Confer with Blaine

Ten Reasons to Attend the Online Teaching Conference in 2012

2012-02-07T15:32:00.000-08:00

San Jose, home of the silicon-based integrated circuit, the microprocessor, and the microcomputer, and the home of electronic innovation for over four decades. In 1909, Charles Herrold started the first radio station with regularly scheduled programming here.Today, there are more than 6,600 technology companies employing more than 254,000 people in San Jose. The Milken Institute continues to rank the San Jose metropolitan statistical area as the #1 high-tech area in North America.High-tech companies make up nearly 12% of private-sector businesses in San Jose, the greatest concentration in the U.S. and almost three times the national average. San Jose has 182.5 high-tech jobs for every 1,000 private-sector jobs: 47% higher than any other market.

OTC's portal keeps all attendees and presenters in touch with one another by means of discussions, captured sessions, presentation materials, and a vibrant social network. The conference continues even after the last booth has been disassembled and the planes have taken off.

Change is rapid and constant in the online education world, and you -as a professional - need to keep up with the changes. At OTC, you'll get a chance to hear from practitioners and insiders what's happening, what's new to the industry, and what's ahead in online teaching.

There are many faces of online learning, and here's a chance to see them together and up close. Your heros and mine come to this conference, and they're here to meet and get to know you.

Hands-on experiences with new tools, new applications, and the technology you're interested in using make this conference invaluable to educators.

There's a track and presentation for everyone, from the novice to the seasoned pro. If you want to know more about educational policies and best practices, we've got that. Want to hear about course design and accessibility? Yep, it's here. How about real-life disaster-preparedness and best practices from online educators who know from real experience? No problem.

OTC doesn't just skim the surface: it covers topics in depth. Although the novice can find plenty of information that's understandable and digestible, the educator who wants to know more will find enough to satisfy in the in-depth panel discussions and higher-level presentations.

OTC doesn't present one-sided or uni-dimensional pictures of online teaching choices or issues. We're vendor-neutral, solution-agnostic as a conference, so you'll be able to hear what works from many different angles. As much as we love our sponsors, we won't let them squeeze you into a single world-view.

All this for a mere $125 (early bird)? You'd pay twice that for half the content at most technology conferences!

We designed the Online Teaching Conference with you, the online teacher, in mind. Online teachers do most of the talking, teaching, and work at this conference, and they have the biggest say in how the conference will be structured and delivered. This is YOUR conference; thanks for making it work!

Improvise or Stick to the Script? How to Plan Your Online Interactions

2012-01-20T15:17:00.000-08:00

"Creative teaching is improvisational, and participatory classroom discussions gain their effectiveness from their improvisational, collaborative nature... Once we recognize that creative teaching is improvisational, it opens up a new range of opportunities for training teachers, because teacher-training programs can take advantage of the training that aspiring improvisational actors receive. Aspiring improv actors begin by taking improvisational acting classes, and these classes teach a set of basic principles that encourage collaborative and emergent performances." - R. Keith Sawyer, "Creative Teaching: Collaborative Discussion as Disciplined Improvisation."

The Confer classroom provides ample opportunities for communication and interaction, including audio conversation, shared content, text chat, and polling. Many researchers - Wang and Hsu, Saw et. al. Ciekanski and Chanier, and Hampel to name a few - have demonstrated that students appreciate and value these features. The instructor in this environment can lecture, answer questions, lead a brainstorming session, organize group activities, role-play, conduct debates, and critique student work - and this doesn't come close to the possible options available.

For some instructors - especially those new to synchronous online instruction - all these options - with the attendant tools needed to facilitate them - can be daunting. To effectively switch from lecturing on whiteboard material to chatting with students, you have to pay attention to the whole screen. To set up an impromptu poll and share the results with the class, you have to be comfortable with the polling tool. Switching between breakout rooms requires some dexterity, as does effective desktop sharing. This "split attention" can overload the teacher, and it can also be hard on students, who may become confused by the mix of media. Many Confer instructors find a "comfort zone" that involves the use of one or two tools only, and they stay in that zone for all of their classes.

A new study by Karen Kear and her colleagues at The Open University suggests that careful planning and design are helpful for successful synchronous online instruction, but that "the real-time aspect means that learning and teaching in these environments is never predictable." Instead, say Kear et. al., "effective teaching in web conferencing environments ... requires a skilled balance of planning and moment-by-moment adaptation." R. Keith Sawyer calls this "disciplined improvisation." The Open University researchers were interested in how experienced tutors would adapt to tutoring in the online environment and how they learned to improvise in a disciplined manner.

One thing these tutors discovered is that improvisation requires "a repertoire of things to choose from." Because slides have to be pre-loaded, it's necessary to have these ready to go in case you need them. They also placed great value on preparing students to use the various Web conferencing tools so that they were comfortable in the online classroom (although the students overwhelmingly reported that they enjoyed the environment). Practice, practical training, and prepared materials for use in the virtual classroom were viewed by the OU tutors as most necessary for success. Here are some of the most revelatory comments:

"The thing that really impressed me is how enthusiastic my students were to be able to hear each other, and how much more personal Elluminate felt to them than the forum."

"For me one of the real benefits of Elluminate is that the preparation time is completely focused on the topics for the tutorial rather than logistics of how to get there etc."

Of course by writing on the board they got my attention more easily, but it also became a bit more collaborative – typically one student would start an equation, the next would finish it and a third would add the units. Then I would suggest another way of solving the problem or someone would ask a question ..."

I haven't thought of myself as an improv actor, but the shoe fits. I've definitely become a better Confer user by interacting with other Confer users, improvising as the situation and audience demands. I've used scripts with some online lectures, but I'm able to leave them when there's a reason to interact. The key is to feel planned, to be ready for interruptions, but to allow the moment to be something that's never been before.

2011 Year in Review

2011-12-19T14:57:00.000-08:00

"The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated." - Mark Twain

"Another fresh new year is here/ Another year to live!/To banish worry, doubt, and fear,/ To love and laugh and give!" - William Arthur Ward

2011, we barely knew you. You brought earthquakes and tsunamis, unemployment, an Arab Spring, and an Occupy movement. There were blizzards when you first arrived, drought and wildfires as you took your first steps, tornadoes, floods and stifling heat waves as you reached midlife, and strange storms in your latter days. You saw the end of the Space Shuttle program, Oprah's 25-year reign over daytime television, Borders bookstores, and American troops in Iraq. You take with you Steve Jobs, Elizabeth Taylor, Joe Frazier, Amy Winehouse, and many more we will miss. From my desk at CCC, here are four things I'll remember you for:

1. TTIP Consolidates. We learned in early spring that TTIP (Telecommunications and Technology Infrastructure Program, which funds CCC Confer and several other statewide projects) was going to experience budget cuts. To cope with reduced funds, a plan was developed to consolidate TTIP projects into two centers. Tim Calhoon, Director of the California Community Colleges Technology Center, will be directing the California Virtual Campus (CVC) along with CCCApply and CCCTran. My end of the deal will include CCC Confer, 3C Media Solutions / Edustream, and the @ONE project. My sincere thanks to Bill Doherty, who will be retiring at the end of next month, and Lenora Pinkston (who will remain at Evergreen Valley College) for their help in the transition and planning for this consolidation, and to all of the staff from these projects who have collaborated to ensure an effective alliance of minds and efforts. We're a terrific team and I'm fortunate to be part of it.

2. Mobile Learning. In January, I was part of the Mid-Pacific Information and Communication Technology (MPICT) Winter ICT Educator Conference in San Francisco. One of the tracks that fascinated me and all of the attendees had to do with educational mobile apps: there are thousands of them, and they're multiplying! The Horizon Report predicted that this would be the year for adoption of mobile learning, and it certainly seems to have been a banner year for iPhones, iPads, eReaders, Androids, and BYOD (Bring Your Own Device). Irvine Valley College hosted a symposium entitled "Mobility Matters" in March, where I joined Craig DeVoe, Jim Gaston, Bob Bramucci, and several others to discuss mobile computing and the impact of mobility on learning and higher education. (Incidentally, I'm going back to MPICT next month for the 2012 iteration; hope to see you there!)

3. Open Learning Heroes. The 2011 Online Teaching Conference at Orange Coast College used the theme "Be an Open Learning Hero" for good reason. Open educational resources are a growing part of the landscape. Early in 2011, the U.S. Department of Labor introduced the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training Grant Program, a $2 billion effort that mandates the use of openly licensed materials. Open Educational Resource University (OERu) began to take shape this year, along with the Open Course Library. And State Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg proposed a bill that will allocate $25 million to create free online college text books and establish the California Digital Open Source Library. View Jane Park's presentation, "Opening the Door to Sharing Content in Education," by clicking here. Eric Frank's talk - "Free the Text! How Open Texts are Disrupting Publishing and Improving Outcomes" - can be viewed here. And Steve Hargadon's keynote, "Open Learning: The Future of Education" is available here.

4. Learning is Social. Facebook now has 800 million users, more than half of whom are daily users. Over 900 million objects (pages, groups, events) are shared every day on the site, with 250 million new photos uploaded daily. 350 million of Facebook's active users connect from mobile devices. It took three years, two months, and a day from the first Tweet to the billionth Tweet on Twitter. Currently, it takes a week to send a billion Tweets. Twitter now adds an average of 460,000 new accounts per day, and saw a 182% increase in mobile users in 2011. Google+ was introduced this year and is nearing 100 million users (all adult). Michelle Pacansky-Brock calls this "The Era of Participation" and we're all (willing or not) participants.

Bring 'Em On Board: How to Get Your Colleagues to Confer

2011-11-04T14:12:00.000-07:00

"The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance." - Alan Watts

"I have a mind to join a club and beat you over the head with it." - Groucho Marx

Julian Prior and Marie Salter at the University of Bath recently reported on their pilot of Web conferencing software at their university. With funding from HE STEM grants, and a need to connect teams in partner colleges and organizations, they decided to test the Web conferencing waters. Here's how they got their colleagues to wet their feet:

Interviews. Almost by accident (literally!), they discovered that candidates can be interviewed without the expense and bother of having to bring them to campus, order a room, and fill it with committee members. A candidate at Bath was hospitalized and could not attend her interview, but with this technology "she was able to respond to questions, complete the interview task planned, and demonstrate skills - just as she would have been able to do in a face-to-face situation."
Regional Conferences. They tested this with a group of lecturers and technologists who wanted to discuss lecture capture as a strategy. What better way to demonstrate than with a remote technology that allows for capturing and reviewing the proceedings?
Virtual Open Day. The Clinical Psychology department held a program that was so popular that there was insufficient space and resources for the students who wanted to attend. The solution: take the program online and allow everyone to participate.
Regional Meetings. Naturally, the far-flung HE-STEM network was quick to discover the ease and convenience of meeting online rather than traveling to meetings.
Case Study Presentations. The Chemistry department used the technology to present case studies.
Project Proposals. The Health Department - no stranger to distance education - used the technology to allow students in distant countries to present project proposals to on-campus mentors.
Postgraduate seminars. A series of seminars was delivered to Masters students in Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, Palestine, Syria, and the UK by means of Web conferencing.
Professional Development. The Department of Pharmacy and Pharmacology made use of the virtual learning environment to deliver continuing professional development training.

The reactions of the Bath experimenters were positive and enthusiastic. They tried several technologies and shared their findings with each other and the larger professional community. Prior and Salter conclude that "we are in the enviable position of reporting overwhelmingly positive feedback from participants who have been involved in a number of different usage scenarios."

If you're feeling lonely on your campus because you haven't found other instructors or practitioners who've taken the leap of faith required to become a virtual instructor, consider trying some of these scenarios with your colleagues. Many of our most ardent supporters and users were first introduced to CCC Confer by means of an invitation to an online event like one of these. They became curious, and later found out for themselves that Web conferencing provides a solution to challenges in their own circumstances. Share it with someone you know.

Are You a Visitor, or Do You Live Here?

2011-10-21T12:27:00.000-07:00

"I come from the Batman era, adding items to my utility belt while students today are the Borg from Star Trek, assimilating technology into their lives." - David Tuss

"They are used to the immediacy of hypertext, downloaded music, phones in their pockets – which are on 24/7; a library on their laptops/computers, and connectivity anytime, anywhere. They’ve been networked most or all of their lives. Being always connected is something natural to them, and they have conversations constantly going with their social networks via text messaging and instant messaging." - Eva Windisch and Niclas Medman

I've just read the "Visitors and Residents" paper by David S. White and Alison Le Cornu. They're proposing an alternative to Prensky's Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants. One reason this may be necessary - aside from the fact that Prensky's model has been under fire lately - is because the native-immigrant model pre-dated social media. Prensky's "natives" lived in the digital information world, whereas today's "residents" live in a digital world that combines infinite information with relationships, social and political networks, and new approaches to teaching and learning. Visitors "understand the Web as akin to an untidy garden shed" where they find tools, do a job, and return the tool once the job is over. Residents "see the Web as a place ... in which there are clusters of friends and colleagues whom they can approach and with whom they can share information about their life and work."

This video gives a good summary of the visitors/residents idea, and you can access (and use) the Prezi presentation here. Though I'm not sure the name change is necessary, the new definitions and typology appeal to me. Our students tend to fall into "use it to do this" vs. "Welcome to my world" categories.

Katie Piatt has collected some data to support the visitor/resident dichotomy, using a questionnaire with her students that asks these questions:

Do you have any online friends that you have never met face to face?
How often do you update your Facebook status or post on Twitter each day?
Do you ever feel like you are missing out because you've been offline for a long time?
Have you ever Googled yourself?

The first question is aimed at discovering online relationships. The second is a measure of desire to leave records of one's persona online. The third question distinguishes between the "native" and the "resident" by pointing at the value of conversations and relationships - as opposed to mere information - online. The last question tries to indicate one's attachment to a digital identity.

The distinction might help explain students' approaches to your virtual classroom, and even your own approach. Do you miss online time with your students, chatting, sharing, laughing, networking? Are you inclined to force students to report what they're doing every day? Is the Web your home, or do you just come here to teach?

Connecting with Students: It's a Whole New World

2011-09-30T12:28:00.000-07:00

"If I had asked our students, faculty, and staff before all of this if they thought social media was a huge part of their lives and work, the answer would have been no. But now, many are seeing that it is a really big part of how we behave and what we do." (Eric Darr, Provost at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology)

Last week, Harrisburg University of Science and Technology imposed a ban on social media sites: students' access to Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and AOL Instant Messenger. The idea, according to Eric Darr (quoted above), was that " the set of technology we call “social media” has a big impact on the way students, faculty, and staff here at the university live their lives and do their work. It’s not just a peripheral time-waster. But posing this to students in an academic setting didn’t seem to quite get to it; habits are very hard to talk about and articulate because we’re not aware that we’re doing them. Imagine a world without social media! " Darr claims that several students reported less stress, better concentration, and improved sleep once the ban was enacted. He also acknowledges that the ban didn't really work: the proportion of students who actually went "cold turkey" was probably around 10% or 15%.

Also last week, the second Education Nation summit was held at Rockefeller Center in New York City. This summit brought together some of the nation's most prominent education reformers, policymakers, and funders to discuss important and emerging educational trends and policies. Ann Curry of NBC also convened a very important panel of - students (!!!) to provide insights and suggestions about what's important to them about education. They suggested 20 things, but I'll highlight a few that stand in sharp contrast to the Harrisburg experiment:

I can't learn from you if you are not willing to connect with me.
Us youth love all the new technologies that come out. When you acknowledge this and use technology in your teaching it makes learning much more interesting.
We appreciate when you connect with us in our worlds such as the teacher who provided us with extra help using Xbox and Skype.
You need to use tools in the classroom that we use in the real world like Facebook, email, and other tools we use to connect and communicate.

Finally, I've included in this entry a snapshot of a Facebook conversation I had this week with a young woman from India (I've intentionally protected her privacy by smearing her name and profile picture) who posted on CCC Confer's Facebook page. At first I thought she was asking for training materials related to using the technology, which would have been fine and even a bit flattering. But it became clear in the conversation that she had an interest in the archived lectures of a particular instructor at a particular college in California who teaches high-tech computer classes. Here's an illustration of how dramatically the technologies of lecture capture, synchronous online education, and social networking combined to make international connections and learning possible. (I checked yesterday: the instructor and the student are now Facebook friends.)

Ironically, this week was Banned Books week: libraries around the country held programs and readings to discuss the evils of censorship and content restrictions. Ban (Face)book? Not in my world!

