ACCESS
Online
Education—Thinking About Putting Your Class Online
Friday, March 11, 2005, 10:00-12:00, Room E100
Scott A. Lukas
Online Education by Scott Lukas
Misconceptions: There are many
misconceptions regarding online education. One perception is that it is a
robotic means of delivering courses. In fact, online education can be as
interactive and personal as physical classes. Before I gained an interest in
online education, I was suspicious of the pedagogical value of this new
modality, but I soon learned that it was both a challenging and rewarding
approach. Another is that the push to online education is merely a result of
trying to increase enrollments. Though this may be true in some cases, I feel
that online education attracts a unique student population. As well, a concern
may be that online courses will compete with physical classes, causing the
latter to be cancelled. I commonly run two sections of ANT 102 and ANT 103—one
online and one physical—and in every quarter, each section has been
successfully offered.
Defining Online Education: Years
ago, the LTCC Instructional Technology committee wrestled with a definition
for online education. This grappling identifies the fact that there are varied
forms of online pedagogy. Generally, an online class means that at least a
portion of the class will meet outside of a physical classroom. A fully
online course is one in which students do not meet each other, or the
instructor, in a physical setting. A hybrid course is one in which some
online or interactive components (video conferencing) are combined with
traditional, physical classroom delivery. Dr. Larry Green has offered such
courses in mathematics. The University of Phoenix also uses hybrid approaches,
and in some cases this involves students taking a final examination in a
physical classroom (perhaps due to the fear of cheating). If you choose to
develop an online course at LTCC, keep in mind that you can use either format.
For example, you may wish to meet with students to have a check-in at midterm
and so you schedule a meeting in a physical classroom. Also keep in mind that
this requirement—of a few physical meetings—could affect your enrollments. I
currently have students taking my online courses from the Bay Area and even
Argentina. One of the advantages of a fully online course is that students can
take it from anywhere in the world.
Why Online Education?: This is a basic question to
begin with. Why would you want to develop an online class? Contrary to
misperceptions, online pedagogy is not easy. Just because you meet online does
not mean that you will not spend the same, if not more, time attending to
student needs, such as grading, assessing listserv posts and managing your
classroom webspace. Here are some positive reasons that you might consider:
(1) Access—online pedagogy allows for greater access to classes, and
this fulfills an important community college mission. (2) Reinvigoration—working
in an online setting allows the instructor to develop new skills and to
experiment with assignments that are not possible in the physical classroom
(such as webquests). (3) Pedagogical—while working in the online
setting, you will likely develop new pedagogical approaches that can benefit
your students, including those in the physical classroom. (4) Flexibility—the
online setting does, to some extent, give you more flexibility with your
schedule. At the same time, because there is generally no set meeting time,
you may be unexpectedly flooded with papers all at once. (5) Departmental
Growth—because of the online format of your courses, you may discover that
more students will be interested in your program. Having any information
posted on a webpage is instant and free marketing for yourself and your
discipline.
The Online Transition: Moving from
the physical to the online class is not easy, but it is not impossible. Some
faculty fear that they will have to learn how to program html in order to get
a course online. While some basic html is useful, it is possible to offer
online courses with no knowledge of web programming. My suggestion is to start
small and get bigger—don’t worry about doing everything at once. Step #1:
Choose a course or courses to offer in the online format. Discuss the
disciplinary issues with your departmental colleagues and decide on courses
that best serve your students and your program. It would great if at least one
course were piloted per program, but some programs feel that their pedagogical
requirements cannot be met in the online format. Step #2: Plan the
transition from the physical classroom to the virtual. In this stage you
will want to identify pedagogical issues that might arise given the online
format. If you have a discussion-heavy course, an obvious question is how will
you develop discussion in a virtual setting? If you require peer editing of
materials, you will have to consider how to accomplish the peer editing in the
virtual community.
Two Big Issues: I will address two
major issues that are related to the online transition, the architecture
of your class and the community. The first refers to the foundations
that you will need to set-up and maintain an online course. As I will suggest
in the next section, much of the work has been done for you if you choose to
use a program like ETUDES. Any unique requirements of your classroom will need
to be addressed through the platform that you choose to implement. I decided
to develop my own web architecture, because I felt that I could better address
student needs in a non-standardized platform. We all have different issues, so
focus on the ones that impact you. To better address the architecture of your
course, I suggest setting up a chart that allows you to strategize the
physical-virtual pedagogical transition. For example:
Course Name:
Anthropology 102, Cultural Anthropology
|
Pedagogical Issue |
Physical
Classroom |
Virtual Classroom |
 | Testing |
| Class Agreement |
| Class Participation |
| Class Projects |
| Office Hours |
| Classroom Rapport |
|
| Administered in Class |
| Signed in Class |
| Students Talk in Class |
| Students Present Posterboards |
| Students Attend Office Hours |
| Students Do Small Group Work |
|
| Submitted as E-mail Attachment |
| Submitted as a Form via Internet |
| Students Post on Class Listserv |
| Students Create Webquests |
| Students E-mail Instructor |
| Instructor Posts Student Bios/Pics |
|
Create your own chart that will address
the issues that affect your classroom, but the idea is to envision a
transition from the Physical to the Virtual Classroom instead of seeing
roadblocks along the way. After you have assigned an approach to the “Virtual
Classroom” column, you are ready to begin planning the online course. If any
of your second column spots are blank, you may have to seek out technical
assistance to deal with the need. For example, if under class participation I
want to have students meet and speak at the same time, a listserv will not
accomplish that. So, I ended up listing “Chat Room” under that column. I then
realize that I will have to find a way to develop a chat room (architecture)
that allows me to accomplish my pedagogical goals. In the end, I feel that the
ways that we go about finding pedagogical solutions for the physical classroom
parallel those of the virtual…it just seems like the latter is alien to use
because of the technological concerns.
