Advantages of Online Learning

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Advantages of Online Learning

• In the last session I asked, Why Bother?
• Why Bother teaching Online?
• In this session I would like to recap some of the
  best reasons for teaching Online.
• I will also give a balanced view and give some
  disadvantages of Online Learning.

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The Short Answer

• Because more people will be able to learn and
  teach better. 
• Isnt it true that people are addicted to the
  Internet.
• Isnt Online Learning natural with young people
  these days????

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Some reasons

• By Using the Web, Faculty can bring otherwise
  inaccessible resources into the traditional
  classroom (e.g. information, media, people,
  events)
• The exploding MASS (MESS) of information requires
  more sophisticated skills for finding, selecting,
  manipulating, and distributing.

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Collaborative Learning

• E-mail and Web-based discussion boards support
  teamwork and group communication.
• This enables students to learn and work on
  projects together more easily.

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Competition for Students

• Institutional ability to compete for students,
  faculty and grants is dependent to some degree on
  the apparent level of educational use of
  information technology.

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Better, Better, Better

• Better Communication
• More Time on Task Better Learning
• E-mail provides a convenient attractive means of
  communicating with other students and the
  instructor.
• This allows students to spend more time
  communicating about the subject matter and to
  learn more

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Anonymity

• For some students it is easier to express some of
  their ideas anonymously.
• E-mail and web options can enable anonymous
  communications.
• This allows some students to participate more
  comfortably and frequently in course related
  discussions.

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Anecdotal evidence

• A growing mountain of informal statements from
  faculty who use technology suggest that their use
  of technology
• Improves the quality and effectiveness of
  learning.

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Sowhy should I web-enhance one of my courses?

• Support distribution of course materials
• Student access to the resources on the web.
• Designing, developing, and delivering
  Web-enhanced courses can be an evolutionary step
  for many faculty
• Why?
• Removes the dependency on
• handouts,
• phone communications,
• and office meetings.

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More reasons.

• A faculty member can make course syllabi,
  handouts, and working papers available on the
  web.
• They can make available...
• teaching notes
• videos,
• PowerPoint slides,
• FAQs(Frequently Asked Questions)
• online help, and
• threaded discussion forums.

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Still More Reasons

• Students can engage in learning activities and
  projects created in various mediums
• web pages, spreadsheets, shared documents, and
  e-mail.
• Experienced faculty agree that the advantages of
  teaching web-enhanced courses primarily focus
  around
• expanding course access and improving student
  engagement

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The Course Web Site Advantages for Educators

• A recent study at George Washington University
  (Betts, 1998) indicated 3 main reasons why
  faculty became involved in using the Internet and
  WWW
• Intellectual challenge
• Personal motivation to use technology
• Ability to reach new audience that cant attend
  classes on campus.
• Nearly 84 of faculty who used the Internet and
  Web as part of their instruction stated that they
  felt positive towards the experience.

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The Course Web Site Advantages for Learners

• There is a centralized location to view course
  modules and documents.
• Learning anytime/anywhere (addresses needs of
  students who have difficult work schedules).
• Provides experience with technologies that they
  will use in the workplace.
• Opens additional learning possibilities
• Opens additional communication possibilities
  (e-mail, discussion threads)

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Student Satisfaction and Perceived Learning with
On-line Courses

• Latest (2000) report is found here
• http//www.aln.org/alnweb/journal/Vol4_issue2/le/F
  redericksen/LE-fredericksen.htm
• The State University of New York (SUNY) Learning
  Network (SLN) is the on-line instructional
  program created for the 64 colleges and nearly
  400,000 students of the SUNY

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Mission of the SLN

• The foundation of the program is freedom from
  schedule and location constraints for our faculty
  and students
• The primary goals are to bring SUNY's (State
  University of New York) diverse and high-quality
  instructional programs within the reach of
  learners everywhere and to be the best provider
  of asynchronous instruction for learners in New
  York State and beyond

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Tremendous growth

• The annual growth in courses,
• from eight in 1995-96 to
• 1000 in 1999-2000, and
• annual growth in enrollment,
• from 119 in 1995-1996 to over 10,000 in
  1999-2000, illustrates that the project has far
  exceeded the original projections

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Tracking of students

• SLN is not a replacement for the classroom.
• It is another choice for students and is,
  therefore, open to all students.
• Students that participate in SLN range in age
  from 16 to 70. They are both traditional
  students as well as returning adults.
• Most students have not taken an on-line course
  before and report that they have average or high
  computer skills.