Five Reasons You Need to Learn to Web Conference

2011-09-23T11:52:00.000-07:00

CCC Confer has grown tremendously since 2003, both in terms of adoption by constituents and usage by the general population. Many have embraced this technology to the extent that it is now the medium of choice for holding meetings, conducting classes, or engaging with students. Several people have told me that CCC Confer has acquired such an important role in their everyday work lives that they could no longer work or do business without it.

How about you? Are you straddling the fence, wondering when the technology will become easier to use or more reliable? Are you concerned about support? Do you worry about security? You may want to check out some testimonials to change your perspective.

Meanwhile, consider these arguments in favor of Web conferencing in your future:

No travel time. You can meet with your class, colleagues, team, or organization anytime, from anywhere. No rental car, traffic jam, airline security scan, hotel stay, hunt for decent food. No need to change clothes. Take travel out of your budget and bring the world to your desktop.
No back seats. In the face-to-face meeting or class room, somebody sits in the front and others have to sit away from the speaker, away from the screen, and removed from where the action is. Not so the Confer room: everyone has equal access to the presentation content and the speakers' voices. No straining to hear or craning to look around the person in front.
Better brainstorming and interaction. That's right: in the Confer environment, you'll get better sharing of ideas than in the face-to-face situation, provided you use the tools. You can let participants add ideas anonymously to a whiteboard, respond to polls, chat privately and publicly, and convene in private rooms to work out side issues.
Your reach can exceed your grasp. Your local campus or office building will always be an obstacle to some of your potential audience members. The home-bound, handicapped, geographically challenged, schedule-challenged, or otherwise-unable-to-come-to-you student or colleague can be reached now with little effort from either of you. The world is literally available to you, and you to it.
Kodak moments. Did you ever wish you could capture a class you'd taught or attended so that you could review it later for better understanding? Do your meeting notes and minutes suffer from an inability to "rewind" and get the statements right? With Confer, recorded sessions are a snap to create and access.

There are plenty of other reasons, but those should get you motivated. Watch this spot to learn more.

Can You See Free Code in Your Future?

2011-09-09T14:22:00.000-07:00

"Do you pine for the days when men were men and wrote their own device drivers? " (Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel, and David Diamond, Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary, Collins, 2001)

Open Source and free digital content have been big in education news this week, and I couldn't help but notice. For example:

Google concluded the seventh Summer of Code this week. More than a thousand college students from 68 countries participated this year, all dedicated to creating and sharing code. The program pairs students with mentors, with the purpose of writing code for 175 open source organizations. Students get a shot at sampling future employment, and the organizations receive the benefit of expert and peer-reviewed programming. The rest of us benefit from source code that we can use or adapt.
A major database of academic journal articles, JSTOR, declared this week, "we are making journal content in JSTOR published prior to 1923 in the United States and prior to 1870 elsewhere freely available to anyone, anywhere in the world. This “Early Journal Content” includes discourse and scholarship in the arts and humanities, economics and politics, and in mathematics and other sciences. It includes nearly 500,000 articles from more than 200 journals." You may recall that on July 19, Aaron Swartz of DemandProgress was indicted for capturing nearly 5 million of JSTOR's articles onto a laptop hidden in an MIT closet. Carmen Ortiz, the U.S. Attorney for the State of Massachusetts, was quoted saying, "Stealing is stealing whether you use a computer command or a crowbar, and whether you take documents, data or dollars." Ironically, the "stolen" articles are now free for the taking.
Michael S. Hart, inventor of the e-book and founder of Project Gutenberg (the first producer of free e-books), died this week. Read his obituary here.
A "crowdsourced" e-book, Hacking the Academy, was published this week by the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. The work was compiled from a week of blogs and tweets posted in one week in May of 2010. As Dan Cohen and Tom Scheinfeldt explain in the Preface, "We asked for contributions to a collectively produced volume that would explore how the academy might be beneficially reformed using digital media and technology. The process of creating the edited volume itself would be a commentary on the way things are normally done in scholarly communication, with submissions coming in through multiple channels, including blogs, Twitter, and email, and in multiple formats—everything from a paragraph to a long essay to multimedia. We also encouraged interactivity—the possibility that contributors could speak directly to each other, rather than creating the inert, isolated chapters that normally populate edited volumes. We then sent out notices via our social networks, which quickly and extensively disseminated the call for submissions. Finally, we gave contributors a mere seven days, the better to focus their attention and energy." The result: 330 submissions from 177 authors. And, of course, it's free.

As director of projects that offer content to educators and students, I'm happy to see so many signs that free access to educational content is a shared goal of peers and pioneers around the world.

It was a good week.

Are You Using the 4Cs to Go Above and Beyond?

2011-07-29T10:49:00.000-07:00

"Storytelling is a powerful tool for teaching and learning. It's also a powerful tool for humanizing and clearly conveying complex messages and ideas." - Peter H. Reynolds, co-founder of Fablevision.

Reynolds proves his point with a video that illustrates the "four Cs" of 21st century learning: communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity, Above and Beyond. Please take a look:

The video was written and illustrated by Mr. Reynolds and released by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills and Fablevision. There's also a poster you can download here to reinforce the lesson.

In the virtual classroom, communication is necessary to define problems and make solutions possible. Students and instructors can discuss concepts and misunderstandings, share information, clarify ideas, and develop new visions by using the audio tools, text chat areas, polls and emoticons, and whiteboard.

Collaboration makes it possible for collective or group efforts to exceed those of any individual. The virtual classroom allows students to work in breakout rooms, where they can present ideas and projects, work on problems, share computer applications, and come to consensus.

Critical thinking requires students to test hypotheses or assumptions and solve problems by means of a disciplined approach. Instructors in the virtual classroom can reinforce this skill by allowing individuals and groups to actively apply their skills in solving problems that the rest of the class can analyze and critique.

Creativity, the fourth C, involves new approaches and innovative processes. Newsweek recently lamented The Creativity Crisis, citing research that American creativity is declining. In the virtual classroom, instructors can encourage creative approaches by allowing divergent thinkers to mix with convergent thinkers, letting old ways of thinking combine with new insights or ideas. A recent study from IBM's Institute for Business Value shows that creativity is the most desired leadership quality among today's chief executives.

In a world where we are all interconnected and interdependent, students need the 4 Cs to interpret complex situations and find successful approaches to dealing with them. Let's help them by showing our own innovative natures in the virtual classroom.

Presence Is Not Learning, But It Helps

2011-07-08T14:03:00.000-07:00

"[T]he social presence construct is somewhat problematic and requires further articulation and clarification if it is to be of use to future researchers seeking to inform our understanding of online teaching and learning." - Peter Shea, and Temi Bidjerano (2010). Learning presence: Towards a theory of self-efficacy, self-regulation, and the development of a communities of inquiry in online and blended learning environments. Computers & Education, 55(4), p. 17.

There's been a lot of attention in online education circles to "presence" in the online classroom. Much of this is traceable to the "Community of Inquiry" model proposed by Garrison, Anderson and Archer in 2000, in which social presence, teaching presence, and cognitive presence are seen as essential attributes of online instruction. Social presence is reinforced online (e.g., in the Confer classroom) by using emoticons, seeding the chat room, injecting humorous remarks, greeting students, asking individuals for opinions, and so on. Teaching presence is reflected in direct instruction (lecturing), demonstration, lesson designs, feedback, focused discussion, and similar activities. Cognitive presence is "the extent to which the participants in any particular configuration of a community of inquiry are able to construct meaning through sustained communication." This happens when the class collaboratively engages in problem-solving, brainstorming, exchanging information, exploring ideas, testing solutions, integrating new knowledge, etc.

Of course, this makes sense to online instructors in the Confer classroom (and anyone who's been following these blog posts). We've learned a lot about how to promote interaction and learner engagement by using smiley faces judiciously, inserting chat comments, and allowing students to write on our whiteboards. We can demonstrate how a well-designed Confer class session moves students from one concept to another and elicits their responses and understanding. And we're sold on the use of breakout rooms for collabative groupwork, application sharing to elicit interactive demonstration, and using the Confer toolset to maximize cognitive presence.

But presence is not all that's involved in learning. Getting students to interact with one another - and the instructor - are terrific ways to start the learning process. Reflection can be accomplished in a group environment as well. Talking to the instructor is essential. But there's an important element - instructional content - that requires individual learner engagement. Students have to read and digest texts, charts, data, practice exercises, notes, and subject matter in order to learn in most classes. Some of this can be done in the Confer classroom, but it's hard to imagine that all of it can. Every learner is unique, and individual intellects develop uniquely.

Knowledge is cumulative and community-based, and the interchange of ideas is vital to cognitive growth. So is critical thinking, studying, reflecting, assimilating, remembering, and practicing. Some of these are done together in the Confer classroom, and some necessarily occur in other contexts. But when they're allowed to co-exist, it's beautiful.

How to Make Demonstrations Interactive

2011-06-30T09:53:00.000-07:00

“If you use application sharing only for instructor-presented demonstrations, participant attention will soon drift. Instead, make demonstrations interactive by creating a series of completion examples that lead to a full practice exercise.” (Clark and Kwinn, The New Virtual Classroom: Evidence-Based Guidelines for Synchronous e-Learning, 2007, p. 115)

Instructors use interactive demonstrations to help students master a concept or technique that is eluding them, either because of misunderstandings, ambiguity, or the need for real-world or "concrete" examples. Application sharing is a tool in the Confer classroom that provides this kind of capability, and it can be used effectively to allow students to become involved in the subject matter, experience it by performing specified tasks, and reflect on the outcome.

If you're unfamiliar with application sharing, review the options in this video tutorial. As an instructor, you can request control of a student's desktop, and you can even decide to give control of your own desktop to a student. This is a great way to involve your students in real-time problem solving, demonstrations, and practice, but it requires some preparation on your part to make it work well. Here are some tips:

Decide what you want students to see on your desktop, in what order, and how much of any given application (or document, screen, etc.) you want them to see. Here's a good explanation of why this is important.
As you share your applications, explain to students what they're seeing and what you're doing. This also applies when students are sharing their (or your) applications. As the screen changes, students can become disoriented by pixellation or sudden moves, so it's important to interpret these changes by relating them to the actions that caused the screen changes. See this video for more information.
Define the area of your desktop that will be seen by students. (This relates to the first point.) You want them to see certain areas, but not (usually) your Confer desktop. You can define this area in advance.
Allow students to do what you're doing. Give one student control of your application, so that the other students will see these actions and hear your explanations along with those of the students. This approach keeps students "on their toes" because it makes everyone realize that they may be required to help demonstrate the application at any point during your class session.

Here are some examples of instructors who use application sharing for various instructional purposes.

Learning from the Confer Community

2011-06-03T14:27:00.000-07:00

"We use the term community centered to refer to several aspects of community, including the classroom as a community, the school as a community, and the degree to which students, teachers, and administrators feel connected to the larger community of homes, businesses, states, the nation, and even the world." - John Bransford, Ann Brown, and James Pellegrino (eds.), How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School (NAP, 2000).

The Confer community hasn't actually formalized yet, but it's available to anyone struggling with synchronous online instruction or toying with the idea of learning a new skill set that will make online classes more vibrant and effective. Every week, educators post archives of their classes, Webinars, and meetings in which tips and advice are freely shared. You can build a better lesson plan or help stretch your online skills without much exertion: all you have to do is drop in with a point-and-click. Here's a sampling of some of the amazing things I've seen from the Confer community in the past month:

Creating a Faculty-Driven Course Design Document with Joan Van Tassel

Creative Commons: Opening the Door to Sharing with Jane Park

Digital Citizenship: 21st Century Skills for a Media-Saturated World with Rebecca Randall

Encouraging Instructors to Explore Technology- Pitfalls and Opportunities with Rushton Hurley

Lessons Learned Moving an Introduction to Technology Course Online with Stephen Whiting

Online Course Accommodations for Students with Disabilities with Matt Gehrett

Open Textbooks and Learner Accessibility: Standards, Design, and Formats with Alice Krueger and Una Daly

Supporting your students in the online environment-How and Why with Peggy Hohensee, Michelle Lis, and Gina Quesinberry

The Death of Distance

2011-05-06T10:29:00.000-07:00

"Physical distance has vanished." - Yong Zhao, in Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization

My friend Pierre Thiry teaches high technology classes to students in Paris, France from his office in San Francisco. He does this in real time using CCC Confer's technology, and he tells me the students are enthusiastic and he is having a great time with the class. This venture could not have been attempted without the positive experiences Pierre and his colleagues at MPICT (Mid-Pacific Information and Communication Technologies) have had over the last two years using CCC Confer to make distance disappear.

Pierre's MPICT colleague Michael McKeever discovered that CCC Confer makes it possible for him to keep students in his classes even when they are unable to attend the physical classroom. He has had students travel to India for weddings, move out of state for jobs, or leave his college's district for various reasons. With Confer, they've been able to finish their classes by attending them online. Michael also teaches some classes so specialized that his own college does not have enough students qualified or interested in taking them. But he can get sufficient enrollment for these classes by drawing from five or six other colleges who offer a similar curriculum.

Michael even shows students how distance is dead by demonstrating the network routes Confer uses to provide real-time interaction across the ocean. From his classroom in Santa Rosa, California, he locates the 22 hops the data take to get to the network location of a student in Shanghai, China. He uses traceroute to locate the province router, the CHINANET backbone, the "leap" across the Pacific to San Jose, and the final jumps to Santa Rosa Junior College.

To the instructor and student in the Confer classroom, there is no distance. Each sees the other (if cameras are in use) or the other's data from a front row seat. Interactions between students in the next room or in the next county have equal impact. There are no geographical borders, barriers, or limitations to interfere with the teaching and learning process.

Results Prove: Online Student Support Leads to Student Success

2011-04-15T14:03:00.000-07:00

"Online support transforms online classes from 30-40% killing grounds to more successful environments than classrooms." - Dr. Patt McDermid, Professor of Literature and Humanities at Sierra College

Sierra College has, over four years, collected significant data demonstrating the efficiency of online tutoring using CCC Confer in its Online Writing Center. Each semester's student population and results were gathered meticulously and the results are impressive.

Here's Patt discussing some of the statistics:

Students participating in the Online Writing Center (OWC) in the spring of 2009 succeeded at an impressive rate of 90% compared with their non-participating counterparts who managed only a 48% success rate. Moreover, all of the 59 individuals who participated in the OWC remained in the course, resulting in a 100% retention rate compared with an overall rate of 70-78% in online courses.

The data also indicate that online student support was more effective than face-to-face (on-ground) support.

In the much more significant area of online student success - completing a course with a grade of “C” or better - 9 out of 10 students who received online writing help, regardless of those students’ assessed skill levels, received grades of ”C” or better.

As Patt says, "This thing really, really works."

When Travel Budgets Disappear, Teamwork Grows

2011-04-08T12:39:00.000-07:00

"Too often travel, instead of broadening the mind, merely lengthens the conversation." - Elizabeth Drew

World Wide Web of Informatin

"The most important trip you may take in life is meeting people halfway." - Henry Boye

Colleges and organizations throughout the state and country are slashing travel budgets to save money. We've done the same thing here at CCC Confer, and I have to admit that I don't miss the hotels, restaurant tabs, tips, airports, toll roads, car rentals, packing and unpacking, lost items, or germy travel environments as much as I thought I might. And I'm getting more done - with more people - by staying in my office and meeting with them virtually. Now that more people are foregoing statewide trips, I'm getting more opportunities to introduce them to the quickest, easiest, and most effective way to bring teams from different geographical locations together.

I recently helped to host an event at a local college that required speakers and attendees to drive to the event, food to be prepared and served, tables to be set up, equipment to be arranged, and a sound and video system to be tested. It took two hours to set up the room, ensure that the microphones and projector were working properly, skirt and decorate the tables, and work with the caterers. The keynote speakers each drove more than 100 miles to attend, so they also needed two hours advance time to get to the meeting and another two hours afterward to drive home.

For the same event, if it were to be held virtually, it would require less than five minutes to order the meeting and send e-mail invitations to all attendees. Loading the speakers' presentation might take another two minutes, and testing the audio connections might add another minute. In less than ten minutes, we'd be ready to go, and no one would have had to leave the home or office!

In the large room where my local college's event was held, there were corners of the room where it was difficult to see and read the speakers' slides, and even the P-A system was unable to bring an equally clear signal to all participants. The sunlight streaming through the windows reduced the visual clarity of the content, making it even harder to make out all of the images on the screen. In a Confer presentation, everyone sees exactly the same images and hears the same audio signals: there are no "cheap seats" in this environment and no problems with lighting. One of the speakers, anticipating potential problems with the room and presentation, brought more than 100 paper copies of his presentation, which had to be distributed throughout the room. In the Confer meeting room, a single click distributes a file instantly to all participants (even those who aren't in attendance but are able to view the archive later).

