Join our mailing list!
©2007
StudentAffairs.com
All Rights Reserved
|
On-Line Learning: Working the "Bugs"
Out
Holly S.
Hart
The Pennsylvania State
University
A Free Degree?
Software billionaire Michael Saylor, chief executive of
northern Virginia-based technology company MicroStrategy,
has decided to become an educator. Well, sort of. Saylor's
goal is to create a free, fully accredited on-line
university, reportedly offering courses taught by Steven
Spielberg and Warren Buffet, who would not be paid (Henning,
2000). Saylor proposes that his $100 million project would
complement traditional education by providing free access to
education for millions who could not have afforded it.
Getting On-Line
What would an on-line course consist of? How can one
completely experience a course just by sitting in front of a
computer? Professors and students communicate through
electronic mail. Class discussions and individual
student-teacher meetings are held in real-time chat,
although dialogue may be difficult due to delayed appearance
of text on the screen. Professors use message boards, like
those in news groups, to have extended class discussions.
Web sites contain syllabi, notes, related links, and
assignments, and can be password-protected. An on-line
course may be synchronous, meaning that students
"attend" lectures or chat rooms at particular times, or
asynchronous, meaning that students complete
coursework on their own (Applebome, 1999).
Does this approach sound like schooling only a Jetson
could endure? Or a venture that only a software guru would
undertake? It isn't. Many institutions of higher education
are also plunging into Internet education, giving "distance"
education a whole new twist.
Jumping on the Bandwagon
Though free education is a novel idea, the use of the
Internet for courses is hardly new. Since 1998, Harcourt
Inc., a Newton, Massachusetts&emdash;based textbook
publisher, has been quietly working on the Harcourt
University Project, an institution of higher education that
only offers courses on-line (Mendels, 1999). If approved by
the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education, the institution
will offer courses and degrees within Schools of Arts and
Science, Business, Health Sciences, and Information
Technology. Courses are designed for adult
professionals.
Concord
University School of Law (in partnership with Kaplan
Educational Centers, Inc.) is the first major
institution to offer a Juris Doctor (JD) degree on-line.
Instruction consists of a combination of video lectures from
renowned scholars and professor-led on-line discussion
groups. Graduates of the JD program are eligible to sit for
the California bar exam.
New York University, a
nonprofit institution, plans to capitalize on Internet
technology and the appeal of on-line courses by using a
for-profit subsidiary to develop and sell specialized
on-line courses to colleges, training centers, and its own
students. Instead of developing a wide range of courses, as
universities such as UCLA and Penn State are doing, NYU will
offer a narrow range of courses suspected to be in great
demand. The National
Technological University, a 15-year-old nonprofit
university in Fort Collins, Colorado, developed a similar
for-profit extension when the university stopped growing
(Arenson, 1998). By luring investors and gearing certain
courses toward corporations, these two institutions hope to
make enough of a profit to develop new courses and to pay
faculty and support staff to work with their own
continuing-education students (Arenson, 1998).
Many California universities are participating in the
California Virtual University project, a Web-based catalogue
of distance leaning courses (ranging from Shakespeare to
Java programming) offered by accredited public and private
colleges and universities such as Stanford and the
University of California at Berkeley. Participating
institutions will grant credits and degrees (Mendels, 1998).
The California project is intended to accommodate the
expected boom in the number of undergraduates (an increase
of 30 percent over the next 10 years) and to meet a growing
demand for training by workers who need to update their
skills in a fast-changing economy (Mendels, 1998).
Yet another Internet-education effort is the Western
Governors University, a degree-granting institution that
will offer classes from colleges and universities in 16
states and Guam, courses from private companies, and grant
certificates and degrees based on competency tests (Mendels,
1998). In response to their dwindling budgets and a growing
student population, the governors of eighteen western states
decided to share distance-education resources, collaborating
to form one high-quality distance education program shared
by all of them. WGU opened in 1998 and has applied for
accreditation. Currently, WGU offers degrees and
certifications in five technology-oriented fields.
Perks
A student with a personal computer can access these
courses anywhere and anytime.
