I've been participating lately in a program at USF to introduce audio-based synchronous learning environments. We've had a series of online meetings already, and one trend I noticed emerging was that most teachers were trying to find ways to reproduce teaching techniques they use in the classroom into an online learning environment. For them, the ability to talk to students and hear from them via audio (we're wearing mics and headsets) is a way to make online learning environments feel more like the traditional classroom.
However, what I prefer to see people doing is trying to figure out what you can do in an OLE that you simply can't do in a traditional classroom, then devise a new teaching strategy that takes full advantage of these features. The problem is, we're usually better at imitating than truly innovating, so it really requires some serious brainstorming to discover truly new ways to use advanced technology.
One thought that came to my mind was using virtual environments to teach. We've all seen those nifty WWII first-person shooters with the great graphics and detail. Why can't a history professor teach a class in this environment? The students' avatars could walk about the battlefield as the professor lectures, then "teleport" them to a new scene. They could even participate in the battle--what better way to learn?
But what about rhetoric and composition? Obviously, there are many possibilities for using virtual architecture to teach aspects of rhetoric, particularly visual rhetoric. Students could, for example, learn in a virtual environment of a political speech, complete with adoring fans and the like. Or, they could be standing on the "grassy knoll' during the JFK assassination. Perhaps they could be a Jewish prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp. The rhetorical analysis would consist of a careful study of how the "architecture" of the scene shapes the rhetorical effect of the act. I'm definitely dipping into Kenneth Burke's pentad here.
Burke says that language is symbolic action. That statement becomes quite literal when the symbolic action is taking place in a virtual environment. We're not simply showing films anymore, but actually placing students in the scene of rhetorical events and asking them to conduct rhetorical analyses that includes considerations of all five elements of Burke's pentad.
immersion versus illusion
I enjoyed reading your post and thinking about the question you raise. I'm just finishing up a Master's in Instructional Technology at Dominican and most of our classes were "hybrid" (meaning they were face-to-face some weeks and also online other weeks.) We used the Blackboard online Learning Content Management System. Mostly, this is a text-based environment, so we would do assigned readings and then meet virtually to discuss or post assignments. One thing we found over time that worked really well was to have our meetings asynchronously. What this means is that you can log into the discussion at any time during the week, rather than having to be online at a given, preplanned time. Each student posts a comment or assignment at different times, and this allows each person to think deeply about his/her post before submitting.
Many educators assume that they must trasfer the idea of "immersion" in the classroom temporaly to the web environment by requiring that all students show up for the "class" at the same time. However, when you think about the way that time works online, it is possible to be immersed in rich content, but not be online at the same time as other students. Over the course of a week, the submissions build up an immersive environment.
I like the idea of using headsets, audio, and even video to create an immersive state, but I also think that some of these solutions are "transferring the traditional pedagogy" to the new media technology. It is also possible to think backwards about the question and instead ask what the technology is best at doing. Then, you can let that change your pedagogical approach while still maintaining your fundamental goals. In a way, one can create the "illusion" of immersion, which is just as effective in educational terms.
I'm attempting to do this at my site, although I'll need a large body of participants to build up the content to the point that it becomes immersive. At the beginning (like at the onset of a traditional course) there's not enough content to build critical mass for learning. I would imagine that after one or two hundred posts, the weight gets there, and users feel like they are immersed in a rich, constructivist community of learners.