I'm not celebrating the budget crisis or decrying the virtues of travel. After all, I've got a collection of school gear from California colleges that can only be complete if I'm able to visit more schools. But there's no question that we waste a lot of time and money with face-to-face meetings that can easily be saved by taking the meetings online. With a good agenda, a prepared moderator, and motivated team members, you can accomplish more in a virtual meeting than is possible in most face-to-face conferences. I'm just happy that so many of my colleagues are discovering this for themselves and coming away from Confer experiences pleasantly surprised.

The Critical Teaching and Learning Issues Worldwide

2011-04-01T14:00:00.000-07:00

"I am gratified to see that new technologies such as collaboration and video are globally increasing in importance in education, as they can open the door to a world of opportunities for students, regardless of socio-economic status or geographical location." - Renee Patton

A global survey recently commissioned by Cisco and conducted by Clarus Research Group indicates that more than three-quarters of educational administrators and officials around the world believe educational technology can change how students learn and how teachers teach. The countries surveyed were Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom; poll respondents were evenly divided between higher education and K-12.

Learning Issues

86% noted the need for programs and curriculum that develop skills in team- and project- based learning, with an emphasis on modern communications technologies.
85% of these educators saw technology playing a "large role" in how students learn, and were hopeful that student engagement and participation could be increased by using technology in education.
83% of respondents cited the need to prepare students to compete in a global economy, including the need for effective and productive use of technology.

Technology Issues

The top concerns of these educators were protection from Internet abuse, improved collaboration technologies, stronger cybersecurity measures, and administrative efficiencies that can be achieved through technology.
Embedding video and multimedia resources in the learning process were seen by most of the respondents as a near-term goal.
65% of the higher education officials see online international programs as a realistic opportunity to enlarge their virtual student body within the next five years.

Regional Perspectives

Respondents from the Asia-Pacific region placed highest priority on communications with students and investment in the research infrastructure.
European educators were mainly concerned about funding, online security, and increasing their international presence.
Latin America rated highest on overall aspirations for education.

Today's educational climate stresses globalization and technology, as my friend Yong Zhao explains in his new book, Catching Up or Leading the Way. You can learn more about these issues by watching the archive of Yong's recent Webinar here.

Using Students Experts

2011-02-25T11:29:00.000-08:00

"An expert knows all the answers - if you ask the right questions." - Levi Strauss. "Have you heard of this new thing called the internet? It's giving people new expectations. It's allowing them to become their own expert. Knowledge lies anxious at their fingertips." - Roy H. Williams

Angie Thompson's "daily experts" technique is a simple way to encourage student participation - both in traditional and online classes. "I list five or six students’ names on a PowerPoint slide at the beginning of my classes.... These individuals, assuming they are in class, then become my daily experts—the first ones I ask questions to or opinions of before opening discussion to the whole class. " Thompson says this technique breaks the ice and helps students realize that she is approachable. Other benefits she cites are providing for one-on-one interaction in large classes, encouraging class preparation, allowing all students at least one chance to speak in class, helping the instructor to learn names, and offering engagement to the entire class. I suspect that the accountability for class attendance - knowing that your name may be on the board today - may be positively affected as well.

Anonymity in the Confer classroom is both a good and bad thing. It's good when students don't feel embarrassed about their opinions or lack of skill. It's bad when students become disengaged, alienated, and feel that their performance and/or participation are unimportant or ignored. Having a technique like "daily experts" - which reinforces accountability - allows you as an instructor to make sure that your students feel individually responsible for paying attention, coming to class prepared, and participating in their own learning experience.

Since you have a class roster with the names of students always available, you don't have to prepare a PowerPoint slide before class with the names of the day's experts. Instead, you can select from the list of those present. Using the whiteboard tools, you can have the experts posted (see the image above) as an initial class activity, which will add to the intrigue and anticipation of the session. Doing this acknowledges students' presence and helps you (and the other students) get to know them as individuals. Students will begin to appreciate that there is no "hiding" in your classroom. And you'll benefit from the insights they give you into how well the material is being absorbed and understanding is growing.

On the Horizon

2011-02-19T11:52:00.000-08:00

The New Media Consortium's 2011 Horizon Report, produced jointly with EDUCAUSE, predicts technologies which will have a large impact on teaching, learning, and creative expression in higher education. Now in its eighth year of publication, the report is distinguished by predictions of adoption cycles in education; i.e., how long it will take teachers and schools to actually use these emerging tools. Let's look at what's on the near-term (one year or less) horizon.

Mobile computing is on the short adoption cycle (as with last year's report). Last year, Horizon cited the wide range of activities mobile devices make possible; this year, the report says, "mobiles are here because so many people use them as their first choice for accessing networked resources." For online instructors, the impact of mobile devices is that they can literally teach from and to anywhere there is a cell signal. I'm looking forward to the Java-enabled mobile device that supports Confer sessions, and at the same time I'm pushing for a mobile-ready version of the Confer classroom.

Also singled out for near term adoption are electronic books. Yes, we all know that texts can be downloaded and read on mobile devices, and that both devices and content are now readily available. But that's not the real point: "What makes electronic books a potentially transformative technology is the new kinds of reading experiences that they make possible." What's happening with this new technology is that our definition of "reading" is changing, with audiovisual, interactive, and social components mixing into the act and extending the process.

These predictions will be welcomed by iPhone, Android, Kindle, iPad, and shiny new app owners. It's important to remember, though, that we serve a student population that includes a large number for whom constant Internet access is not a given, and some for whom "reading" on a small screen is more of an obstacle than an advantage. We have to be careful not to create a new digital divide: between the mobile "haves" and the desktop- or "dumb-phone"- bound "have-nots": new technology adoption has to occur in a relevant and practical context.

Meanwhile, I'm excited by what's on the horizon. How about you?

Brevity is the Soul of Confer

2011-01-28T11:31:00.000-08:00

"Be sincere, be brief, be seated." - Franklin D. Roosevelt's advice on public speaking.

We've said it here before: it's different online. Students don't come to the online classroom with the same expectations, instructors don't behave the same way online as in the traditional classroom, and the online classroom itself presents an environment that encourages some types of behavior while discouraging others. One thing the online classroom does not encourage is long, inactive lecturing. In fact, the best Confer sessions tend to be the ones that end quickly.

I was reminded of that when I read a Tim Sanders' piece about the power of a short talk. He used the example of TED Talks, which were designed with an 18-minute keynote time limit that is enforced with an active moderator and a public countdown timer. Richard Saul Wurman, who co-founded TED, was asked in an interview why he decided on 18 minutes. His answer: that's the time it usually takes for him to get bored when he's listening to someone.

There are several reasons why we should try to keep our Confer lectures short, even if this means that we have to provide more of them than we would face-to-face sessions. For one thing, it takes students longer to read and understand online content, so we can't flood the screen with print the same way we can deliver handouts to students in a classroom. (We can still deliver these handouts online, of course, but we should allow students to process them offline.) In the age - and medium - of YouTube, three minutes is ideal and five minutes is eternal. So an archived lecture that lasts for 20 minutes and requires students to watch it in its entirety is ... optimistic. Bandwidth is one concern, since nobody likes to wait for content to download, but the real issue is user expectations and behavior in this medium. Since YouTube and other online media have created the expectation that information can be packaged in condensed "chunks" for short viewing, online instructors may find it helpful to condense their own deliveries into shorter, more dynamic "clip-link" packages that allow students to access the information in parses and from multiple paths.

Quick: What Did I Just Say? Tests as Learning Tools

2011-01-21T13:39:00.000-08:00

“I think that learning is all about retrieving, all about reconstructing our knowledge. I think that we’re tapping into something fundamental about how the mind works when we talk about retrieval.” - Jeffrey Karpicke, Purdue University.

A new study published this week by Jeffrey Karpicke and Janell Blunt suggests that when students are asked to recall what they just finished reading, they will retain (remember) 50 percent more of the information a week later than they will by using classic studying techniques (i.e., cramming) or by using concept maps. Although studying and using concept maps are effective, what the researchers call "retrieval practice" - the active process of reconstructing knowledge by recalling information in order to answer questions - appears to be superior as a form of active learning. The authors write, "retrieval is not merely a read out of the knowledge stored in one's mind - the act of reconstructing knowledge itself enhances learning."

This supports something I've learned from Confer instructors: the virtual classroom, because it is synchronous and interactive, is a great place to do quick assessments that have an impact on learning. Instructors want to make the most of every online minute with their students, but those minutes may be wasted unless students are asked to reflect upon, respond to, and remember what you've taught them.

Larry Green, for example, has found that the "1-2-3: Put it in the Chat Box" method works well as a way to spot-check students' learning and understanding.
By using this simple and spontaneous assessment method, Larry reinforces retrieval practice and thus (if the researchers are correct) enhances the learning process.

Another quick and effective tool in the Confer classroom is the Polling tool. This works well because it engages students' attention, can be used to enforce retrieval practice, provides immediate feedback, and protects (at your discretion) student anonymity. All that, and it's incredibly easy to do. This video demonstrates the process, and you can print out this PDF to use as a "cheat sheet" if you like.

While retrieval practice is important, you may find that the quick assessment is useful even before students have started to learn new materials. By forcing students to answer a question (take a stand), you're increasing their commitment to discovering the answer. Now it seems that we're also increasing the chances that they will retain that answer in long-term memory. So, as every good host reminds every guest, "don't hesitate to ask."

We Are the Message; The Message Is Us

2011-01-17T15:34:00.000-08:00

“The medium isn’t the message. The message is the message.”- Andrew Bosworth, Director of Engineering at Facebook. "We think that we should take features away from messaging. It should be minimal.”- Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook.

The Pew Research Center recently studied how young people communicate with their friends. Although e-mail is not used as a daily tool, it hasn't been completely abandoned by today's students. In fact, it's used primarily to talk (communicate) with institutions (like colleges) and adults (like professors). Text messaging has grown astronomically in the last three years by this age group, while other forms of communication seem to have stabilized or dropped off slightly.

The low-cost, mobile nature of text messaging is probably a major factor in its quick adoption and growing popularity among today's students. Texting also allows for rapid, asynchronous communication with a wide network of friends, which ordinary phone calls do not provide. There is some research to indicate that texting is used primarily to maintain relationships, and that girls use it more often than do boys as a means of socializing.

In the Confer classroom, the closest equivalent to texting is the chat area. There are ample opportunities to "talk" to other classmates and/or the instructor, but these may not have the same impact or serve the same purpose as does the chat message, generally directed "to the room" and instantly shared with anyone who's looking at the screen.

Chat, in other words, may be the tool best fitted to creating and reinforcing social ties and friendships between and among your students. Because it is not anonymous, but is devoid of "face" and "voice" identifiers, it has a kind of power in the online environment that is reassuring and self-reinforcing. It may also provide valuable social support and comaraderie to otherwise isolated students in your classroom.

It's not easy to monitor chat when you're busy providing other content to your students. That may incline you to take it away from your students, and there is certainly justification in trying to eliminate unnecessary distractions. But it may also be necessary, given the nature of modern communications and growing social networking trends, to include chat in at least part of your online classroom in order to promote interaction and the co-evolution of learning and insights.

Being Ready (and Willing) to Teach (and Learn) Online

2010-12-17T12:30:00.000-08:00

"Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one's self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily." - Thomas Szasz

Everett Rogers, in The Diffusion of Innovations, identified five stages to the diffusion of innovations: (1) knowledge; (2) persuasion; (3) decision; (4) implementation; and (5) confirmation. A scholar with the same last name, Patricia Rogers, found that innovation in higher education often stalled at the implementation stage because of several interrelated barriers: funding, release time, training, and technical support among them. Other researchers have cited faculty compensation, issues related to organizational change, political factors, and pressure to increase enrollments as barriers to technology adoption in higher education. A recent study by Surry, Grubb, Ensminger, and Ouimette surveyed faculty from 660 colleges of education accredited by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education to determine what barriers and enablers to implementation of Web-based learning were perceived in their institutions.

Importantly, faculty who had never taught a Web-based course saw time as a key barrier to implementation, while faculty who had taught such courses did not list time as problematic. These same non-users - faculty who had never taught Web-based courses - thought flexibility might be an advantage to teaching such a course, while their experienced colleagues who had taught them did not recognize greater flexibility as an advantage. The most commonly listed suggestion from non-users and experienced Web instructors alike was that training was essential to implementation at their institutions. There were statistically significant gender differences in the responses, with females perceiving their institutions' preparedness more favorably than males and males self-reporting their own technological readiness higher than did females.

There have been numerous efforts to assess students' perceptions of barriers and enablers to online instruction. The 2010 Student Readiness Report found that females who preferred online courses had higher means on individual attributes and typing accuracy while males who favored online instruction had higher means on reading rates and technical knowledge. The Louisiana Board of Regents uses SORT (Student Online Readiness Tool) to measure students' readiness for online courses. SORT includes measures of technology experience, access to tools, study habits, lifestyle factors, student goals, and learning preferences in its assessment. Portland State University provides a self-assessment tool for students designed to help students realize that online classes require self-motivation and self-discipline (log in regularly, interact with online discussions, complete assignments, etc.), time management, technical and computer skills, and communication skills (including "netiquette").

San Diego City College has an Online Learning Readiness Assessment designed to determine whether students have the "technical and student skills" necessary to succeed in an online course. There are 20 questions in this tool (modified below):

1. My reason for taking an online course

2. How often can you log into your online course?

3. How much time will you spend studying and interacting with your online course?

4. How do you rate traditional classroom discussion with an instructor and other students?

5. How much help do you need when an instructor hands out directions for an assignment?

6. How do you prefer information to be presented?

7. Are you motivated to meet deadlines?

8. If you have a disability, do you know who to contact for assistance?

9. If you don't understand an assignment, do you know who to contact?

10. Are you comfortable working with computers?

11. Are you comfortable with file management?

12. Do you know how to use a word processor?

13. Are you comfortable using an Web browser?

14. Are you comfortable using e-mail?

15. Are you comfortable using a mouse?

16. How are your keyboarding skills?

17. What will you do if your computer breaks down or you lose your Internet connection?

18. What speed is your Internet connection?

19. Are you comfortable downloading and installing programs?

20. Where would you go for technical support?

Similar questions might be useful for a faculty member considering teaching an online course. We need to know more about what helps online instructors master their courses and virtual classrooms so that we can help others make the transition more smoothly. But we're definitely in Stage 4 (Implementation) of online innovation, with many signs that confirmation (the final stage) has become widespread. Thousands of faculty members have decided to continue teaching online and to use tools like Confer to maximize the potential of this innovation.

Are you ready?

V-Portals from the Open World

2010-12-10T11:08:00.000-08:00

Curt Bonk, author of The World is Open, announced in his blog last week that he has designed and produced a series of 27 brief (7 to 10 minutes each) videos about teaching online. He's calling it the "V-Portal" for "Video Primers in an Online Repository for e-Teaching And Learning" and you can access the series at the V-Portal here. They're also conveniently available on YouTube here as a playlist. I recommend them for anyone interested in professional development, individual discovery, or introducing a topic related to online instruction to an audience or planning group.

Here's the topic list:

1. Planning an Online Course

2. Managing an Online Course: General
3. Managing an Online Course: Discussion Forums
4. Providing Feedback
5. Reducing Plagiarism
6. Building Community
7. Building Instructor and Social Presence
8. Online Relationships: Student-Student, Student-Instructor, Student-Practitioner, Student-Self
9. Fostering Online Collaboration/Teaming
10. Finding Quality Supplemental Materials
11. Blended Learning: General
12. Blended Learning: Implementation
13. Blended Learning: The Future
14. Online Writing and Reflection Activities
15. Online Visual Learning
16. Using Existing Online Video Resources
17. Webinars and Webcasts
18. Podcasting Uses and Applications
19. Wiki Uses and Applications
20. Blog Uses and Applications
21. Collaborative Tool Uses and Applications
22. Hands-On/Experiential Learning
23. Coordinating Online Project, Problem, and Product-Based Learning
24. Global Connections and Collaborations
25. Assessing Student Online Learning
26. Ending, Archiving, Updating, and Reusing an Online Course
27. Trends on the Horizon

Each video provides a good overview of its topic and suggestions for instructors considering using the relevant technology. For example, Topic 17 (Webinars and Webcasts) mentions most of the major players in the Web conferencing and lecture capture arena, with examples, and includes these suggestions for instructors:

Have an orientation/practice session before your first "live" Web conference with students
Check (at least 15-20 minutes early) to make your equipment works
Explain the purpose of the session/task
Schedule breaks for your students
Avoid talking for more than 15 or 20 minutes without pausing
Use polls or surveys to engage students
Archive the event for students who miss it
Review what you've covered at the end of the session
Follow up a synchronous experience with an asynchronous one (or vice versa)
Hang a "Do Not Disturb" sign outside your office door (and keep water handy)
Select a time that takes all students into account
Embed synchronous sessions where and when they best fit
Create an agenda for each session
Give students tips and guidelines for the Web conferencing technology
Be highly organized but flexible
Attend faculty development sessions on Web conferencing if possible

Good advice, and well presented! Thank you, Dr. Bonk.