Many on-line programs are developed to help students in
underserved geographic areas who have limited access to the
traditional college campus setting or to adult students who
need more flexible education or training to keep pace with
the changes in the job market. "Growing numbers of
professionals who cannot take a hiatus or commute to a
campus want education, and educators have a responsibility
to provide for their needs," said Dr. James H. Ryan, vice
president for Outreach and Cooperative Extension at Penn
State (Kusch, 1999). This versatility in education could
create a new population of college students who can now take
advantage of educational programs. During an on-line
discussion, student Stacy Moskowitz typed, "Now that I have
cleaned up from dinner, cleaned out the potty, put away the
laundry and congratulated my friend on giving birth, I will
hope to tap into the 'collegiate' side of my brain" (Newman,
1996). A student who broke her leg just before the start of
the semester at Columbia University, a full-time staff
member at the State University Center at Stony Brook, and a
counselor in Japan have simultaneously taken the same course
in instructional technology (Applebome, 1999).
The absence of geographic boundaries allows students
to make connections.
During the spring of 1998, a Penn State professor named
Thomas Hale taught an African literature course to a total
of eighty-six students from five different Penn State
campuses (Fong, 1998). Although the project required much
preparation, Hale felt that the interactive experience was
definitely worthwhile. "We are seeing students developing
bonds with each other and with the instructor that bridge
the distance between campuses," said Hale (Fong, 1998, p.
1). Penn State hopes that an interactive introductory
exposure to African studies will encourage students to take
more in-depth African courses. Several other Big Ten
universities have expressed interest in collaborating with
Penn State to develop similar courses.
E-mail provides fast personal communication that
students might not initiate if they were face-to-face with
faculty.
Students are already completely immersed in an
instant-communication culture, phoning friends on their way
to classes and dropping an e-mail before going out to
dinner. If contacting a professor is as simple and
low-pressure as contacting a friend, many students are
likely to do it. Penn State professor Courtney Burroughs
said, "I've actually spent more time one-on-one with the
students through distance education than I do with students
in residence" (Kusch, 1999).
Internet courses allow slower students to learn at
their own pace.
Northeastern University offers Music 1101 (Music: A
Listening Experience), which requires them to listen to
Mozart and Beethoven, read text, take tests, and communicate
with the instructor&endash;entirely via computer. David
Sonnenschein, designer and instructor of the course, said,
"I can lecture on musical forms, but to many of them I might
as well be speaking Chinese. But when they can learn at
their own pace, they can listen over and over again until
the 'aha!' happens&endash;until they get it on their own"
(Applebome, 1999).
Internet courses encourage active learning and
participation (versus lectures) and require motivation and
enthusiasm.
"The quality of on-line discussion surpassed anything I
have been able to simulate in my face-to-face classroom,"
wrote Sonnenschein recently (Applebome, 1999). Students know
that they cannot hide in the back row of a lecture hall;
their grades depend on an active "seeking out" of
knowledge.
Students have reported satisfaction with technology,
communication, and learning outcomes.
Eighty-four percent of World Campus students at Penn
State indicated that they were "satisfied" or "very
satisfied" with their overall course experience, and 77
percent said that they would not have been able to take the
course if it had not been offered on-line. Of 164 students
who took courses during spring 1999, 87 percent would
"absolutely" or "probably" take another course, 82 percent
were "satisfied" or "very satisfied" with the level of
communication they had with faculty and students, and 70
percent were "satisfied" or "very satisfied" with the use of
technology. Even learning outcomes were high: 82 percent, 91
percent, and 100 percent were "satisfied" or "very
satisfied" with knowledge gained, skills gained, and
problem-solving skills gained, respectively (James,
2000)
"Bugs" in the System
The first and most obvious disadvantage of Internet
learning is that students experience less (or no)
face-to-face contact. "There is a qualitative difference
between a conversation between a professor and a student in
an office hour and an e-mail exchange," said Mark Smith,
assistant director of government relations for the American
Association of University Professors (AAUP). Smith is
skeptical of the growth of distance learning as a catch-all
and fearful that distance learning could erode the
traditional learning experience (Mendels, 1998).
And not all Web courses receive the positive reactions
that Penn State's courses have generated. A study of one
particular on-line graduate course offered by a major
university in the fall of 1997 uncovered a startlingly
negative reaction by both students and faculty. Students
were inundated by e-mails&endash;35 messages in a typical
week&endash;and the instructor expressed a similar
complaint. Electronic communication presented a great
potential for misunderstanding, one student commented,
especially since the teacher and half the students were not
native speakers (Mendels, 1999). These problems may have
been caused by an incompetent professor; however, the
communication glitches would probably have been easier to
resolve in a traditional classroom.
