about teaching from close instructional involvement with secondary students. Moreover, like Sanford and others, I found myself suspicious of theories presented outside of the context of a classroom (7). I knew that, despite the best efforts of universities, teachers tend to teach as they were taught. And I was keenly aware of the pitfalls of offering preservice teachers only success stories and not enough stories of the messy and chaotic work (Vinz 171) that teachers do. I knew my students needed interaction with adolescents to begin to glimpse the true complexity of secondary teaching. These were important issues for me. Still, I came to realize that, for many of my students, faceto-face interaction in schools would be difficult to