My Adventures as an Online Student

 

My Adventures as an Online student*

 

Diana K. Kelly, Ph. D.

 

In January, 1999 I made a New Year’s Resolution to update my skills as a teacher by learning about online courses.  I’d been in higher education since 1980, first as a full-time broadcasting instructor, then as a Dean.  But I was starting to feel out of touch with new online teaching methods.  Because my time was limited and my day-to-day schedule was somewhat unpredictable, I was thrilled to find a certificate program about teaching online offered by UCLA.  Although there were dates in which the online courses started and ended, the time you put in the actual course work was entirely flexible.  Perfect!  Also, the best news of all – the courses were entirely online, so no trips to Los Angeles for class meetings!   

 

The UCLA Certificate Program in Online Teaching consisted of five core courses and one elective course.  They recommend taking no more than two courses at a time, so I enrolled in the first two core courses: “Introduction to Online Technologies” and “Developing Curriculum for Online Programs.”  Other core courses were “Teaching and Learning Models for Online Courses,” “Internet and Online Teaching Tools,” and “Practicum in Online Teaching” (a capstone course).  Courses were offered in four-week or six-week periods in four terms each year:  Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall.  Taking two courses each term, it was possible to complete the Online Teaching Certificate in three terms.

 

After enrolling I received a welcoming e-mail from OnlineLearning.net, UCLA’s online learning operation at that time. They recommended ordering textbooks soon, and provided links to several places where textbooks could be ordered online.  (When there were difficulties obtaining a book, they handled everything quickly.) The e-mail also included information about how to download the necessary software from Embanet, their online course management system.  The download was simple, then prior to the start of the course it was REQUIRED that all participants complete a four-part online self-paced orientation to the Embanet software.  There were dire warnings that if you didn’t complete the whole orientation, you would be removed from the course!  As it turned out, the online orientation to the software was absolutely essential to the experience.  This is where you learned how to use the discussion groups, submit assignments, participate in synchronous chat, go to the course resources, get help from Embanet, etc.  Without this orientation and the easy availability of Embanet’s technical support team (by phone and e-mail) the course would have been very frustrating, if not impossible.

 

Now that the technical stuff was out of the way, I was ready to start.  About a week before the course started, I received a welcoming e-mail from the teacher/facilitator of the course – asking all of us to please go to the course website and introduce ourselves, our background, our interest in online learning, and what we were hoping to achieve.  As a good student, I was happy to comply and thought I’d be the first one there, but I wasn’t!  Seems that everyone was ready to get started.  It was fun to read the introductory notes of the others, and to find that they were not only from higher education, but also from K-12 education and from the world of corporate training.  Also, it was interesting to see the diversity of backgrounds and locations of our classmates – they were from all over North America, and a few from Asia and Europe.  Some were from very remote areas – they were happy to participate in this online program because they had no university within travelling distance.  I kept checking into the course website every day just to see if anyone new had appeared.

 

The course websites included the typical elements you’d find in any course – required reading, a timetable for topics and assignments, and course resources. The teacher/facilitator also provided a detailed course syllabus, with grading criteria.  One of the most important requirements was participation in discussions at least several times per week. We started the Curriculum course with some good solid background readings on various curriculum theories, so we would all have the same foundation to apply to online course development.  Although I’d studied these things in graduate school, it was good to have a review.

 

The online asynchronous discussions about the advantages and disadvantages of various curriculum theories were lively and stimulating, and the teacher/facilitator was an active participant – sometimes providing answers to questions that were raised, and sometimes raising new stimulating questions.  Because the discussions were written and asynchronous (occurring whenever someone felt like submitting a discussion item), they were much more thoughtful than the typical face-to-face discussion.  People had time to read another student’s thoughts, digest them, and respond thoughtfully.  Students also became great resources for the rest of the group – if one person raised a question, often two or three others would respond with answers or online resources.

 

The course assignments were very practical, relating the course material to the creation of online course materials.  But what was very different about the course assignments is that they were submitted to the course website, and students were encouraged to look at one another’s assignments and offer comments and suggestions.  The comments were very positive and affirming, and when suggestions were offered it was in the spirit of helpfulness -- learners helping learners. 