The Future of Higher Education is Online. (Get Over It.)

2010-12-03T14:37:00.000-08:00

"Those in higher education who continue hand-wringing over the relative merits of online learning and other technology-driven platforms will soon find themselves left in the dust of an up-and-coming generation of students who are seeking knowledge outside academe." - Jack Stripling, Inside Higher Ed

Last month, college leaders apparently came to that conclusion at the TIAA-CREF 2010 Higher Education Leadership Conference. Mary Spilde, President of Lane Community College in Oregon, said that today's students are "pretty bored with what we do." David Millron of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation suggested that "we are not far from the day when a student, finding unsatisfactory reviews of a faculty member on ratemyprofessors.com, will choose to take a class through open courseware online and then ask his home institution to assess him." Talk about the tail wagging the dog!

A recent special edition of the Chronicle Review was dedicated entirely to online learning. Marc Parry's article declares, "the classroom of the future features face-to-face, online, and hybrid learning. And the future is here." Salmon Khan of the Khan Academy says "YouTube U. Beats YouSnooze U." and passionately argues for a new paradigm to replace lectures and textbooks as they are traditionally employed. His not-for-profit and open-source-based academy has the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. And Mark Milliron (also from the Gates Foundation) simply states, "Enough already." The "family feud" needs to stop so that we can teach today's students and maintain our relevance. The debate about which is better - online or face-to-face - no longer resonates. What's most obvious and disturbing is that our global competitors are doing a better job than we are at educating at-risk, low-income, minority, and part-time students. And they're doing this largely via online instruction and learning opportunities.

There are economic reasons to end the feud, aside from those related to unserved populations. At the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities annual conference, Christopher Edley, dean of UC Berkeley's Law School, said "It's abundantly clear that the bricks-and-mortar model is unsustainable if we want to preserve our mission." The University of California projects a $4.7 billion budget gap over the next ten years. Edley maintains that 25,000 new students could be served online for $50 million, but would also generate $180 million for the system. His pilot program of online courses is designed to generate revenue the UC badly needs simply to survive. This practical acknowledgment is echoed in a report from the Legislative Analyst's Office, “Using Distance Education to Increase College Access and Efficiency,” which urges college administrators to increase college access by offering more online classes.

Thanks and Gratitude for Educational Heroes

2010-11-24T10:04:00.000-08:00

"One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feelings. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul." ~Carl Jung

"If a doctor, lawyer, or dentist had 40 people in his office at one time, all of whom had different needs, and some of whom didn't want to be there and were causing trouble, and the doctor, lawyer, or dentist, without assistance, had to treat them all with professional excellence for nine months, then he might have some conception of the classroom teacher's job." ~Donald D. Quinn

For you, I don't know why

But you, make it all clear

And you, wrap it up perfectly

For you, I'll do my best

You never taught me how to win,

But to be justified

You never told me what to do,

You just guided me through it

The paths were all laid,

But you let me run so free

You never carried me to the grass,

You let me swim the seas

For you, is why I am here today

But you, are half the reason

And you, let me make mistakes

So for you, I learn from them.

- Jenessa Irene Hopkins
Secret Gratitude

Who Owns My Lecture?

2010-10-29T11:45:00.000-07:00

"If I write a book, it’s copyrighted in my name and so it’s my property, not UCLA’s. But my lectures aren’t copyrighted. Would they be if they were online? I don’t know.” - Blake Allmendinger, quoted here.

A growing number of instructors are taking their face-to-face classes online in places like the Confer classroom. The lectures and sessions they capture (archive) are available, in many cases, free to anyone who browses the archives on our Web site. (Note: the instructor can decide - at any time - to make archives private.) While many of these lectures have limited value, some may have timeless value: the ideas shared are true today and will be just as true tomorrow and next year. CCC Confer is not unique in this trend: MIT Open Courseware offers nearly 2,000 courses, Apple's iTunes U has content from more than 600 universities, and YouTube EDU has thousands of captured lectures (including a channel from the California Community Colleges).

Technology makes it possible for instructors to distribute educational content to a worldwide audience, and to empower students to receive that content when and how they find it convenient. At the same time, some faculty members worry about the lack of control over distribution they may have once the content is made available on the Web. It can be shared with other students, posted elsewhere, perhaps even distorted if a talented (and highly motivated!) student takes the time to download, edit, and re-post the content.

As I write this blog, I'm listening to a stream of music MP3s playing on my computer's media player. Hundreds of artists originally performed this music in studios and arenas and other venues, probably without ever imagining or intending that I would use them as I am. There was a time when I had to buy albums from music stores, extract individual tunes and reformat them to compose a medley like this one, but that time is (thankfully) long gone. I think this is relevant.

We in higher education are not record labels. We don't have the same mission, but we now face similar issues. Professors have a right to payment for their work just as artists deserve to be paid for their work. At the same time, we're likely to see more "unbundling" of that work, more "mashing" of content in ways that are useful to individual students and divergent from the original intent of its delivery. Sites like DiplomaGuide and Khan Academy are early - and hardly imaginative - examples.

If you're worried about archiving your lectures because you want to protect intellectual property, I understand. I suggest using an opening screen that declares your rights to the content you're making available and the terms of use you deem acceptable. Naturally, you'll need to clear this with your employer, who may have other ideas about ownership and rights.

Meanwhile, I welcome your opinions and insights. Post them here or e-mail me.

Why We Love to Confer

2010-10-22T14:20:00.000-07:00

"It has become commonplace to say that today's culture is marked by a ubiquitous computer technology. This has been true for some time... What is important to the educator-as-anthropologist, however, is that they exist as objects that people see, and start to accept, as part of the reality of everyday life. And at the same time that this massive penetration of the technology is taking place, there is a social movement afoot with great relevance for the politics of education... As an educational utopian I want to know what kind of computer culture can grow in communities where there is not already a rich technophilic soil. I want to know and I want to make it happen." - Seymour Papert, Mindstorms.

What makes instructors change their approach to instruction and adopt a new technology like Confer? What changes their mind, makes them learn new skills and expose themselves to the risk of embarrassment and failure?

Irene Palacios came to use CCC Confer because she needed a way to meet with her online students for office hours. She tried several other products first, but she was attracted to the quick, high-quality Confer interface, excellent support, and price (free). Irene says, "If you're not really good with technology, if you don't have a lot of time and a lot of money, and you want a quality product, Confer is the only way." Irene's students responded immediately, and it became so popular she found it hard to keep up with the demand.

Michael McKeever was attracted to CCC Confer because he had a need to expand his classroom outside the physical walls. His classroom had to be portable; he has taught his Santa Rosa Junior College students from the Phillipines, from Washington DC, from hotel rooms, and from wherever he travels. Confer gives Michael the freedom to attend events and do things he would not ordinarily do because he can bring his classroom with him wherever he goes.

Robin Rogers Cloud discovered that teaching art to online students actually became easier to do with Confer than did teaching art to students in a "normal" classroom. She believes that this tool has changed education for artists, and has revolutionized her classroom. She now has more time with her online students, and these students now actually prefer the online sessions to those she offers in the traditional classroom.

Donna Eyestone has learned something about teaching simply by using the Confer tools. She observes that students love this tool and show genuine interest in what they're doing and learning because of the "buzz" this virtual classroom helps to foster. By allowing her to give students a sense of who Donna is, Confer makes it easier to keep students engaged and excited. As Donna says, "every student has a front row seat."

Larry Green was never going to teach an online class before he encountered CCC Confer. He didn't believe that online classes allowed for the kind of spontaneity and interaction that he finds vital to the teaching of math. Now, Larry claims that teaching with Confer is actually better than face-to-face. One of the attractions for Larry is that no one tells him how he has to use it.

These five instructors independently discovered that Confer was ideal for their specific teaching requirements. While they may have been able to appreciate each others' observations about the relative merits of the virtual classroom, it seems likely from their stories that each of them needed to see specifically what they were able to see before they could be convinced that the ordeal of adopting a new technology was worth the effort. Michael, for example, might have appreciated Robin's enthusiasm for the visual immediacy of the whiteboard, but he would not have migrated to Confer without also seeing that his classroom could be portable. Now, each of them sees CCC Confer as a natural and normal part of teaching and their everyday life.

Seymour Papert envisioned this kind of penetration in the sixties, and he observed the social revolution that was taking place at the same time. Today, the ubiquity of the Web and pervasive social media set the stage for discoveries like these in classrooms and offices everywhere. We need a "rich technophilic soil" less than we need light to shed on the rich garden that's already growing around us.

Are You There? Presence in the Confer Classroom

2010-10-08T14:37:00.000-07:00

"Some people, when they teach, are right there with the rest of us... others seem imprisoned in their own space, on the far side of an unbridgeable gulf. And of course there’s an abundance of positions in between... These differences in the degree of presence seem so obvious, so tangible that you would almost think there could be an instrument that would register them, not only from one teacher to another, but even, with a single teacher, from one session to another or even one moment to another." - Jerry Farber, "Teaching and Presence" in Pedagogy, Volume 8, Issue 2, Spring 2008, p. 215.

Garrison, Anderson, and Archer developed the COI (Communities of Inquiry) model, pictured in the graphic above, which posits that the learning experience is a function of social presence, teaching presence, and cognitive presence. Social presence is the quality that allows online participants to feel affectively connected with one another. Teaching presence - what Jerry Farber was discussing - is a sense of immediacy, openness, and spontaneity on the part of the instructor. Cognitive presence stems from the concepts of John Dewey and the need for integrated thought and action along with discourse and reflection.

How do you ensure teacher presence in the Confer classroom? One way is to ask questions designed to provoke your students and draw out their thoughts. Can you stimulate them into thinking about what you've taught them or even about how they feel about the content you've presented? And can you do this in a natural, spontaneous manner, even though you've done it several times before?

This latter part - making even a repeated, routine part of your lesson plan seem new and fresh - is the key. It isn't so much how well you know how to post a question to the whiteboard or present a poll to students. It isn't even a matter of making sure students are allowed to voice their questions. It's about BEING THERE when you teach: not giving in to what Farber calls "pedagogical mindlessness." Do your online students sense that you're actually present for them when you teach? Or are you spewing thoughts at them, going through the motions of listening to them or reading their chat responses, and not really paying attention to what's happening in the classroom right now?

Don't settle for less than full presence in your classroom. This is Farber's first point: that presence is most likely to occur if you insist on it. Make full teaching presence a standard by which you judge every online session with your students.

Watch what's happening. Farber also suggests that every student - every online participant - is doing something all the time. How are they engaging with you, individually and as a group?

Watch your energy. You're teaching at a particular moment in your life, and full presence requires all the energy you can muster at this time. What can you draw on that will give you the strength and stamina to focus fully on this moment and your time with your students?

It's certainly easier to hide behind a veneer of formality or a predetermined script. It's not only easier: it's safer, because being present makes you vulnerable to mistakes and criticisms. But it's what your students - and you as a teacher - deserve.

Control? Give Some Away to Keep It

2010-09-24T10:41:00.000-07:00

"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough." - Mario Andretti

You, the instructor, have total control of the online classroom - if you want it. You can keep your students quiet by taking away their voices. You can deny them chat privileges. You can even decide not to archive your meeting, thus forcing students to attend "live" in order to hear what you have to say. Everything they see, hear, and sense can be completely controlled by you - if, of course, your students decide to stay in your controlled classroom and ignore the text messages, e-mails, Facebook pokes, Tweets, and myriad other options available to them while you're teaching.

It's a little scary to give up control, but it may be necessary if you want to keep it. Sharing power with students is not an invitation to chaos: it's a recognition that students aren't really stupid, and they'll figure out what they can and can't get away with in most situations. At least one of their objectives in your course is to get a good grade, so they'll be looking for ways to "work your system" to accomplish that with the least effort. While you're lecturing in your controlled, question-free, interruptionless classroom, they'll be multi-tasking (or sleeping) without any way for you to check on their reactions or attention level. So who's really in control?

Most instructors in the Confer classroom have made a conscious decision to add more interaction - and give away some control - to their online sessions. And they've learned, by trial and error, how much control they're comfortable giving to students.

Marc Knobel discovered that there were lots of things going on at once when he taught math using Confer. He was talking, working with a graphics tablet, watching students as they arrived late to his classroom, monitoring the chat area for students' questions, and trying to teach. As he says in this clip, it took him a long time to learn to be comfortable with this type of confusion, and he settled on a few privileges - voice and chat - for his students. Giving away the whiteboard was not a viable option.

Larry Green, who also teaches math using Confer, tried giving whiteboard privileges to his students, and discovered "it was a free-for-all!" He had no whiteboard left once the students started drawing. Now, he reserves the whiteboard for himself while he's demonstrating problem-solving, and then gives the privilege to students one at a time. For example, one student draws a single point on the whiteboard graph, and Larry then gives the whiteboard tool to another student to draw a second point, and so on. This controlled sharing of power engages student participation without leaving the instructor completely powerless.

Robin Rogers Cloud, an art instructor, loves the participation she gets in her online Art Critique classes. She lets students talk, and says, "I can't get them to shut up now." In her face-to-face classes, they're often too shy to participate, but speaking up online seems to produce less inhibitions.

Students learn best when they actively participate in courses and take responsibility for their learning. In the Confer classroom, experimentation with power-sharing will show you what works best for you and your students, but here are some suggestions:

Start with small adjustments: give privileges sparingly and see what works
Ask questions often at first, and see how students prefer to respond (e.g., by chat, orally, whiteboard, or polling)
Use student feedback to guide discussion. If you ask a question, do something with the answers you get.
Create an assignment that allows students to tell you what they like best and least about the Confer classroom and their use of it. (And do something about what you learn from their answers.)

What Makes a Good Online Teacher?

2010-09-10T14:52:00.000-07:00

Passion! Come to your online class with passion or be prepared for unresponsive, apathetic students. Passion in the Confer classroom radiates from your voice and the comments you make to encourage your class to participate and to make your class memorable.

Knowledge. It's logical that if you don't know what you're talking about, you can't teach it. And if you only know the "book learning" but can't express how to put your knowledge into practice, you're unlikely to satisfy today's students.

Accessibility. Every student deserves your individual attention. In the Confer classroom, there are plenty of tools for eliciting responses from your students, and you'll want to use them all to ensure that the unique personalities and talents of every student are respected and allowed expression.

Adaptability. It's nice when your preparation and organization are rewarded, but in the synchronous online classroom, instructors learn to expect the unexpected and adapt to them. Can you grin when your presentation doesn't load properly or students flood your chat area with questions or irrelevant comments? Can you change your plans when they stop working?

Magnificence. That's right: be magnificent. The best teachers convey a sense of elegance, grace, and bravura that mesmerizes students and makes them want to do their best. Using chat, impromptu polls, zany drawings, or engaging presentations - or simply exuding a personable style - they bring students into the experience of learning.

Fun. Enjoy yourself online. Smile, laugh at yourself, and allow students to make mistakes and laugh about them as well. Teaching is serious business, yes. But it's also fun. Break the ice and allow yourself to be human.

I'm sure there are more qualities you've seen in good online teachers. Tell me about them! Your comments are welcome.

Online Students: How Do We Keep Them?

2010-08-27T15:33:00.000-07:00

“Online students can be better retained, experience greater course satisfaction, and learn more in less time with greater ease and confidence when an online course is linked to an Academic Support System and is designed with activities and information that assist them to become a collegial group and to learn more effectively and efficiently.” - Christ, F.L. Achieving student retention, satisfaction, and success through online pedagogy. A presentation at TechEd Long Beach, February 26, 2002.

One of the major concerns of online education is student retention. Students drop out of some online courses as rapidly as they sign up for them, often because there are poor information resources or opportunities for assistance in the online environment. Who's responsible for keeping the student in the online class? Is it the student, the instructor, the institution, or the technology? In many ways, the answer is: All of the above.

Laurie Huffman conducted a two-year study of retention and performance factors in online courses. Her study showed that the classes that used Confer (live Web conferencing) in at least a portion of the learning environment had a higher retention rate, success rate and persistence rate, as well as better achievement results.