The second issue is community, and
by this I refer to the community of the students and the instructor. It is
true that the virtual environment will create unique senses of community, but
if you follow the work of Howard Rheingold and Sherry Turkle you can see that
the Internet is a community, whether we like the quality of human
relationships on it or not. Community can be more fragile in the virtual scene
because of the different response time that accompanies messages and listserv
posts. Example 1: I was teaching a section of Cultural Anthropology and a
student began posting comments that were deemed sexist by the class. I had to
intervene and inform the students that the same rules of decorum of the
physical classroom apply to the virtual setting (a definite strain on the
community that I had to address). Example 2: This quarter, a student
approached me in the commons and expressed concern that her recent listserv
post on evolutionism offended someone whom she perceived to be a creationist.
I was expecting a controversy when I returned to the computer to check the
posts, but I found no controversy. It was simply a healthy and critical
exchange between students. One lesson from this example, if it had been a
controversy, is that community is impacted by information lag. Because
you cannot monitor the listserv 24-hours-a-day, you may find that an offensive
comment or a controversy goes unnoticed by you. You have a primary
responsibility in creating and maintaining community, so be prepared for the
strains that may accompany the virtual society of the classroom.
We have a basis for understanding the
values of online education as well as the philosophical and pedagogical
concerns that may accompany your transition from the classroom to the wired
faculty member, but what are the specifics that I need to address to get my
class up and running?
Choose a Platform: In order to
offer your online class, you will need a platform to host your classes. This
is the technological equivalent of a classroom—the framework through which
students interact, submit assignments and do everything else associated with
the class. Major Platforms: There are three major platforms that we are
familiar with, and these serve as all-in-one solutions to hosting:
WebCT,
BlackBoard,
ETUDES. LTCC has
a license with ETUDES, and it offers all of the basics to start your class,
including a listserv and templates for your syllabus and other pages.
Personally, I find the graphical interface of ETUDES a bit simplistic, but it
is a good platform to begin your online journey. Hybrid Approaches:
Another way to begin online teaching is to combine different hosting
components. For example, you can use this
basic template (http://www.ltcconline.net/lukas/pages/faculty.htm),
and a listserv like Yahoo Groups.
I have used Yahoo Groups for a few years and am quite happy with the result.
Your Own: A third option is to do your own web development and create a
unique platform, this is what I do. Arguably, this takes more knowledge of
html, but Frontpage is an easy-to-use program that we all have access to.
Another is Contribute, which I find to be the easiest of the html editors.
Choosing this route allows you to customize your online platform.
Build Your Class: Once you have
chosen your platform, you can begin to build your online class. This involves
setting everything up so that your students can take your class. Like a
traditional class, you will be involved in writing a syllabus, examinations,
quizzes and the like. The difference is that you will be uploading this
information to your platform. A basic online class will include:
|
Syllabus and Course Schedule Page |
|
Student Bios/Pictures |
|
Course Links |
|
FAQs/Guide to Online Class |
|
Grading Page (for student grade access) |
I include these pages and others, and you
can view my sample online class page if you like:
http://www.ltcconline.net/lukas/winter/ant102.htm
For as much as online education is a
powerful new tool, there are concerns that have been raised. Some common
questions and responses follow.
For Faculty:
Q: Do
I have to be a web programmer to do an online class?
A: No. Though some technical knowledge is
needed, if you can e-mail and use an Internet browser you are well on your way
to offering an online class.
Q:
Will the quality of my pedagogy be affected by the online environment?
A: This depends…on your discipline, pedagogical
approaches and student learning objectives.
Q:
Will all students like online education?
A: I believe that online education
attracts a certain type of student, and some students have told me that they
have no interest in online classes.
Q:
Will the institution support my online teaching?
A: I don’t know. I am not clear on LTCC’s
vision for online teaching. I believe that we have the infrastructure to offer
many online courses.
Q:
What are the workload issues involved in online teaching?
A: There is some time involved in the
initial set-up of your class, but after that, updating is easy. Just like the
physical classroom, there is considerable time involved in grading, updating
webpages and responding to students.
For Students:
Q: Do
students have difficulty with online courses?
A: Some do. If a student is new to the
online environment, she or he may have difficulty working with e-mail, doing
posts and the like. Expect that you will have to teach some of your students
the basic technical skills.
Q:
What is retention like?
A: In some cases, poor. I have found that
because of the lack of face-to-face contact, some students fail to do their
work after the first few weeks of the class. I continue to develop strategies
to increase retention.
Q:
Do students learn the same way in the online format as they do in a physical
classroom?
A: Yes and no. You may have to alter some
of your pedagogical approaches to mimic what you do in the physical classroom.
I would say that in many respects, I see little difference in the learning
common to the physical and the online class.
Q: Do
my classes need to be compatible for students with disabilities?
A: Yes, this is a requirement. Bob
Albrecht has resources that check webpages for meeting disability
requirements.
Q: Can
students cheat in the online setting?
A: Yes, and they can cheat in a
traditional classroom as well.
|
|