Many opponents of Internet courses fear that
administrators see on-line education as a way to cut back on
professors and new construction. They say that on-line
education is less about teaching than about cost-cutting and
transforming teaching via software into a commodity.
According to the AAUP, however, courses taught on the
Internet require more, not fewer, instructors (Applebome,
1999). Penn State faculty involved with the World Campus
reported that time requirements were greater for developing
and teaching on-line courses, and that the time commitments
should be reduced or rewarded (James, 2000). Many
administrators could learn the hard way&endash;student
dissatisfaction and attrition&endash;if they skimp funding
or faculty compensation for on-line courses.
A Pricewaterhouse Coopers report predicts a huge shift
toward electronic courses as a trend toward lifelong
learning increases enrollment. The report suggests that
software will serve about half of the students in community
colleges and one-third of the students in four-year
institutions. Many opponents fear that, if this report
proves to be true, on-line education may provide a shabbier
alternative to those who cannot afford an expensive
institution. One student who tried courses offered by the
Florida Gulf Coast University could not afford the necessary
software and was forced to use a computer on campus
(Applebome, 1999).
Many educators feel threatened by profit-making
institutions who could use the Internet to siphon off
continuing education for adult learners&endash;academia's
most profitable courses&endash;leaving universities in the
expensive business of undergraduate education (Arenson,
1998). Thus, universities have scrambled to jump on the
bandwagon&endash;joining the Internet venture for the wrong
reasons.
A Solution?
Gary Miller, executive director of Penn State's World
Campus, said, "It is critical for us to carefully examine
and assess student and faculty feedback as we continue to
shape this new educational platform" (James, 2000). Only by
carefully monitoring student needs and frustrations will
universities be able to offer quality education on-line. In
the meantime, many institutions are offering a variety of
student support services to proactively create a supportive
on-line learning environment.
Harcourt will offer an orientation, library, student
union (with bulletin boards and chat rooms), learning
assistance center, academic advisers, career services,
bookstore, and technical-support help desk&endash;all
on-line. Concord offers law school advisers, orientation, a
tech center, a law library, discussion and study groups, and
office hours (during which professors can be contacted by
e-mail, phone, or fax). WGU provides each student with a
qualified mentor, an expert who will help each student
create a calendar for his or her degree program. Penn
State's World Campus offers an on-line catalog and
registration system, answers to frequently asked questions,
and on-line technical support. And for those who are craving
the sound of a human voice, Penn State staff members are
available by phone (as well as by e-mail) to answer
administrative, advising, and technical questions. Future
plans include library services, increased advising, and
financial aid accessible worldwide (Kusch, 1999).
But support services and well-designed courses are not
enough when faculty members are novices at teaching the
e-courses. A product of Penn State, Faculty Development 101
is an on-line course accessible to faculty worldwide who are
interested in developing or teaching an on-line course.
Faculty members who take the course experience firsthand the
educational environment of their future students. This
insight helps faculty members to avoid the pitfalls of
Internet education: poor communication, technology glitches,
etc. Faculty members learn how to structure an on-line
syllabus and how to work with technical support staff and
graphic designers to ensure that the course is well designed
(Miller, 2000).
Penn State also offers World Campus 101, a course that
might as well be called "How to Take a Course On-Line".
Students are taught the basics of the course structure, as
well as a set of Internet skills. N.Y.U. requires its
on-line students to log on to the school's Web site and take
a week-long on-line orientation before registering for a
class. Officials at other universities have opted for
traditional, face-to-face orientation courses. Florida
State, for example, requires a three-day orientation session
for its new master's students, who are able to meet faculty
and staff, as well as their peers (Mendels, 1999).
What about students who dislike these orientations or
find the technology too frustrating? Most advocates of
on-line learning are willing to admit that distance learning
isn't for everyone. Western Governors University's Web site
reads, "Wondering if distance education is right for you?
Take this quiz and find out!" Distance learning requires
self-motivation to complete assignments, the ability to
evaluate information, and good writing skills. Many courses
depend on virtual class participation&endash;i.e., frequent
postings to on-line bulletin boards (Mendels, 1999).
Besides evaluating themselves, students who would like to
enroll in an on-line course should also evaluate the
program. The Ed-X Distance
Learning Channel provides this checklist (Applebome,
1999), which should be used to determine whether or not a
distance education program is worthwhile:
- Is the program accredited, and if so, by whom?