Patt McDermid, who runs an Online Writing Center with Jeanne Guerin at Sierra College, discovered that the addition of a live tutoring resource (CCC Confer) resulted in 100% retention in language arts classes, and in dramatic improvements across all disciplines.

As Patt says, "If you can point to students who succeed, that is real material gains and benefits... It's nice that everybody (just about) finished the courses [compared to 79% of those who did not use Confer and the Writing Center]... Our success rate is 92%. That puts in the shade the on-ground classes in our English department."

The Sierra College student comments from the Online Writing Center tell the story best (of course). "The cohesiveness of the essay is probably what makes me the most proud, and it really comes from what you taught me." "Whenever I doubted myself, I would make an appointment and have help when needed."

Students are more likely to stick it out in your classes when they feel they can get the help or reassurance they need when it's needed. By building in a live, synchronous component, we make it possible for them - and us - to succeed.

Participation = Learning

2010-08-06T14:55:00.000-07:00

"Learning is a social process that occurs through interpersonal interaction within a cooperative context. Individuals, working together, construct shared understandings and knowledge." - David Johnson, Roger Johnson and Karl Smith, Active Learning: Cooperation in the College Classroom, Edina, MN: Interaction Book Co., 1991.

"I entered the classroom with the conviction that it was crucial for me and every other student to be an active participant, not a passive consumer...[a conception of] education as the practice of freedom.... education that connects the will to know with the will to become. Learning is a place where paradise can be created." - Bell Hooks, Teaching to Transgress, NY: Routledge, 1994.

Instructors using the Confer classroom have found many activities that support learning objectives in this specific online environment, away from the face-to-face classroom. Some even contend that participation is greater in this milieu because all students have an equal opportunity to participate (as my friend Donna Eyestone says, "Every student has a front-row seat") and share ideas.

Robin Rogers Cloud observes that all students in her online class participate in discussions, much more so than do those in her face-to-face classes. She thinks there are less social barriers to participation in the online classroom.

Michael McKeever uses breakout rooms to get his online students to work together on multiple pieces of equipment in his virtual lab.

Irene Palacios actually allows students to have moderator privileges so that she can elicit their participation and give them real-time math instruction and constructive criticism.

Larry Green had to adjust his communication preferences to get participation from his math students: although talking was not popular in his Confer classroom, chatting was a big hit.

The best Confer classrooms are not lecture halls. They're places where students are free to participate in their own learning and to make discoveries through active interaction with content, the instructor, and one another.

Blackboard, Elluminate, and Wimba (Oh My!)

2010-07-11T14:53:00.000-07:00

On July 7, 2010, Blackboard announced that it is buying Elluminate and Wimba, two Web conferencing systems very familiar to users of CCC Confer. The intent is to create Blackboard Collaborate, which will focus on synchronous learning technologies. Since the announcement, many have called and written me with concerns about the future of Confer and the general prospects for Web conferencing software in education.

This Looks Familiar
Way back in 1989, I wrote a book about utility software for personal computers. The dominant operating system at the time - MS-DOS - needed a lot of help to get things to work well, and I used 256 pages to describe disk defragmenting programs, backup utilities, DOS shells, screen capture software, and the like. Within a few years, nearly everything my book described was unnecessary because Microsoft had incorporated these utilities into its operating system, either by developing them or by buying the companies or software that already accomplished the task.

Ten years later, I was at a college of education trying to support an online tutoring project for middle schoolers. We settled on software from Tutornet because it allowed us to connect graduate students at our college with students in remote classrooms for live, interactive chat and whiteboard activities. Within a year, Blackboard acquired the Tutornet software and incorporated it into a new product the company called Virtual Classroom.

I came to CCC Confer in 2003. We were working at that time with a company called HorizonLive, a supplier of Web conferencing software that made real-time interaction and content delivery possible. HorizonLive later became HorizonWimba when Wimba - at the time a developer of voice tools - joined their team, and still later the company shortened its name to Wimba. Many longtime Confer users will remember that we made a switch from Wimba to Elluminate at about this time - not because of the name change but because of a detailed analysis of both software packages and the needs of our users.

What's the Point?
My point is that good companies look for ways to bolster their product lines, and this is nothing new. Microsoft acquired many of the utility software companies I wrote about and incorporated them into their own system. Blackboard acquired Tutornet, and HorizonLive acquired (or was acquired by) Wimba to make its Web conferencing software more competitive.

So now, apparently, Blackboard has taken a bigger interest in synchronous online learning. Great! We've known about and worked with this kind of powerful collaboration for years, so it's certainly time that major "Learning Management Systems" (I admit I have trouble with the phrase) recognize the importance of real-time online learning experiences. We've even known who had the best options available, so it's heartening to know that Blackboard expanded its synchronous software portfolio by choosing the two companies that had the best products, as indicated by our own experience.

Now What?
According to Ray Henderson, President of Blackboard Learn, "we intend to sustain the product integrations and business partnerships Elluminate and Wimba enjoyed with our competitors. Both had projects underway to integrate with major open source products, and both had business partnerships and integrations with the major commercial platforms. Our message to the industry is that we intend to sustain this work and the partnerships." Maurice Heiblum, the new President of Blackboard Collaborate, assured me of the same thing earlier this week. The posted FAQs say, "We’ll honor all existing contracts for Elluminate and Wimba clients. We’ll also honor all renewal agreement terms that have been extended." So nothing has changed - yet.

I'm glad my friends at both companies will be able to work together at what they know and love, and I hope Maurice, Carol and Ray will forge bonds quickly that bring out the best of both Elluminate and Wimba worlds. On the CCC front, Confer continues to serve a very large user base with the same small and talented team, so there will be no effect on our communications or services to our end users. And our mission remains the same, regardless of which partnerships we forge (or undo) to fulfill it.

Write me if you have any questions or concerns. I'm interested!

Go Figure

2010-06-13T13:27:00.000-07:00

"Statistical thinking will one day be as necessary for efficient citizenship as the ability to read and write." H.G.Wells

To teach statistics, it's important to think statistically, of course. But stat teachers also have to be strong motivators, since many of the ideas and rules of statistics are counterintuitive - and, frankly, hard work to understand. To get to these ideas, students need math skills (algebra, decimals and fractions, for example), and these may require reinforcement or refreshing. There is also a lot of language and logic in statistics, which works in this area differently than the way language and logic apply in other arenas. Words like "normal" and "average" don't mean the same thing in a statistics class as they do in students' every day lives, which presents a challenge to the statistics instructor.

Larry Green insists that teaching statistics is easier online than in a face-to-face setting. For example, the use of tables - an intrinsic part of most statistical operations - requires the instructor to tell students to consult a page, look down this column and across that row, and find the proper value. (S)he can only hope that students will follow correctly. In the Confer classroom, everyone is looking at the same table (online) and finding the same value together.

Irene Palacios echoes Larry's comments, adding that it's infinitely easier for her to use the whiteboard tools in Confer to highlight the columns, rows, and values that students need to see in order to work out problems.

Irene Palacios is similarly enthralled by how much better it is to teaching graphing concepts online. In a face-to-face environment, it's difficult to show students different functions in such a way that they can understand what's being differentiated. In her Confer classroom, she can draw over her graphs with different colors in order to emphasize what she's trying to teach. She can annotate in real time to make sure students "see" the functions that are important.

Garfield, Chance, and Snell, in their examination of how technology resources have impacted the teaching of statistics in colleges and universities, list these factors:

Improved visualization of statistical concepts and processes. "Students are better able to 'see' the statistical ideas, and teachers are better able to teach to students who are predominantly visual learners."
Dynamic representations and analyses. "Discussions or activities may focus on 'what if' questions by changing data values or manipulating graphs and instantly seeing the results."
Empowering students as users of statistics. "Students are able to solve real problems and use powerful statistical tools that they may be able to use in other courses or types of work. This allows them to better understand and experience the practice of statistics."
Allowing students to do more learning on their own, outside of class, using Web-based or multimedia materials. "This frees the instructor to have fewer lectures during class and to spend more time on data analysis activities and group discussions."

The day may come when face-to-face statistics instructors, who aren't able to incorporate these tools fully or immersively in a brick and mortar classroom, will feel the need to compensate with more dynamic substitutes. Meanwhile, Confer statistics instructors are discovering and documenting effective methods for teaching students to think statistically.

The Borderless Classroom

2010-06-06T12:28:00.000-07:00

“U.S. high school graduates will: Sell to the world; buy from the world; work for international companies; manage employees from other cultures and countries; collaborate with people all over the world in joint ventures; compete with people on the other side of the world for jobs and markets; and tackle global problems, such as AIDS, avian flu, pollution, and disaster recovery… We need to open global gateways and inspire students to explore beyond their national borders.” - Vivien Stewart.

The synchronous online classroom both enables change and stimulates it. Where once the classroom had physical and geographical dimensions, it now has no walls and no border agents. This raises several issues for academia: does (or should) the whole world now have access to my classroom? How can my institution control access to or from "outsiders" and how is that access paid for? When boundaries blur, as they do in online education, new values and new thinking necessarily emerge.

Laurie Huffman (above) collaborates with tutors from Guatemala to enable real-world and real-time conversations between students and Spanish instructors. Her use of Web-conferencing software caught the attention of a textbook publisher, who wondered if it might be possible to offer this kind of virtual collaboration as part of a Spanish language textbook package they are producing.

Jeanne Guerin (above) provides online tutoring for students at Sierra College's Online Writing Center. In the session above, a student contacts her for help with a paper she has to write, and Jeanne does a great job of defining the problem, exploring options, and counseling the student. What is extraordinary about this session is that the student is interacting with Jeanne from Brazil!

Jeanne's student was able to get help on her paper from Sierra College even though she was thousands of miles away at the time. Laurie's idea (above) is to find ways to help students who can't physically travel to other countries. She teaches online for California Community Colleges, Florida State University, and the University of Maryland (another great example of teaching without borders), and is piloting a language immersion program that gives students weekly contact with tutors in another country.

Laurie herself summers in Costa Rica in a sixty-acre rainforest jungle. She teaches while she's there, making it possible for her students in the United States to learn from her and her adventures abroad.

Many college students are required by work or military commitments to travel, even while they are taking classes. With the Confer classroom, as Grace Esteban (above) describes, this presents less of a problem than might be expected. MPICT (the Mid-Pacific Information and Communication Technology project) is able to provide learning opportunities to students from as far away as Australia and Japan.

The Confer classroom can meet whenever teachers and students are available, not only at the convenience of the host institution (or country). It empowers teachers to teach from anywhere and students to learn from anywhere, making it "the real thing" for today's learners, not a substitute. With the right instructors, it's possible to maintain effective contact and engage all learners, even without physical touch or artificial boundaries.

Confer Rules

2010-05-28T14:25:00.000-07:00

Rule A: Don't.
Rule A1: Rule A doesn't exist.
Rule A2: Do not discuss the existence or non-existence of Rules A, A1 or A2.

- R. D. Laing

Most teachers have rules they share with their students. "Come to class on time." "Silence cell phones during class." "Cheating is not allowed."

What are the rules for the Confer classroom? I've collected a few suggestions (not rules) that you may want to consider when setting your virtual class ground rules.

1. When class begins, ask students to close their e-mails, instant messengers, and all other open applications - and tell them that you're doing the same thing. Assure them that you're doing this to make sure you and they can pay attention to one another without outside distractions or interruptions.

2. When recording your session (making an archive), “Be sure to tell participants they are being recorded!” This from Jennifer Hofmann in The Synchronous Trainer's Survival Guide (2004). As Anderson et al observe in Best Practices in Synchronous Conference Moderation, "it should be noted that privacy regulations or expectations may require that participants be informed of this intention [to record] before the session begins.”

3. When conferring over the telephone, "Ask participants to mute their phones when not speaking so extraneous sounds are not picked up. Also, tell participants not to put their phones on hold. If a person’s telephone system has a ‘music on hold’ feature, it can be very annoying and puts the event on hold until that person returns.” (This also from Jennifer Hoffman.)

4. When conferring using Voice Over Internet Protocol (computer audio), "participants can be required to raise their hands before being granted the ‘mic’ to speak. Even when this is not a technical requirement, hand-raising can be a useful etiquette. It can help to ensure that more learners’ voices are heard, which can lead to greater sharing of ideas and experiences.” From Joe Tansey in Learning to Effectively Use the Virtual Classroom.

5. In Chat mode, Ruth Clark says "we sometimes ask everyone to type in their answers but not to press send until the instructor says ‘Send.’ In that way, reflective learners have more time to consider their answers without the distraction from the first answers to appear in the chat window.” Clark and Kwinn also observe, "A disadvantage of chat is the limited amount of screen real estate dedicated to text messages in most virtual classroom interfaces. When the response box fills, new text messages cause older responses to scroll up. If you have a larger class, you may want to use some crowd control mechanisms to limit who sends messages. For example, you might ask everyone to type in an answer but only the women or only a certain division to actually send their answers. Alternatively, you may provide a workbook in which everyone responds and, then, after a pause, call on only some participants to type in their answers”

6. Larry Green (above) has a "no-dissing" rule for his class: You're allowed to make comments about other students in the Chat area, but those comments always have to be positive. Clark and Kwinn are even more restrictive about chat comments: "we ask participants to use chat for on-task communication only during instructional activities – no passing notes in class.!”

7. Jennifer Hofmann also recommends these ground rules for students:

“If you run into technical problems, contact the facilitator or producer. Don’t waste a lot of time trying to solve them yourselves.
“Assign someone to manage the exercise, someone to capture information, and someone to report back to the larger group.
“Don’t leave the breakout session just because the trainer isn’t ‘watching’ you.
“When using collaboration tools within the breakout rooms (whiteboard, chat, application sharing, web browsing) the ground rules for those tools apply.”

8. Jonathan Finkelstein has a rule for Polling: If you ask, do something with the answers. “It is important to remember to actually do something with the results of polls conducted in real time. If one asks a series of questions but does not use any of the responses to affect the direction of the learning activity, learners begin to wonder whether their responses matter.”

9. Donna Eyestone (above) has this rule: Tell your students how long your class session will be, and then respect that. If you say you'll be done in an hour, regardless of how much material you cover, be done in an hour. (Period.)

10. With Web tours, Jennifer Hofmann recommends this strategy: "When independent navigation of hyperlinks is available, don’t start clicking until the trainer tells you to. When leading the class to a website, be sensitive about the nature of the content.”

There are ten of these, but they are not commandments. Consider them suggestions from folks who've been around the synchronous online classroom for a while.

Be Prepared!

2010-05-21T12:34:00.000-07:00

"Emergency preparedness is a team sport." - Eric Whitaker

Teachers work in a private world entered only by themselves and their students. Rarely does anyone else visit this world, and rarely does a teacher enter into the private world of another teacher or classroom. This is true both online and in the physical classroom. But when emergencies happen in the physical classroom, the teacher generally relies on an infrastructure of helpers and resources that can be summoned quickly. Where does the instructor turn when an emergency occurs in the virtual classroom?

Grace Esteban describes the "perfect" disaster recovery tool for MPICT's online classes. She and her colleagues - relative newcomers to Web conferencing - have learned to call Client Services whenever they encounter a glitch they can't figure out. (The "Bobo" clip was created using xtranormal and can be viewed here.)

One strategy that Grace and Dr. Pierre Thiry use is to keep a second computer logged in to the Confer classroom. This is especially useful if it happens to be connected from a different Internet Service Provider. If the first service fails, you're able to log in using the second. In my office, I connect to Confer with a campus connection, a DSL connection, and (when necessary) a broadband wireless connection. I'm always sure I'll be able to get online because I have options.

Marc Knobel discovered the value of Grace's disaster recovery plan on his own. In two years of teaching with Confer, he encountered two disasters. The first was a result of a power failure, for which there was no timely solution and resulted in a cancellation of class. The second came at 7:30 AM as he was preparing to teach his 8:00 AM math class. He fired off an email to Client Services, explaining that he could not login to his class, and within 15 minutes got an answer from Donna that solved the problem. Disaster averted, and the class was none the wiser. As Marc relates, having to be embarrassed by the technology in front of his students would be horrible, and would actually have deterred him from experimenting further with Confer. Without a recovery team, there would be no online classroom.

CCC Confer's Client Services team provides this kind of security to online instructors. They're the First Responders who assess the situation and provide immediate care, the Firemen who put out the fire and rescue trapped victims, and the Long Term Care Providers who follow up emergencies with therapy and instruction so that future problems can be avoided.

