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BEFORE YOU LEAP
Teaching
on the Internet is trendy. You might even say it's the rage in
education, but is it for you?
Consider
these things.
- Do
I need a new or different computer or do I have
a computer (preferably a PC) in my office that is at least a
Pentium III with at least 64 MB of RAM?
- Am
I familiar with basic computer skills? (file structure,
copying, moving files, keyboard and mouse functions, screen
and windows features, etc.)
- Can
I create and manipulate documents (formatting, naming,
copying, pasting, attaching and retrieving them)?
- Am
I willing to learn new software applications (FrontPage,
Blackboard and WebCT) needed for teaching on the Web?
- Have
I taken an online course or consulted
with someone who has been successful with developing and
teaching online courses?
- Have
I reviewed online courses of
other faculty teaching at the Universtiy?
- Am
I prepared to invest the effort and time needed to develop
and teach a course online?
- Will
using this technology help me reach the students I teach
more effectively?
Faculty
should answer yes to all of the questions above when deciding to
develop an online course:
(If a faculty member answers no to any of
these questions they should contact the distance education
coordinator to decide what steps they should take to proceed)
GET
TO KNOW THE PEOPLE YOU'LL NEED TO KNOW.
- Teaching
online requires the assistance and support of a number of
people throughout the University, get to know them and let
them know about you so they can help.
- Department
Chair – Faculty should contact their department chair
first. They will need to approve the course before it can be
offered online.
- College
Dean-- The college dean will also have to provide approval
for the course.
- Office
of Distance Learning – The distance learning staff will
need to know that you are planning on going,
"online", in order to coordinate account and
course information, to support you in your endeavor and to
market your course through the publications of the college.
MASTER
THE SOFTWARE YOU WILL NEED TO DELIVER YOUR COURSE.
- Online
courses are delivered to a computer screen by means of one
or more authoring software products. Choose what fits your
needs and works most efficiently.
- Decide
how you plan to author and deliver your course. Two
authoring tools are
currently being used in the APSU online offerings:
Microsoft's FrontPage 98/2000, Macromedia's
Dreamweaver. Available course delivery platforms are Blackboard and
WebCT.
- Mastering
these tools comes in stages, so learn what you need to get
your course up and running effectively and then look for
ways to refine and polish it. The University and TBR have
training opportunities available in FrontPage, Dreamweaver,
BlackBoard and WebCT and provide templates and model pages
to simplify some of the work involved. These aids are ways
to save time not limit your creativity. Make your course
work, and then make it better and better.
- Part
of deciding how you want to develop your course will involve
looking at what others have done. Pick those strategies and
techniques that will work for you. We all bring different
talents to the table. We operate at different
"speeds," using different methodologies. Be your
self.
- Take
care in the beginning with the structure and design of your
course. You do not want to be online too soon, nor do you
want to take forever to build the perfect course. It takes
about a semester to build your first online course.
PLAN
TO WORK AT SCHOOL AND FROM HOME
- Online
learning is asynchronous -- students do it when they can and
want to interact with you when they need you.
- Most
online faculty have a computer, the software needed and dial
up access for interacting with students at home. If you have
an ISP or dial up at your home, you will be able to continue
to work on your web site in either Front Page, Dreamweaver,
Blackboard or WEBCT.
- Faculty
must be very familiar with e-mail. This will be the most
common means of communication with students.
- Faculty
must be familiar with Internet Explorer (I.E.) 4.0 or
greater or Netscape Navigator 4.0 or greater.
- Faculty
must possess good PC skills.
- Faculty
should understand Bandwidth and Dial-Up Connections. A
working knowledge of these two things will allow faculty
members to understand how the course is transmitted via the
WWW and give them some flexibility in helping their students
with some of their problems.
- In
designing a course faculty will be considering Asynchronous,
Synchronous, or a hybrid of the two delivery methods. For
example, the online course that is basically Asynchronous,
where the student can interact with the class notes, take a
self-grading practice quiz, enter into a class discussion,
or take an electronic test at any time. There are also
synchronous features to the online courses such as Net
Meetings with whiteboard and sound (even video). These
functions allow the instructor to teach a lesson or have
virtual class with one or more online students.
- Live
chats are recommended but not required.
KNOW
THE MEDIUM YOU ARE WORKING IN
- How
fast it works and how good it looks depends on what the
student is using on his/her end and the way the WEB works.
The WEB is not exactly like lecturing, using a blackboard or
writing a textbook.
- Faculty
should understand Bandwidth and Dial-Up Connections speeds.