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SUNYs Learning Network

• Follows a rigid process.
• This process has been designed to train large
  numbers of faculty to produce technically and
  instructionally sound courses according to what
  we have learned works best in the design of
  on-line instruction.
• They have followed more than 400 Faculty

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Course design process research

• Following more than 400 faculty through their
  full course development and delivery cycles has
  enabled us to gather a comprehensive
  understanding of what works in an on-line
  teaching/learning environment.
• Our course design process was synthesized from
  that understanding

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Success of their program

• Our comprehensive and integrated faculty
  development and course design processes are the
  cornerstones of this program and significantly
  contribute to our success. 
•  The majority of our faculty requires some kind
  of technical support and training. 

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• The Instructional development department helps
  faculty design courses and learning activities in
  a manner consistent with our growing knowledge of
  best practices
• Also helps instructors fully understand the
  limitations students face with potentially slow,
  remote access and its implications for effective
  course design.

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What does the Report say?

• Interaction with the teacher is the most
  significant contributor to perceived learning in
  these on-line courses.
• Students who reported the highest levels of
  interaction with the teacher also reported the
  highest levels of perceived learning in the
  course.

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Now for something practical

• I would like to take you to see some online
  courses in their entirety.
• I would like to have you see what is possible.

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What are we looking for?

• What did you see as some of the best features of
  these online/web-enhanced courses?
• Discuss the courses within a small group of 3-4
  colleagues
• Here are the courses from a variety of disciplines

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Lets take a closer look at some online
coursesand their Webpages

• From Simple http//www.educ.iastate.edu/elps/edadm
  /EdAdm557.htm
• To more complex...
  http//www.courses.psu.edu/courseweb/courses/?cour
  seedpsy475_bjm8/
• To a serious medical site
• LectureLinks Homepage Part 1
• To a very colorful site.. http//www.neiu.edu/smb
  rown/433/
• To one of my own course

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Discussion and Feedback

• What did you see as some of the best features of
  these online/web-enhanced courses?

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Advantages and Disadvantages of Online Learning

• Jim Jeffery
• Andrews University

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Definition of Online Learning

• One approach to online learning, and, by
  extension, to distance and distributed learning,
  is the need to customize
  learning for students and to make it available
  anytime, anywhere.
• A useful definition about interactive online
  learning is

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• ". . . an educational philosophy for designing
  interactive, responsive, and valid information
  and learning opportunities to be delivered to
  learners at a time, place, and in appropriate
  forms convenient to the learners."
• Judith V. Boettcher

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Reflection

• What would you add to this definition of online
  learning?
• Reflect to think seriously contemplate
  ponder upon

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• As we travel through the Information Age, we are
  faced with more questions than answers.
• There is not an evolution or steady improvement
  of change of what we are as an institution, but
  rather a transformation - a new way of being.
• The teaching and learning paradigm is shifting to
  significant use of the Internet and the Web for
  learning.

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• There is a need to think about how the roles of
  students and faculty are changing.
• What is it that makes the faculty unique in
  his/her knowledge?
• How does this impact the "content" of the
  curriculum?

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The Paradigm Shift

• From
• Teacher-centered
• comprehension of content
• content

• To
• Learner-centered
• acquisition of content
• process

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Web-based Teaching and Learning Diagram

• The World Wide Web (Web) and associated
  technologies and services are creating a new
  context for communication.
• These new tools are being applied to the
  evolution of a new teaching and learning
  paradigm.
• This new paradigm will have many variations, but
  the core characteristic may well include a
  fundamental shift from the primacy of the
  classroom to a new primacy of the Web.

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• What is happening is that the primary meeting
  place, or gathering place, for the interactions
  and dialogues between faculty, students, and
  resources are shifting from the physical
  classroom to the Web.
• In other words, the Web is becoming the framework
  for facilitating and enhancing the interactions
  and dialogues between faculty and students.
• In this new paradigm, the physical or virtual
  classroom does not go away rather it becomes one
  of many peripheral choices for interaction.

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The following graphic illustrates this concept
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Reflection

• How do you feel about the shifting paradigm?
• What are the roles of the instructor and learner
  in an online environment?

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Here is a general statement

• Online learning environments or even adding
  Web-based components to
  face-to-face classes changes the roles of the
  teacher and the learner.
• What is the role that changes?