Michael McKeever is the kind of techie instructor who likes to push the limits of his computers and networks. When he occasionally pushes too hard, he relies on his students to help one another with disaster recovery.

Michael, who teaches classes with both face-to-face students and online students, asks the f2f students to chat with their online peers to let them know that he's rebooting or recovering from a blue screen. It's nice to know that when the instructor crashes, students are not "thrown out" of the online classroom, but can continue to collaborate while the teacher recovers and returns.

Being ready for disaster allows you to act reasonably and responsibly when things go wrong. At a minimum, keep the Client Services numbers and e-mails handy so that you don't have to face problems alone. Have a backup computer and Internet connection ready, if possible. If you have students with different abilities, give emergency instructions both orally and via text chat so everyone understands and can follow your lead. Don't panic. We can get through this together.

Make Your Classes Accessible: Archive Them

2010-05-14T11:13:00.000-07:00

"There's a guy at the record company who's 30, and he says, I would not listen to these songs except in this context. Somehow the recording process, the arrangements, make it more accessible." - Tom Wopat.

Accessibility is the key word for recording your class sessions. Students, like the "guy at the record company" who appreciates the recording process, find it difficult for a number of reasons to a) attend an online class session; b) pay attention to everything that's going on during an online class; or c) learn and assimilate without the opportunity to review and reflect. Fortunately, you have lots of options to record and share your Confer sessions with students.

Archives are easy, as Irene Palacios of Grossmont College demonstrates in this video.
Once a Confer session has been recorded, it is posted on the CCC Confer website, and the links can, of course, be copied and pasted into your course syllabus, e-mails to students, etc. By clicking on the link, the students can view the entire recording, receive all files or quizzes you sent during the session, and read everything in the chat area that was posted.

One of the obvious advantages to recording your sessions is that it provides access for students who miss class. You may see this as a two-edged sword: sure, you can accommodate students whose schedules are demanding, but what if this feature actually discourages them from attending your online class? And how do you know they've even bothered to view the archive on their own?

Larry Green at Lake Tahoe Community College uses a tried and proven method for testing student "attendance" at archived sessions: the "secret word." He embeds a secret word in the archive and requires that students e-mail him the word in order to be credited with having viewed the session. It's also possible to track students' attendance or viewing of archived sessions (especially if you're accessing Confer from a learning management system like Blackboard).

Donna Eyestone is a veteran archiver, and she has learned the hard way to produce archives that are useful. She no longer begins the recording at the beginning of class, when housekeeping, troubleshooting, greetings, and orienting occur; instead, she clicks the "record" button only once she's actually begun to teach. She also has learned to build in index marks by changing the screen periodically so that viewers of the archive can jump through the recording to relevant points in the session.

Marc Knobel at Foothill College discovered that archives made it possible to extend his class time. Although your students have to leave your online session, you may not, which means you can continue to record your session and make it available to students for review later in the week.

You are no longer limited to online, Web-based archives, which may be problematic for students who might prefer to access your recorded lectures via portable media. The Publish software allows you to capture an archive and store it in a portable format (e.g., Flash, wmv, mpeg, etc.) so that it can be made available to students for... well, for whatever they want.

There's more! Not only can you record your session and publish it to a portable format for students, but you can also have it automatically sent to them. Podcasting allows students to subscribe to your lectures or class sessions and have them delivered automatically to their browser or inbox. Simple, efficient, and speedy.

We want students to have access to our instruction and learning content. For some of these students, like the 30-year-old record company gentleman, the recording process and post-production options make your sessions more appealing and digestible. It's worth the trouble to learn to archive your class.

First Impressions in the Online Classroom

2010-05-07T14:40:00.000-07:00

"First impressions are a constant in society. However, their product, the period that proves or disproves their validity is not; good ones are pleasant and long lasting, bad ones long and difficult to disprove." - Diego Valesquez.

We may not like to admit it, but we're all guilty of judging the book by its cover. The first five minutes with anyone are full of mental judgments, assessments, and categorizing. First impressions often form the basis for all later impressions or interactions. For this reason, it's important for the instructor in the Confer (online) classroom to make a good first impression - before going on to the business of teaching.

Larry Green at Lake Tahoe Community College describes in this video how he handles the first five minutes of his online classes. Instead of waiting until all the students are "seated" and ready to start, he gets students busy with a simple problem so that he can pay attention to entering students and handle "housekeeping" or troubleshooting details without allowing these to become the focus of attention.

Marc Knobel actually makes the process of greeting students the first impression of his class, and because he's so patient and friendly with each student, that early activity works especially well as an icebreaker. In fact, it's given him insights into how he might approach the process of teaching in a face-to-face environment with more personal contact with each student.

Irene Palacios of Grossmont College orients students at the beginning of each semester to the Confer classroom, giving them whiteboard privileges and allowing them to become excited about working in this environment and taking advantage of the excitement of a new class to get them motivated to learn more. She confesses that she's even been able to learn new things about using the tools from her students in these sessions.

Donna Eyestone uses music as a mood-setter as students enter the room (both her online classroom and in her face-to-face classroom). She finds that this gets rid of the kind of awkwardness that sometimes results from students entering the classroom in the middle of a conversation. It also allows her to set the volume on her computer so that - when she later uses multimedia clips to demonstrate - her speakers are set properly.

The important thing to remember is that you're trying to create and maintain an environment that is best for students (and yourself) so that instruction and learning can happen. Consciously create an atmosphere where there is an appropriate opportunity for students to discuss ideas, explore the virtual classroom, and interact with you and one another. Most importantly, give them a chance to come away from their first impression feeling that they belong here and are safe in this learning environment. The safer they are at first, the more likely they'll be to open themselves to the risky task of learning new concepts later.

The Webcam and the Online Classroom

2010-02-26T14:22:00.000-08:00

"The camera makes everyone a tourist in other people's reality, and eventually in one's own." - Susan Sontag

With CCC Confer's video tool, instructors and students can see one another in real time. Virtually any camera that can be recognized by your computer - from Webcams to sophisticated professional cameras - can be used to project a video image onto the Confer screen. The tool (at present) allows upt to six video images to be displayed in a video window similar to the one at right.

Reasons NOT To Use Video. Just because you can use video online does not mean you should. It takes a lot of bandwidth to transmit video, so if you’re unsure about the connections between you and your audience or students, you may expect some problems with video reception and quality. There are also potential problems with students who – for whatever reason – can’t see your video. I’m not necessarily talking about differently-abled students, but also students whose machines or configurations don’t allow them to see what you’re happily transmitting. Are you prepared to give them a description or “second chance” to “see” what they can’t see? And video is – by its nature – captivating. Our eyes gravitate toward motion, so the camera will capture attention whenever it’s available. That’s a good and a bad thing: it may actually distract your students’ attention from other content you want them to see and understand. To get a good camera picture, you have to pay attention to lighting and whatever else the camera captures.

Jonathan Finkelstein writes, “The virtual classroom interface is already quite complex. When you add an additional visual, be sure that it contributes to learning. When the instructor is explaining visuals on the white board and asking for frequent participant responses… adding an additional visual such as a video image of the instructor or participants is likely to distract limited cognitive resources from the main instructional events.” (Learning in Real Time: Synchronous Teaching and Learning Online)

Richard E. Mayer adds, “People do not necessarily learn more deeply from a multimedia lesson when the speaker’s image is added to the screen.” (“Principles of Multimedia Learning Based on Social Cues.” In R. E. Mayer (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning)

And Jennifer Hofmann cautions, “In my opinion, live video should be used judiciously. Using live video throughout an entire session can distract from the content and provide additional technological challenges. Additionally, by focusing so closely on the trainer’s face, you may reduce the perceived opportunities for participant collaboration.” (Live and Online! Tips, Techniques, and Ready-to-Use Activities for the Virtual Classroom)

So Let's Use It Anyway!

One thing you'll notice from the pictures of these experts is that they're looking at the camera in these pictures. We're naturally attracted to their eyes when we look at them, and it's reassuring and engaging to see them looking back at us. On camera in the Confer classroom, remember that your students will be looking at your image. Are you looking back? If not, what message is your image sending to the class?

You'll also notice that the pictures are well lighted and desgined to capture the faces of these authors. With your Webcam, you may have to make some lighting adjustments to make sure your students can actually see you (rather than a silhouette or shadowy blur) at their end. And pay attention to your background: if you transmit in front of a window with busy traffic, for example, your audience will find it hard to focus on you rather than what's going on behind you.

Question and Answer Period. One of the best uses of the Webcam in the Confer classroom is during the period when your students ask you questions. At this time, you can look directly into the camera and deliver the kind of "body language" and facial expressions that will reinforce your message and answers. If it's possible to have someone else read the chat questions to you so that you don't have to look away from the camera, your undivided attention will be most effective.

Live Events. Another popular use of the video tool is to capture and transmit live events that have both a face-to-face audience and a remote audience. In the example to the left, we were using a handheld digital camera to capture a public hearing, with speakers, their slides, and the audience’s reactions. Becuase this was a public hearing, we added captioning so that viewers with hearing disabilities could participate in the discussion.

Demonstrations of Techniques. "I can show you better than I can tell you," as the old adage goes. Using the camera to let your students see how you do something is an effective - and timely - way to teach a specific technique. Confer instructors use the Webcam to show students how to use brush strokes and mix watercolors, finger guitar frets, speak in sign language, treat a wound, change a diaper, cut hair, fold origami shapes, perform stitches, care for animals and pets, install and adjust audio equipment, dissect organisms, give a speech, prepare food dishes, set a table, and many other things. For this purpose, the camera you use should be one that you can move, focus, and control remotely so that you can ensure that you're projecting an image that helps students understand how you're doing what you're demonstrating.

Guest Speakers. You online (or face-to-face) class can be enhanced if you're able to invite a guest from another area to join you for an online video chat. These distant experts can raise issues, impart real-life experiences, and help you drive home specific lessons by virtue of their expertise and credibility with your students. If you decide to invite someone to visit your online classroom, make sure you do some prep work first. Meet with them online first to ensure that they can log in, perform audio and video checks, and navigate the Confer environment. Discuss timing so that they show up on time and prepared to interact. You may also want to prepare your students so that they will have questions ready for your guest when he or she arrives.

I'm sure you have ideas about how you might (or do) use video in your online classroom. Please feel free to share them!

The Art of Web Conferencing

2010-02-07T13:27:00.000-08:00

"I like the computer because it keeps giving you options. What if I do this? You try it, and if you don't like it you undo it. The original can always be resurrected. It raises the idea of working on one painting your whole life, saving it and working on it again and again." - Elliott Green, contemporary American artist.

Robin Rogers Cloud (pictured ) teaches art at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, California. When I first met Robin, in 2004, she had an idea about teaching online students how to paint by meeting with them online and critiquing their paintings using CCC Confer's tools. I had my doubts about this proposal, but Robin went forward with it and not only proved me wrong; she taught me a valuable lesson: never doubt a skilled instructor's ability to use technology to accomplish the impossible.

Robin invited me to one of her online Office Hour sesssions, in which she posted students' watercolor paintings to the whiteboard and used the drawing tools to show them how each painting might be made better. She drew in new horizons, showed them how the use of light and dark could be made more effective, demonstrated perspective. On a lonely ocean scene (given Saddleback's proximity to beautiful beaches, these were plentiful), she drew a sailboat or two to provide interest to the pictures. She used arrows to point to each picture's "standout" visual point, and led discussions on why that feature captured the viewer's attention. Where contrast was poorly used, she darkened elements of the picture to show how attention could be drawn to parts of the picture simply by adding contrast. As Robin taught and demonstrated, her students - all participating remotely - became excited and enthused about the insights they were gaining. The "oohs" and "ahs" - and "ahas" - could be heard throughout the class session.

Today, Robin uses more than the whiteboard to teach art to her online students. She uses the Webcam to show students how to mix colors, use brush strokes effectively, and compose a picture. By doing this "live" before her students, she is able to field questions from students and improvise according to what they ask or how they respond. The class becomes interactive, and - where visual techniques are most critical - learning can be focused on seeing the proper methods and discovering in real time the principles of artful composition and construction.

The multimedia library tool - which allows an instructor to play movies or multimedia files to students - has also become a staple in Robin's classes. Robin has created a series of digital movies that demonstrate the methods she wants her students to master. In these, she demonstrates a technique and provides a narrative that explains and clarifies the method. These clips allow her to provide lessons or demonstrations any time she finds it appropriate to do so; she simply loads the file into the Multimedia Library and plays them once the file has been loaded. Because this tool plays multimedia files on the viewer's native computer, the class sees the lesson in real time and reacts while the instructor is present and able to add information or edification.

Perhaps I'm most impressed by the innovative use Robin makes of tools anyone can access. She's an artist, so creativity comes with the territory, but her approach is especially original. She uses ordinary hardware - clamp-on lights, foil reflectors, and inexpensive Webcams - to create a home studio suitable for providing the lighting and effects she needs to provide students with online art lessons that impress and inspire. A touch tablet allows her to draw on the whiteboad quickly and effectively, and simple software like Painter and Photoshop enable her to do quick touchups to paintings.

To see Robin in action using CCC Confer, watch this demonstration. I'm sure you'll agree with me that this artist models the effective use of Web conferencing technology. Artists afraid of technology? Nonsense! Artists make this technology beautiful.

Technophilia or Infomania?

2010-01-15T14:51:00.000-08:00

"Research recently commissioned by technology experts Hewlett Packard, concluded that 62% of adults are addicted to checking e-mail and text messages. An investigation of over a 1,000 adults, carried out by the Institute of Psychiatry at the University of London, found that 1 in 2 workers respond to an e-mail or text either immediately or within the hour. 1 in 5 people wouldn’t consider it inappropriate to interrupt a business meeting or social gathering in order to respond to a text message or e-mail.

"Victims of infomania are thought to suffer a significant loss of concentration, their minds in a permanent state of readiness to reply to texts and e-mails which distracts them from other tasks. This may result in an average drop in IQ of 10 points, more than twice the reduction caused by smoking marijuana and the equivalent to losing a night’s sleep. Men are allegedly more susceptible to infomania than women." (Macmillan English Dictionary)

Students in your online classroom may be trying to manage more information than they can handle. They see your visuals, hear your explanation, may be checking out who else is online in the roster, and may have a host of chat messages (public or private) coming at them at the same time. All of this can be a distraction from the important learning task you're intent on having them accomplish. Over time, we all get better at coping with multiple information sources and the stream of data that is constantly available, but your students may not have had time to develop skills in information management.

Bill Mann suggests that mind maps are a useful way to overcome information overload. "A mind map is a visual representation of chunks of information and the relationships between those chunks. Starting with a central topic, idea, or theme, you create a mind map by writing a phrase that identifies the central theme in the center of a piece of paper. Next, you write words or phrases identifying key topics on the page, arranging them around the central theme. Draw lines between the topics and the central theme to show that they are related. You can also connect topics directly to each other." Tony Buzan has a wonderful video clip that illustrates the use of mind maps, along with several books on the subject.

Herbert Simon said, ""In the period ahead of us, more important than advances in computer design will be the advances we can make in our understanding of human information processing...." You can help your students process the information you provide in your classroom by giving them advice or tips about how to handle all this "stuff." This may be as simple as providing Ross Dowson's "Eight steps to thriving on information overload" or as complex as devoting a class period to sharing and discussing how your students are handling the information they're getting in your class. As David Meyer's research demonstrates, multitasking is going to slow your students down and increase their chances of making mistakes: none of us can actually concentrate on two things at once.

We know this from experience. Let's share our knowledge with students who haven't learned it yet.

Teaching the Texters

2009-12-18T12:21:00.000-08:00

"Viewed from the other side of the Atlantic, text messaging by adolescents in the United States seems reminiscent of the early days of desktop publishing. Once we reveled in experiments with point size, font style, and color. The results were often graphic disasters, as we failed to heed the Delphic warning, "Nothing in Excess." Gradually word processing became a workaday tool, and our documents calmed down. In Europe, text messaging (generally known as SMS) first appeared in 1993, giving young people a decade more experience with the medium than their American counterparts. What is still often a toy in America, played on with youthful abandon, has settled into a pedestrian appliance elsewhere, particularly as teens mature into young adults." - Naomi S. Baron, author of Always On: Language in an Online and Mobile World in a blog post.

Now that Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube have embraced the mobile phone - and Apple has made the mobile phone a true mobile multimedia computing device - we as instructors have to accept the fact that our students are never far from their mobile friends, in or out of class. This video, first uploaded to YouTube in 2007, challenges teachers to incorporate texting assignments in their classrooms to help engage and motivate students. It suggests, for example, that you use class time to ask students to text someone outside of class and find out what they had for breakfast, what the weather is like where they are, and what they last purchased. Bonus points might be added for text messages that come from another country and/or in another language.

