Interview with Tom Matano: Teaching Creativity Online

Last night I spoke with Tom Matano, an old friend and professor of mine to jumpstart the whole eLearning conversation. He is the Executive Director of the School of Industrial Design at the Academy of Art University and has been involved in eLearning for about 5 years.

There is much to digest from this dialogue but the main thought to share right now is his point of view in standards for eLearning. Tom doesn't have it easy, he teaches very complex, tangible subject matters that require detailed critique and methodologies: He teaches how to design cars online, from drawing them to conceptualizing them to modeling them. As you can imagine, this is no easy fit for the virtual world but as he put it:

"Online has to keep to par with normal classes no matter what it takes. You have to build the right methods and the right tools depending on the subject matter. What is the core essence that you are trying to teach? What are the skills that you want your students to keep? How do you exemplify it so that your students get it?"

More thoughts from this interview coming later so stay tuned.