 

Some of the course projects and assignments were done in groups.  Yes it IS possible to do groupwork online, if it’s well-organized.  One assignment was to create a fictional course website around a particular topic.  In my small group (assigned by the teacher), there was one member from Switzerland, one in New York, one in Texas, and two in California (I was one of these two at that time).  We decided who would do which piece of the project, and most of our work was done asynchronously through our own group discussion site that the teacher had set up on the course website.  But a couple of times we decided to try a synchronous chat just to check in with the group members.  Considering the nine-hour time difference between California and Switzerland (and others in between) we determined a time that would work for all of us – 11 a.m. California time, which was 8 p.m. in Switzerland, 1 p.m. in Texas and 2 p.m. in New York.  It worked pretty well, but I’ve personally found chats to be somewhat confusing because just as you think of a response to someone’s comment, there are three other responses about something else.  So the asynchronous mode generally worked best to pull our project together.  We were happy with the course website we created as a team – and it was fun for us to see how the other groups developed their course websites.

 

All of the courses seemed to follow this same pattern, but the quality of the learning experience was really influenced by the tone set by the teacher/facilitator. Although all of the courses provided good learning experiences, those in which the teacher/facilitator was less involved seemed to be less interesting and less involving for the students. The courses with the greatest interaction which stimulated more learning were those in which the facilitator was actively engaged on a daily basis, and showed his/her enthusiasm for the students, the topic, the discussion through comments that were worded in the most positive way.  These courses were so involving that I kept checking into the course website at every opportunity to see what’s new – at lunchtime in front of my computer, most evenings, and on weekends. 

 

People asked me how much time this course took as a student.  My experience was that, as with any course, it depends on your level of interest and motivation.  You could spend as much time online and completing assignments as you wanted to – but on average I probably spent about 10 to 15 hours per week on each course, and more time when major assignments were due). 

 

What’s more interesting is how much more time it takes to be an online teacher/facilitator.  This issue came up frequently in the online discussions because as prospective teachers of online courses we wanted to know!  The teachers answered truthfully that the busiest time in online courses is on the weekends, because that’s when most students have the time to do some concentrated work. So they had to be sure that they were online several times a day on weekends to respond to students’ questions and facilitate discussions.  Because students in online courses may also contact the teacher privately through a separate messaging system on the course website, the best teachers also felt that it was important to be quick in responding to these questions so students would not be held up as they were trying to complete their assignments.  If our teachers were travelling out of town, they would let us know if they would be out of touch for a particular period of time.  No question -- teaching online takes a lot of time and dedication, and a learner-centered approach.

 

Now, here’s the happy ending to my story.  I completed the last of my online courses in September 1999 and earned my certificate.  I was able to apply my learning to create some online workshops for college faculty who were interested in learning new teaching strategies for their regular face-to-face classes.  A secondary purpose of the online workshops is to provide teachers with an experience as an online student, so they can see how it works, how it feels, the pitfalls, the advantages, etc.  So I developed two online workshops (self-paced and open-entry) on the Blackboard.com website for the faculty at my college.

 

What did I learn about online learning as a result of my adventures as an online student?  First, online learning is not for everyone.  Some of the people in the online course said that they really missed the face-to-face contact with the teacher and the other students. Perhaps it’s a learning style issue. Online learning also takes much more self-discipline and self-motivation than a face-to-face class, so those who think it’s going to be easier are in for a big surprise.  Anyone looking for an easy ride really does not belong in an online course. 

 

Second, online learning can be a very involving experience, even when you’re physically separated from your teacher and classmates.  It’s not like the old correspondence school model, where you are learning entirely on your own.  But the involvement needs to be carefully planned and facilitated by the teacher to enhance the learning experience.

 

Third, online learning is impossible without good technical support in place, 24 hours per day, seven days a week.  It can be incredibly frustrating when the course website crashes!  Good technical support also helps students who have problems such as software incompatibility or computer settings. 

 

Finally, I learned how important it was to have a very positive experience as an online student before attempting to teach an online course.  In fact, I’m convinced that this is the reason that many online courses have been unsuccessful.   Concerns have been expressed about poor outcomes for online courses in K-12 and higher education.  The UCLA program had a completion rate of around 85 percent and other programs also have high success rates.  So my advice for any prospective online teachers is to take at least one well-facilitated online course to see how it works from the student perspective. And I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I did!

 

*  An edited version of this article was published as Adventures on the Cybershop Floor in the Times Higher Education Supplement, August 18, 2000