Marc Prensky believes we educators must incorporate cell phones into instruction. "Languages, literature, public speaking, writing, storytelling, and history are just a few of the subjects that are highly adaptable to voice-only technology." Texting adds the ability to "conduct pop quizzes or spelling or math tests, to poll students' opinions, to make learners aware of current events for class discussion (e.g., with messages from Cable News Network's Breaking News), and even to tutor students." He goes on: "Can we create programs, or even exams, that we hand out on memory cards for students to slip into their phones? Can homework and exams get marked and annotated automatically?...Can classes and schools (or subjects across those) be set up so that all classmates are permanently connected, and can pedagogies be constructed to take advantage of this?"

The number of text messages transmitted in the United States grew by more than 80 percent over the 12 months ended in June, 2009, to 135.2 billion per month. That number - 80 - is the average number of text messages each of your students sends every day. Along with sending messages, they're reading books, watching and uploading videos, voting on game shows, learning languages, and interacting with tutors. They're learning, in other words. And we're challenged to teach them in a language they understand.

Here's part of the new lingo, in case it shows up in your chat window:
! = I have a comment
10Q = Thank you
121 = One to one
404 = I haven't a clue.
411 = Information
511 = Too much information
::poof:: = I'm gone
AAK = Asleep at keyboard
AFC = Away from computer
AWHFY = Are we having fun yet?
(For more, check this link.)

Are You an Instructor or a Friend?

2009-12-11T14:29:00.000-08:00

“I've come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It's my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a [student]'s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a [student] humanized or de-humanized.” - Dr. Haim Ginott

We want out students to like us, of course. In the online environment, though, the social cues are different, and students may confuse friendliness (smiley faces, chatted words of encouragement, etc.) with ardor. It's important that the instructor set the tone and maintain an atmosphere of propriety, whether or not you keep a casual online profile. Consider how your students see you and how you would like to be seen in your online classroom. It's easier to relax after taking a rigid stance than it is to restore an image of toughness once you've caved in.

I generally begin with my online students by discussing the boundaries of our online relationship. This includes how they are to communicate with me outside of class (e-mail and IM), and what rights of privacy I maintain for myself and will respect for them. I'm also careful about how much of my personal information I make available to them and try to establish the guidelines for what's fair play in our online relationships. Since there are institutional policies that apply, I discuss the college or university policies that apply to appropriate behavior online and acceptable uses of technology.

In a class, the instructor is not a peer, in the sense of being an equal of the students. Friendliness is important, but friendship is a stretch: the teacher calls the shots and assesses performance. The line may move in your online sessions, but it has to be drawn.

Discipline is important in the online classroom, just as it is face-to-face. When a student behaves unacceptably, either send a private message to that student immediately or pull them aside in a private chat room to discuss the infraction. Avoid public confrontations, since these smack of humiliation and are an abuse of power that will create more problems than they solve. Similarly, shouting does not solve noise issues online: use the technology to mute students or put yourself in lecture mode.

If you treat your students with respect, give them opportunities to shine in your classroom, provide them with acceptable and fair policies, and avoid negative discussions or complaining, they'll appreciate you as an instructor and reciprocate with positive learning and responses. You'll be their teacher and the learning experience will be a friend they'll look forward to revisiting.

Those Multitasking Students!

2009-10-30T15:39:00.000-07:00

Bill Tancer's Click laments, “with the pervasiveness of wireless hot spots and laptops that have built-in wireless capability, conference audiences have turned keynotes into multitasking events, half-listening to presentations while simultaneously answering email and browsing the web.” Most of us must guiltily admit that he's right: we don't pay full attention at conferences anymore, whether the conference is virtual or face-to-face, unless the speaker does something to grab and hold our attention.

"Multitasking" is a misnomer: we aren't really able to do several things at the same time. Joe Medina points this out on Brain Rules: although we can talk and breathe at the same time, we can't really read a book and listen to a conversation simultaneously. What we do, rather, is quickly switch from one task to another, and back again, and the speed with which we switch makes us think we're doing all of them at the same time. As I type this blog I'm listening to music, but the lyrics are escaping me until I pause long enough to give them my full attention.

We have the same problem as teachers. What should we as teachers do to keep students engaged? Should we set up rules that ban distractions? Are there attention-grabbing methods/tricks that work during those critical first five minutes of class? Can we recommend certain behaviors to our students to help them concentrate?

Here are a few suggestions, and (as always), I welcome yours:

Remember the 10-minute rule (See Brain Rules). You have about 10 minutes to get and hold attention before you lose them. And once they're gone, it's tough to get them back.
Don't blame students for having other things to do. We all have other obligations. Let them know how long you need them in your presentation/lecture, and don't keep them longer than that.
Archive your session so students can return to it at a later time (or more than once) to catch up on what they missed while Oprah was talking.
Work in engagement exercises, polls, and other interactive opportunities in your session. See previous posts for suggestions.
Give each student a job to do during the class.

Let's Chat!

2009-10-23T15:15:00.000-07:00

"Many learners are accustomed to using chat for recreational purposes which is often very informal and quickly composed without reflection. Effectively adopting chat for academic purposes requires structure and effective moderation of the discussion. As a synchronous tool, chat is usually one-to-many and involves all participants being online simultaneously and often has them interacting at the same time. Without time for reflection, some instructors have found it effective to prepare students in advance with specific questions or content for them to mull over before engaging in dialogue. As a one-to-one tool, many instructors are finding [chat] to be an effective tool for conducting virtual office hours and for providing more responsiveness to student requests." (Valencia University's Office of Information Technology)

The Valencia tutorial goes on to recommend these instructional practices for using chat in class:

Inform learners of your expectations for how these tools will be used as part of the course.
Outline the rules in your syllabus (i.e., no harsh language, no belittling of their fellow classmates, keeping their comments relevant to the topic).
Decide what your objectives are for using chat. Ask how can using chat assist the learners in achieving the overall goals of the course.
Prepare a focused topic in advance for each chat session.
Monitor the dialogue to keep it on topic.
Consider the number of students that can be meaningfully involved in chat.
Establish a protocol so that learners will know when another has completed their message (i.e. ask learners to add an asterisk * at the end of their sentence).
Be aware of those who tend not to participate. Is it due to a technological or skill problem? Some learners can type very quickly while others type quite slowly. This may affect the frequency of all learner's participation. If nonparticipation seems to be attributed to neither technological problems or typing skills, is there a way to draw them into the chat?
Summarize the major points at the end of the chat session.

To this list I would add a few I've seen Confer instructors use effectively:

Quizzes. Ask a question orally and invite students to answer using the chat tool. This can be done individually or as a group (depending on the size of the group). This type of "spot" quiz is very useful for assessing the real learning that's taken place, and can be used at any time during a teaching session.
Brainstorming. This is similar to quizzing your students, in that you're using this technique to gain insights into what your students are thinking. But in this case, you're not necessarily looking for a specific answer to the questions or ideas you pose: you're trying to get students to think for themselves and express their ideas.
Group work. Break up a large class into smaller groups in breakout rooms so that the chat window does not overfill with information. Then, encourage your students to use the chat window to discuss a question and/or work together on a project.
Debriefing. Chat can be an effective way to make sure students "got" what you said and accomplished what they were supposed to accomplish. What went well, and what needs improvement?

For chat to be useful and not a distraction in your class, you'll want some coping strategies like those listed above. You'll also want to ensure that ground rules (etiquette) are posted and agreed upon.

Lisa Weber and Jennifer Lieberman observe that "chat often has a negative reputation because of its potential to become chaotic since students and faculty communicating simultaneously can obscure the message and make following a conversation difficult.." They suggest some intriguing uses of chat for language instruction, including language partner exchanges, grammar review, dynamic language practice, error analysis, and non-intrusive correction. With minor modifications, any of these suggestions could be applied to other subject matter.

Paying attention to chats from your students is a terrific way to monitor their engagement in the class and to modify your pacing or presentation accordingly. When three or more students suddenly start typing in the chat area while you're making a point, that's probably a good sign that something you said caused confusion or was missed. When there's a good deal of off-topic chat, you may have lost the class's attention; it's time to bring them back into the mix with some interactive exercises.

Application Sharing for Effect

2009-10-18T21:30:00.000-07:00

“Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared." - Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta

Application sharing allows the Confer instructor to share anything on his/her desktop, and to pass control to other participants. Although most instructors use this primarily as a demonstration feature, it is most effective as a means of facilitating interaction among students.

But we've observed that this is not the most popular tool, nor is it used by a great many instructors. As Vlad Wielbut of the Alliance for Community Technology says about application sharing: "This standard feature of many Web conferencing tools can be extremely valuable when trying to explain to students how a particular piece of software works: what is better than showing this piece of softwae 'in action', even letting students take control of it for a while, so as to make sure they understand what happens when they do this or that to it. Yet, this is often one of the less intuitive features and requires at least a little bit of training to use it and use it well."

Margaret Driscoll has identified 20 best practices for using application sharing in an interesting and practical article:

Use the long method (don't use shortcuts your students can't follow on screen)
Tell learners where to look.
Apply window management (close unnecessary windows).
Optimize the visibility of the mouse.
Define class size.
Evaluate when to use and not use application sharing.
Schedule sessions for 40-60 minutes.
Probe for understanding.
Plan for latency.
Determine student viewing area.
Use the page up and page down keys.
Warm up the participants.
Watch your presentation.
Move slowly.
Coach participants' performance.
Ask permission (before assuming control of another person's desktop).
Assign finite tasks.
Monitor the other tools (hand-rasing and chat in particular).
Start with a moderator (have a helper).
Practice, practice, practice.

Learning to Interact Online: It's a Progression

2009-10-09T15:01:00.000-07:00

"It is assumed by academic institutions that if online courses and programs are offered, teachers will know how to teach in that environment, and more importantly, students will know how to learn or engage with that material. Our experience is that the opposite is true. Faculty need training and assistance in making the transition to the online environment, but students also need to be taught how to learn online. Learning through the use of technology takes more than mastery of a software program or comfort with the hardware being used. It takes an awareness of the impact that this form of learning has on the learning process itself. As more and more institutions and their instructors enter the cyberspace classroom and encounter both successes and difficulties in the process, they are coming face-to-face with the realities of online teaching and asking more, not fewer, questions about how to make the transition successfully." - Rena Paloff and Keith Pratt, Lessons from the Cyberspace Classroom.

I've had occasion to notice the progressions that instructors make as they master the tools of educational technology and apply them to pedagogical tasks. For example, a teacher who comes to Confer for the first time has an interactive whiteboard, which is the most obvious tool for presenting content to students. This instructor will begin by using the whiteboard only as a visual support, presenting static slides and accompanying them by narration. The whiteboard becomes, in essence, the online equivalent of a projector, and there is little or no effort to use it for conceptual development, interaction with students, or as a discussion stimulus.

After time, some instructors become comfortable enough with the Confer environment to use the whiteboard to solicit student responses. He/she may use the pointing tool to highlight some of the content, or allow students to draw or annotate the online slides. More and more, this instructor will use the whiteboard to challenge students to think by means of visual stimuli and verbal coaching.

Eventually, these instructors develop a new way of thinking about the whiteboard and its usefulness. They see ways to use it as an integral part of any online session with students, and they try to integrate its inherent interactivity into their lesson plans. They have developed an awareness both of the available techniques for annotation, drawing, and manipulating screen content and objects, and have become fluent in using these techniques. Now, they make sure that students - individually or collectively - react to and interact with the whiteboard content. They drag and drop students' annotations to match concepts, hide or reveal certain objects to engage questions, match objects or terms on the screen, or use freehand drawings to illustrate improvements or new approaches. The whiteboard becomes less and less a screen for displaying static content and increasingly a tool for prompting discussion, eliciting responses, developing ideas, and testing hypotheses. These instructors often develop their own content specifically for the whiteboard rather than displaying ready-made PowerPoints.

Gilly Salmon calls this latter kind of teaching "e-moderating" and maintains that it is the key to teaching and learning online. Salmon's five-stage model describes the ways both instructors (e-moderators) and learners progress in the online classroom: 1. Access and Motivation, in which the first challenges are to successfully login and make the visit worth the trouble; 2. Socialization, in which the challenges are to adapt to individual learner needs, provide bridges between old skills and new ones, and allow for individualized expression; 3. Information Exchange, which invites challenges and participation, encourages group tasks and roles, and is characterized by often "messy" communications; 4. Knowledge Construction, with much questioning, discussion, challenging, motivating, and interaction in order to build understanding; and 5. Development, in which the learners become independent critical thinkers, able to inject humor into the process, and able to reflect on what and how they have learned online.

Thankfully, I've been able to watch some of this progression among our Confer users, and to benefit from their experiences and insights. As these e-moderators emerge in our learning community, they'll help all of us to understand the developing online conferencing environment and how it can best enable learning and growth.

Ask Questions

2009-09-25T16:52:00.000-07:00

"The important thing is to never stop questioning."- Albert Einstein. Eric Vogt adds that questions are a prerequisite to learning, a window into creativity and insight. They motivate fresh thinking, challenge outdated assumptions, and lead us to the future. In the virtual classroom, students need to be given the chance to answer provocative questions and to ask them of one another and the instructor.

In your online classroom, begin with a simple exercise on the whiteboard. Using the text tool, write any topic related to your course or workshop: "syntax," "percent," "graduation requirements," "neurosis," "troubleshooting," or "beauty." Invite students to use the audio tool or the chat area to pose open-ended questions about the topic: "What is beauty?" "Are there different kinds of beauty?" You can call on students randomly or in order (e.g., by name from the roster), and explain that this will continue until someone cannot posit a new question. You should be able to generate a very long list with even just a few students, if they're interested and paying attention.

Now focus the learners on what role questions have in their learning process. Why is it important for them to ask questions? Did any of the questions asked during this exercise make you pause and reconsider your concept of the topic? Do you feel comfortable asking questions in this class and venue?

To ensure active learning, select one of the questions and have each student speak (or chat) for one minute (using the timer) on the subject. You can do this at any time during your online lectures or workshops to make sure that your students are involved in their own learning by asking questions and looking for answers.

At the Centre for Leadership in Learning at McMaster University, a good question has these properties:

Most importantly...something you are interested in.
The question is open to research.

You don't already know the answer, or have not already decided on the answer before doing the research.

The question may have multiple possible answers when initially asked.

It has a clear focus.

The question should be reasonable.

Try to avoid or rephrase questions which have a premise.

Make sure you have defined all the terms in your question so you know exactly what you are asking.

A new question can be asked once all your information is gathered.

Having the right answer matters to you.

Follow the above link to discover Paul Bidwell's ingenius "Quescussions" activity, which forces students to ask questions as a means of discovery. You may also want to look here for more suggestions for asking good questions in class.

Learning to Learn

2009-09-11T09:29:00.000-07:00

"The single most important thing you can learn in the ‘flat’ world is the ability to learn how to learn - to constantly absorb, and teach yourself, new ways of doing old things or new ways of doing new things... To learn how to learn, you have to love learning - or you have to at least enjoy it - because so much learning is about being motivated to teach yourself. And while it seems that some people are just born with that motivation, many others can develop it or have it implanted with the right teacher." - Thomas L. Friedman,
The World is Flat.

The world is changing at a rapid pace, and, as Eric Hoffer said, "in times of change, learners inherit the Earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists." We cannot accurately predict what skills our students will need or jobs they will be required to do in future years. But we can - and must! - teach them to value learning, and to become adept at self-instruction.

One way to do this in the online classroom is to engage the class in a discussion of what learning is about. You might begin with the quote that opens this article, placing it on the whiteboard and inviting comments from students. You could then use the Web tool to take students to this synopsis of Friedman's book - or share the file using the file sharing tool.

Try some pointed questions, either with the entire class or by assigning them to groups in breakout rooms. What does "flat world" mean? What's the difference between "learning" and "learning to learn"? In a global workplace, why is it important to learn to learn?

Once this concept has been discussed and appreciated, tune in to your students' own abilities and preferences for learning. Try using the Polling tool to identify students' preferences for learning (e.g., A, Group work; B, Reading the text; C, Listening to lectures and taking notes; D, Discussion). Or use the VARK questionnaire to identify learning styles. These will help students identify their own preferences for taking in information visually, aurally, by reading and writing, kinesthetically, or multimodally. Once they've completed these questionnaires, take them to the VARK Helpsheets so they can plan their own "learning to learn" strategies.

Doing this early in the semester is a great way to prepare students - not only for your class, but for a lifetime of learning.