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What is Different About an Online Course?

• Online courses require
• Comfort with a text-based environment. Most
  online material is visual and not auditory.
• Experience with computers, the Internet, and
  e-mail.
• Both students and instructor to adjust to online
  teaching and learning.

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• Students discover and share knowledge and
  instructors guide and advise.
• Increased level of communication and
  collaboration.

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• Much more time and effort than traditional
  courses. They are not "easy" courses.
• The standard for traditional courses recommends
  three hours of study outside of class for every
  hour spent in class.
• Therefore, a three unit course will require 12
  hours per week.
• Online students should plan on spending a minimum
  of 12 hours per week for each three unit course.

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The Current Pattern of University Teaching

• many traditional courses follow a model whereby
  the teacher organizes learning materials into a
  package,
• This material is then transmitted to the
  students often via lecture and in a
  linear format
• Learning is supported in class via discussions,
• Activities are provided to individuals and groups
  of students to extend the learning.

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The Problem

• The learner in this environment often assumes a
  passive position of a knowledge recipient
• rather than an active participant in the
  construction of meaning.

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Passive Learning

• Emphasizes the teacher's role
• Emphasizes verbalizing and demonstrating the
  product of learning (giving the answer)
• Emphasizes providing external motivations to
  learn

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Active Learning

• Emphasizes the student's role
• Emphasizes enabling and guiding the process of
  learning (asking the question)
• Emphasizes awakening and connecting with internal
  motivations to learn

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• Traditional face-to-face techniques for promoting
  active learning include the Socratic method,
  group activities, role-playing, simulations,
  individually guided learning, problem-based
  learning, and service learning.

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• All of these strategies have their analogs in
  Web-based instructional design.
• But Web-based learning also provides the
  possibility of new techniques.. such as learner
  customization, knowledge-paced learning,
  nonlinear "constructivist" learning, virtual
  environments, and the possibility of immediate
  evaluation, application, and feedback.

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• Publishing learning resources to the World Wide
  Web has the obvious advantage of anytime,
  anyplace access.
• More importantly, the hypertext format allows the
  learner to choose the sequence of the inquiry and
  to navigate through the material in the most
  personally meaningful method.

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Hyperlinks

• Links to relevant information can occur at points
  of correspondence rather than at the end of a
  linear textual presentation,
• thereby facilitating integration among concepts
  and to other insights about the topic.

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Many Resources

• The instructor can provide a fuller package of
  information, including multimedia elements,
• This supports a variety of learning styles and
  linkages to outside resources and experts which
  are frequently not available in a classroom
  setting.

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• Providing learning materials, regardless of the
  format, is clearly one piece of the equation in
  the design of meaningful instruction.
• Another component that transforms information
  acquisition to learning is opportunity for the
  learner to internalize, contemplate, and build
  conceptual connections to their existing
  knowledge base.

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• Computer mediated communication provides a rich
  resource for discussion, sharing, reflection, and
  active participation in articulating personal
  understanding.
• While the visual cues present in face-to-face
  communication are not presently capabilities of
  e-mail and discussion forums, the benefits of
  these tools should not be underestimated.

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• The social learning environment available through
  written discussion forums invite careful
  reflection by giving the learner time to
  contemplate and compose responses.
• Learners can communicate at times that best suit
  their schedules, and the absence of physical
  proximity may create a less threatening setting
  for shy or hesitant participants.

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• Creating distributed learning environments
  presents challenges to course designers.
• Valuable content that is difficult
  to navigate or which provides little
  opportunity for interaction serves to frustrate
  and bore learners.

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• Technical difficulties obstruct accessibility,
  and interrupt active participation and contextual
  development of understanding.
• Overcoming these challenges require skills not
  often possessed by a single person, or skills
  that become refined with practice in creating
  these learning environments.

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Finally.

• The opportunity for collaborative development can
  be viewed as another advantage when faculty team
  with other faculty, instructional designers, and
  Web professionals to create distributed learning
  projects.

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Challenges in a Nutshell

• reconceptualizing courses from student learning
  perspectives
• making teaching strategies more explicit in order
  to design online learning activities
• writing hypertext and structuring navigation for
  learning purposes

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• using course management tools to ease delivery
  without constricting design options
• engaging students in appropriate interactivity
  and sustaining it
• assessing learning at a distance and
• negotiating intellectual property rights.
• (Adapted from Margaret Chambers,
  
  University of Maryland University College)