- How does the tuition compare with a traditional
program, and is financial aid available?
- How long will it take to get a degree? Can a student
stop and start at will?
- Does the school provide career services or networking
opportunities?
- How many students have graduated from the
program?
- Is the software and technology manageable? Is
technical support available?
- How does the content compare to its traditional
counterpart?
- How is the course structured? How much interaction do
students have with faculty and staff?
- Can students set their own class schedules?
- Can you work independently?
Paul Sikkenga, a business analyst and degree student,
said, "As this type of education matures and bandwidth on
the Internet increases, integration of streaming video and
other types of multimedia technology may make the distance
learning class a lively and participatory experience that
may eventually compete successfully with any campus-based
class. Until then, I'll be very selective" (Applebome,
1999).
Conclusions
Distance education has been around since the nineteenth
century; all that has changed is the method of delivery.
"Before there was the Internet, there was the telegraph,"
said Jim Ryan, vice president for outreach and cooperative
extension at Penn State. "And it's evolved with the
technology. First, there was rural-free-delivery mail, then
radio, then television, then a combination of videotapes and
audiotapes, then on-line education" (Applebome, 1999). The
Internet is simply a new method for communicating, and,
although the technology does not yet allow for a fully
interactive, participatory experience, e-mail and the Web
are better for students who rely on correspondence courses
than the phone and "snail" mail are.
Yet this technology promises extensive growth, which
could monopolize higher education. Should educators feel
threatened? Traditional undergraduate education, where the
social experience is as much a part of the allure as the
educational one, will probably be the least affected, most
experts say, and almost no one expects virtual education to
replace the campus experience (Applebome, 1999). Most
administrators involved with Internet courses see the new
technology as a way to serve a new market, not as a
replacement for traditional education. David Noble,
professor of history at York College in Toronto, sees the
effort as even more temporary: on-line education, he says,
will be no more than a very expensive fad, just like the
vogue for correspondence courses, which peaked in the 1920s
(Applebome, 1999).
Professor and software creator Mark Schroeder says that
on-line education never will&endash;and never
should&endash;replace the traditional classroom, especially
for the traditional college-age market. "Technology is
merely an extension of our capabilities," he says, "a way to
expand our ability to learn. I'm not going to be an idiot
and say personal contact is not important. But this is
something in its infancy, and it's only going to grow"
(Applebome, 1999). As it does, educators at institutions and
corporations worldwide will be forced to scramble to meet
the needs of their students, or they will lose them to the
competition. At least that is one guarantee that the quality
of these courses will be preserved.
References
Applebome, P. (1999, April 4).
Distance learning: education.com. The New York
Times.
Arenson, K. W. (1998, October 7).
N.Y.U. sees profits in virtual classes. The New York
Times.
Fong, V., ed. (1998, May 13).
Technology unites students for African Studies classes. Penn
State Outreach news release. Retrieved January 24, 2000,
from the World Wide Web: http://www.outreach.psu.edu/News/Releases/.
Henning, L. (2000, March 17). Entrepreneur developing
accredited online college. The Daily Collegian, p.
1.
James, E. P. (2000, Spring/Summer).
World Campus students report satisfaction with course
experiences. Penn State Outreach: Making Life
Better.
Kusch, C., ed. (1999, January 20).
Penn State's on-line campus celebrates its first anniversary
this month. Penn State Outreach news release. Retrieved
January 24, 2000, from the World Wide Web: http://www.outreach.psu.edu/News/Releases/.
Mendels, P. (1998, January 8).
California governor plans major push to increase online
education. The New York Times.
Mendels, P. (1999, June 2). Textbook
publisher plans on-line university. The New York
Times.
Mendels, P. (1999, September 22).
Study finds problem with Web class. The New York
Times.
Mendels, P. (1999, October 6). Courses
that teach how to learn online. The New York
Times.
Miller, G. E. (2000, January 17). Penn
State launches on-line course for faculty worldwide who want
to hone on-line teaching skills. Penn State Outreach news
release. Retrieved January 24, 2000, from the World Wide
Web: http://www.outreach.psu.edu/News/Releases/.
Newman, M. (1996, November 3). College courses at your
convenience on the Internet. The New York Times.
Printer
Friendly Version
|