A working knowledge of these two things will allow faculty
members to understand the limits on the amount information
(words, pictures, video and sound) that can be pushed across
the WEB and pulled down by their students. The last hundred
feet your course is probably a piece of telephone wire with
a limit of 56KB per second.
- Browser
windows on different types of machines have much to do with
the appearance and functionality of your material.
- Your
computer and computing environment is probably not like the
ones your students are using.
- At
work, you are using a LAN (local area network) and things
run as fast and look as good as they can. When you log on
using a modem and an older computer, you get a better sense
of what your students see and experience.
- You
have to weigh how important something is against how much
time it takes to transmit and receive it and whether or not
the user can see and hear exactly the way you intended.
TEACHING
IS HELPING STUDENTS TO LEARN
An
online environment is just a different kind of classroom for
interacting with students.
- Faculty
must deliver the same content in an online course as they
would in a classroom section of the same course. This is
very important. The online course should have the same course content with
different delivery style.
- Faculty
must provide students a detailed course syllabus. See
electronic syllabus at the following URL (http://www.apsu.edu/apsuonline/syllabus/instructor/syllabus.htm)
or
- Faculty
should clearly define any prerequisites. Make sure the
students understand what they will need in order to take the
course (in terms of previous course work, computer skills,
hardware and software requirements).
- Faculty
must provide students with clear communication about
expectations, instructions about activities, assignments,
deadlines, and announcements
- Faculty
teaching online must have a personal homepage that provides
contact information, office hours, office location and
information that would assist the student in working with
the faculty member.
- Faculty
teaching online courses must provide students with timely
feedback on assignments and grades as well as responses to
questions and requests for assistance. Online students need
feedback more than traditional students. The faculty
member should direct students to include their telephone
numbers and email addresses in their personal information
file in order to maximize communication options. The
faculty member should also provide a fax number.
(Advisors should be instructed to tell students that they
are responsible for making contact with the instructor and
provide the email and phone number of the instructor to the
student.)
- Online
students must have proper advising and student services'
support. Provide sound advising for students. Online courses
are not for everybody. All students taking online courses
should get advising assistance from online faculty.
- Students
should be properly oriented to the online course setting and
your course specifically.
COURSE
DESIGN -- IT'S ALL ABOUT CONTENT AND INTERACTION
Keep
it Simple, Make it Better, and Resist the Temptations to do
Otherwise.
- It's
about content. Having something to say or share with
students that they will find worth reading, seeing and
experiencing. There are lots of resources, so choosing the
best wisely is key.
- In
many ways you are a guide to the resources and a simplifier
of how to get the right result the first time. How you
organize the resources and provide students useful
directions and information about using them are critical.
- It's
also about interaction. In an online course there are three
types of interaction you will be creating with the
activities you plan:
1)
interaction between the student and the content material,
2)
interaction between the student and you, and
3)
interaction among students in the class. In each case the
interaction should be instrumental to success in the course or
task. Become familiar with the array of web tools for
interaction and select those that best fit what you are trying
to accomplish. Talk with training coordinators and online
faculty, surf other course sites, look at the courseware
tutorials.
- Don't
provide anything -- information, links or
functionality that you don't expect students to use.
- Keep
in mind that you will get what you inspect not what you
expect, so plan ways that students show you that they have
used and learned what you have provided them. Be very
specific in your assignments. Students may be confused by
any ambiguity due to the lack of face-to-face contact.
- Use
a consistent organizational pattern (module template) that
provides students knowledge of the learning objectives,
content outline, assignments, evaluation information,
resources, links, requirements and FAQs. See http://teleeducation.nb.ca/english
for some samples.
- Make
sure content is accurate, technically correct, readable and
easy to follow. Navigation should work correctly and that
the authority and currency of the page can be determined.
- Faculty
members should be aware of the copyright issues, privacy of
information and net-etiquette with the Internet.
- Solicit
feedback and suggestions on how to improve your site. Seek
out the advice of your peers.
- Some
of your students will be very "internet savvy" and
can provide valuable information to improve your course
design. Some of this course "tweaking" can be done
during the semester or in between semesters. Encourage your
students to report dead links, inactive pages, or other
malfunctions in your web course.
BACK
IT UP AND KEEP THE BUGS OUT
What
can go wrong generally does go wrong at the most inconvenient
time.
- Faculty
are responsible for creating a backup of their course. The
server will be backed up by the Webmaster's office, but it
the responsibility of the faculty to make sure that they
have the most recent changes backed up to their local
computer. If faculty needs help backing up their course or
its content they should contact the Webmaster's office.
- Faculty
are responsible for monitoring virus protection software on
their own computer. Often students do not realize that they
have a virus on their computer and they will send faculty
members one unknowingly.
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