Back in April when I chose to offer on-line teaching, I was skeptical that it would be as effective as being in the same room as my student.

Images by Fee Chin, used by kind permission. Fee is one of my on-line students.

Over the past month or so of working with around six people on a weekly basis, I’ve found that the teaching in many ways has out performed what’s possible in a classroom environment. Most of my students have excelled by the third lesson to a point beyond where most of my students get to on a 5-day course. I have a few explanations for this:

The first one is that I get one solid hour of uninterrupted time with a student. I do not get that amount of time, even though there are 7 hours per day in a 5-day workshop. Because my time is split between 6 people. Each at different levels, each with different problems.
The second reason is that they get a week'-gap to go away and think about what we’ve gone over, and review their work, and take time on editing it. This is not possible on a 5-day class - things are compressed - and I am trying to get people up to speed in 5 days as opposed to 1 hour per week for six weeks. The six week gestation period really makes a big difference.
I get to review everyone’s work before we meet. I usually spend a few hours going over everyone’s material and making notes so that when we meet, I have some clear direction and instruction for them.
fourth, working online has not been such a communication barrier that I had anticipated. The delays are usually minimal and the lines are often fast.
There’s more chance of things sticking and you retaining the knowledge, if the learning is reinforced over six weeks as opposed to 5-days.

The most important part of all of this is perhaps point 2. Stretching out a teaching experience over six weeks as opposed to condensing it into 5-days is much better.

Conversely, these are the benefits I see from the 5-day class:

We have shooting time together, and things we learned in the classroom can be worked on in the field in the evenings. We don’t have that option on the on-line class.
There is more time together for ‘random discussions’ and other things come up that maybe wouldn’t during a 1-hour one-on-one session.

There are a few things that come up as problems in the 5-day course, that don’t happen in the on-line class:

People get fatigued from trying to work and edit images for more than a few hours a day. Regular breaks are advised.
You need time away from the work to reflect. Each time I edit my own work, I like to shelve it for a few days because when I do look at it again, I am often surprised by themes, errors, potential opportunities that I had not seen the last time I looked at it.
Condensing so much into 5-days doesn’t give any space to reflect and let things sink in.

So there are pros/cons to both formats, but I am finding that on-line teaching is definitely as valuable as a traditional 5-day class.

I’m sure I will continue to offer the Digital Darkroom class in future (if / when things get back to normal). I’ve had participants tell me how useful it is, but I am definitely sure that I would like to continue with the on-line option as well. I enjoy it so much as I get to know each student’s drive and work better.

Indeed, many students have told me that the Digital Darkroom class is something they wish to repeat each year as a ‘top-up’ and I think that doing both can be a good combination. I suppose I’m just trying to convince any doubters that on-line teaching is a useful endeavour as well as the standard workshops. It’s just different.