It's Different Online

2009-09-04T13:43:00.000-07:00

"Surprisingly, despite the widespread infusion and use of the Internet, we have yet to develop a clear understanding of the impact these technologies have had and are having on the processes of learning. Theoretical and research foundations have not kept pace with technological growth and use. Several questions have been posed and answered; yet many more remain. We are developing a good idea of 'what' the technology can do, while 'how's' (e.g., How can the Internet assist us with teaching and learning processes?) and 'why's' (e.g., Why this technology now?) remain relatively unclear." So say Hill et.al. in a chapter of the Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and Technology.

Anyone who teaches online and in face-to-face classrooms knows that the each environment poses its own challenges and opportunities. It's a mistake, however, to treat them as if they were the same. Distance has an effect on teaching, and "distance" can be defined not just geographically but psychologically. Perceived distance between instructor and learner has to be minimized. In the physical classroom, the teacher moves toward the student, walks around, focuses visual attention, invites students to share. Online, distance is shortened in similar ways: by calling on students by name, "poking" them with public and private messages, inviting interaction, and sending emoticons.

Control of the traditional classroom is accomplished via physical and visible measures: the instructor metes out harsh looks, raises or lowers the volume, raps on the table or chalkboard, etc. Online, control often transfers to the learners, and instructors have to make difficult decisions about how much of that control they want to relinquish. Turning off chat, for example, can help ensure that students will not be distracted from your whiteboard content, but it may have the negative effect of making them look elsewhere for opportunities to communicate. Ruth Clark laments that "lacking the physical presence of the instructor, student attention in the virtual classroom tends to drift. It’s not uncommon for participants to respond to email, review unrelated documents, or even leave their computers during the session.”[1] J. Pulichino, in The Synchronous e-Learning Report for 2005, maintains that “the main frustration with the virtual classroom environment is multitasking. No matter how engaging you are as an instructor, you must still battle the students’ constant temptation to check email and multitask.”[2]

The social context of the physical classroom is determined by the physical presence of other students and the instructor(s). Online, students can't always see or hear one another (unless the instructor makes that possible), so they may need to be assured that there is a "there" there: that others are a part of the online class and that they share a common "space," even if they can't see it. Audio feedback - at least of the instructor's voice - cannot be over-emphasized in this context: it's the single most effective reminder of presence. It's also a good idea to make sure students are comfortable with the online environment: that they can navigate between the panes (chat, whiteboard, roster, video window, etc.) easily and are comfortable with the online classroom so that they can find and appreciate various other indicators of social presence.

How do you make your students comfortable in your online space?

[1] Clark, R. C., and Kwinn, A. The New Virtual Classroom: Evidence-Based Guidelines for Synchronous e-Learning. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, 1007, p. 57.

[2] Pulichino, J. ’The Synchronous e-Learning Research Report 2005.” Santa Rosa, CA: The eLearning Guild Research, 2006, p. 15. http://www.eLearningGuild.com. Retrieved March 24, 2008.

Respect Diverse Talents and Ways of Learning

2009-08-28T12:59:00.000-07:00

"There are many roads to learning. People bring different talents and styles of learning to college. Brilliant students in the seminar room may be all thumbs in the lab or art studio. Students rich in hands-on experience may not do so well with theory. Students need the opportunity to show their talents and learn in ways that work for them. Then they can be pushed to learn in new ways that do not come so easily." (Chickering and Gamson)

In the online classroom, there are many opportunities to allow your students' diverse approaches to learning free expression. Don't limit yourself or your class to only a single teaching or presentation style. Experiment, and pay attention to how students respond.

One of the strengths of a captured session (an archive) is that it allows students a chance to review at their own pace what you provide at the pace that suits you best. They can play and re-play the lecture or parts of it, taking notes or paying attention to specific words or actions to enrich their experience and understanding of what happened and what was communicated.

Shi and Morrow (2006) discovered that instructors felt the audio tool (which allows for voice interaction with online students) was an effective tool for reinforcing diverse learning styles. One effective way to use this tool is to explain visuals you're presenting on the whiteboard: instead of overloading working memory with visual graphics along with text, allow students to "see" the visual content you're presenting and "hear" your explanation. Similarly, allowing students who may be slow or reluctant typists to interact orally gives them options to communicate.

I've extolled the virtues of breakout rooms elsewhere. In this context, I'll posit that a breakout room provides enhanced opportunities for individual participation, since it reduces the size of the group of learners and makes online time more accessible to each student.

When you allow your students to use the chat tools, you provide them with more chances to communicate and you empower those students who may be shy about speaking up or being singled out. It's also a far less threatening way to raise questions than is speaking out and interrupting the instructor. Shi and Morrow also identified the chat tool as associated with diverse learning styles.

Remember, also, that captioning is available for students who are differently-abled. Providing a captioned session will help the hearing-impaired student participate in the live session and understand what happened in the archived session. It may also allow students who have difficulty understanding different speakers (e.g., non-native speakers) to follow conversations and discussions that happen during class.

Thank goodness for diverse students, and diverse tools they can use for learning!

Communicate High Expecations

2009-08-21T11:20:00.000-07:00

"Expect more and you will get more. High expectations are important for everyone -- for the poorly prepared, for those unwilling to exert themselves, and for the bright and well motivated. Expecting students to perform well becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy when teachers and institutions hold high expectations for themselves and make extra efforts." (Chickering and Gamson)

One of my favorite ways to begin a session with students is by playing this three-minute video from Stanford's Education Center. In it, Tina Seelig passionately urges her audience to "Be Fabulous!" It's our job as instructors to raise the expectations of our students, and the best time to do that is right at the beginning of the relationship. Before telling students how to achieve, tell them why achievement is important. Give them a reason and a desire to do well in your class. When they make important points in an online session, "reward" them with happy faces or applause (the emoticons), and/or verbally congratulate them. Cultivate an atmosphere in your online classroom of curiosity and mutual support. Keep your sessions positive and "fun" - in short, be fabulous.

Ted Panitz offers this experience:

1. I send my students a letter prior to class describing the cooperative nature of the class and my expectations. I ask them to write a math autobiography, get the text, read chapter 1 and work out as many problems as they can. I give them my home and work phone numbers just in case the letter causes an anxiety attack. The effect is marvelous as reported by my students.
2. I collect and read all the autobiographies and respond with personal notes of encouragement and/or verbal responses when appropriate. The fact that we are writing back and forth opens up a line of communication about each student in the context of the course.
3. I ask the students to sign a Success Contract which I sign outlining what I will do and what I expect them to do. I actually refer to it throughout the semester and remind them of their commitment to the course and themselves as well as to me.
4. I ask my students to do a written analysis of the 7 principles as they apply to math classes and cooperative learning. Number 6 often receives a lot of discussion because students are not used to hearing high expectation expressed about them. Again I write back explaining my thoughts and experiences. In a way this establishes a peer relation versus that of student and teacher.
5. When students are working in groups I resist providing quick answers and encourage them to seek answers themselves by relying on the abilities of their members. I comment that someone in the group will be able to find a solution and working together they will certainly be able to answer each members questions. It takes them a little while to get used to this but after they do they revel in each group members success.
6. At the end of each exam or assignment I ask students to comment on how they feel they are doing and how the class is going. I also ask if they have any suggestions for me which might improve the class. This is optional and not graded. It tells them that I respect and value their opinions.
7. I provide a lot of verbal encouragement throughout the semester...

8. I try to learn something about each student that I can relate to and I discuss things with them which will help them understand my background and interests better. I always explain my rationale for doing things. I share my experiences with them and the class and encourage them to do the same. Many students have told me that knowing me personally sets high expectations since they do not want to let me down. They see me as a friend and mentor.
9. I use a mastery approach to testing where I check exams for correct answers and return the papers for corrections during the exam... The emphasis is on understanding the problem, not the grade and all students become capable of obtaining a perfect test. The effect of this approach is to empower the students, create a positive assessment atmosphere and encourage the students to take more responsibility for their learning and success...
10. Cooperative learning techniques set high expectations of students. Students work in groups collaboratively in all my classes during every class session. I encourage them to help each other and express their opinions about their problem solutions. As they get comfortable with this approach and with their partners their self esteem grows and the expectations of what they can accomplish rises dramatically. People who previously approached math with great anxiety suddenly see themselves as tutor/teachers, not just recipients of someone else's knowledge. Cooperative learning carries with it a presumption that students can learn the material together and then demonstrate their abilities individually through a variety of assessment methods including exams, oral presentations, written assignments and working on the board.
11. During the semester I periodically survey the students to ask their opinion about how they feel the course is progressing. Is it meeting their expectations, what could I do to facilitate their learning, what could they do to help the class and themselves?

This isn't simply a matter of teaching philosophy: research indicates that "there is a clear relationship between teacher expectations and student achievement." Read this article to see what I mean. You owe it to your students (your profession, yourself) to energetically, enthusiastically, and wholeheartedly communicate high expectations in your classroom.

Let me know how you do this.

Time on Task

2009-08-07T14:06:00.000-07:00

"Time plus energy equals learning. There is no substitute for time on task. Learning to use one's time well is critical for students and professionals alike. Students need help in learning effective time management. Allocating realistic amounts of time means effective learning for students and effective teaching for faculty. How an institution defines time expectations for students, faculty, administrators, and other professional staff can establish the basis of high performance for all. " (Chickering and Gamson)

Time in the synchronous online classroom is critical. Students who wait for the instructor to load materials, prepare polls, or master the necessary technologies will be diverted by other distractions (e.g., e-mails, Facebook feeds, private chat messages) and may not be able to focus once the instructor is ready. This puts a burden on the online instructor to prepare delivery as well as content so as to minimize delays and control time in the online classroom. With Confer, using the Plan tool - which allows you to pre-load multimedia content, polls, quizzes, slides, and Web pages - is an excellent way to manage the pace of your instruction.

It's also your responsibility as the instructor to reinforce time on task in your classroom. Students need help in learning effective time management, and you can provide this by giving them realistic time expectations during the class. The "Timer" tool - which presents a visible running clock on the desktop of each participant - is a great option in this context. Give students a task - for example, list what you know or think about X issue - and set the clock for five minutes, with an audible alarm option selected. This lets the students know that they have a job to do, in a limited amount of time, and that the "clock is ticking" for them to accomplish the job.

You can also help your students by reminding them of deadlines throughout your teaching. Use part of your lecture time to post reminders on the Whiteboard, or post announcements in the Chat area (you can post an announcement message here that pops up with an audible alert). These messages help students organize their time and focus on their required work.

One tool that helps reduce the time students sometimes squander searching for assignments or syllabi is the File Transfer tool. Using this simple tool, you can transfer your assignments to every student (even those who are viewing your archived session) in real time. This eliminates the concern that your Course Management System may be down when students are trying to access assignments, or that they won't be able to find the assignments you've posted. "Hand out" the assignments in real time, and let students know when and how you expect them to be completed.

Speaking of archives, remember that your recorded sessions can be paused and resumed. It's a good idea in longer class sessions to allow for breaks and to pause the recording so that viewers of the archive don't have to navigate through "dead time" to find the point where you resumed teaching.

Carl Sandburg wrote, "Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you." This applies to students as well as instructors, in all learning environments.

Prompt Feedback

2009-07-31T13:45:00.000-07:00

"Knowing what you know and don't know focuses learning. Students need appropriate feedback on performance to benefit from courses. When getting started, students need help in assessing existing knowledge and competence. In classes, students need frequent opportunities to perform and receive suggestions for improvement. At various points during college, and at the end, students need chances to reflect on what they have learned, what they still need to know, and how to assess themselves." (Chickering and Gamson)

If your students come to the online classroom with no clues from you about how well (or poorly) they're doing, they may well wonder why they're coming at all. There are plenty of available tools for impromptu and/or formal assessment, and you should make it a point to use them often.

The breakout rooms, for example, are a perfect resource for allowing individuals or groups to complete self-paced exercises you make available or to take quizzes you administer or deliver to the rooms. Another innovative use of breakout rooms, suggested by Clark and Kwinn, is to set up trios in breakout rooms for role-play exercises, with one of the three acting as an observer. "Guidelines for conducting the role play can be posted on the white board, and the observer can take notes in chat as the role play proceeds and give feedback via audio or white board following the role play exercise.” Note that this technique gives the prompt feedback delivery method to the students, rather than to the instructor.

The chat tool is effective for informal, individualized feedback during an online session. You can send private messages of encouragement or admonishment without distracting the other students or embarrassing your targets. Even a public "Bravo!" in the chat window allows students to know that you're paying attention and that they're on the right track. Another feature of the chat tool is that it can provide your students with a non-threatening way to pose questions or communicate other needs with you. Students who are reluctant to speak up in class sometimes find it easier to communicate in the chat area, and it's almost always true that if one student aks a question, others have it in their minds.

The use of polls is a terrific option for providing prompt feedback. Although you generally have to prepare your polls ahead of time, it doesn't really take much more than a few seconds to type a poll on the whiteboard and deliver it to your students ad hoc. It's often a good idea to hide the polling results until all participants have responded to ensure honest feedback from the students. You should also remember that you can guage your students even without structured poll responses (i.e., "yes/no" or "A, B, C, D, E"). The whiteboard can be used to pose a question and allow students to type their own responses - either on the whiteboard itself or in the chat area. Doing this often - throughout the class - helps ensure that you're on track with your students and that they're keeping up with you. Remember, though: don't ask a question and ignore the results. Students don't appreciate being ignored.

The emoticons (smiley face, frown, applause, etc.) are also useful feedback tools. You can use them to silently appraise your students, and you can also allow your students to use them to give you a "pulse" on the class. Jonathan Finkelstein advises, “When someone else is speaking, have your mouse near the emotion indicators. Get in the habit of clicking on an emoticon as a participant is speaking or typing to express your reaction. These real-time cues can provide the encouragement and confidence a learner needs.”

Chopeta Lyons suggests that at the end of a class session, use an "instant feedback" whiteboard to allow students to reflect and analyze. Divide the screen down the middle and put a plus on one side and a minus on the other. Students can then type comments anonymously in either or both columns.

How about you?

Active Learning

2009-07-24T14:19:00.000-07:00

"Learning is not a spectator sport. Students do not learn much just by sitting in classes listening to teachers, memorizing pre-packaged assignments, and spitting out answers. They must talk about what they are learning, write about it, relate it to past experiences and apply it to their daily lives. They must make what they learn part of themselves. " (- Chickering and Gamson)

In our study of Web conferencing for instruction, Shufang Shi and I found that instructors associated application sharing with the pedagogical principle of active learning more than they did any other tool in the Confer toolset. But if you use application sharing only to demonstrate to students, you're cheating them out of rich online learning opportunities. Make your session interactive by allowing students to complete pre-designed exercises, giving them cursor and desktop control. If you pass control from student to student, allowing them to complete steps in a problem or series of problems, your entire class will pay attention. The process itself - not just segments of the process or individual parts - will be absorbed. One caveat: students aren't always able to understand what they're seeing in application sharing sessions. You may want to explain who's got control of the screen, where they should be looking to find the cursor, or how to navigate at a pace that refreshes the screen on all students' screens without being disorienting.

I've mentioned the value of breakout rooms in a previous note. At least one other strategic advantage is that you can facilitate more active learning in small groups than in large ones. Groups of three-to-five participants will demonstrate greater individual participation than will large online classrooms.

The Chat tool can also be used to ensure active learning. Students find it difficult to listen actively: so do instructors. Move them to the chat area for discussion of a topic in order to re-engage them and to break up the content delivery. Polling students - forcing them to make decisions about the learning content - also encourages active learning.

The Whiteboard's drawing and annotation tools are a wonderful resource for reinforcing active learning. Don't just present your visuals: engage students in them. Instead of simply describing a chart or graphic to the class, ask students to type their reactions - either in the chat area or (if space allows) directly on the whiteboard itself. You can even design visuals with "cartoon balloons" or other cues to encourage and support class annotations.

I'm sure there are hundreds of other ways you use to encourage active learning. Tell us about them!

Develop Reciprocity and Cooperation Among Students

2009-07-17T09:40:00.000-07:00

"Learning is enhanced when it is more like a team effort that a solo race. Good learning, like good work, is collaborative and social, not competitive and isolated. Working with others often increases involvement in learning. Sharing one's own ideas and responding to others' reactions sharpens thinking and deepens understanding. " (Chickering and Gamson)

If your Confer class is large, consider using the Breakout Rooms feature. Virtual “rooms” can be created into which you can distribute participants, and from which you can return them at will. This tool allows small groups of learners to work together or hold a discussion in which everyone has ample opportunity to participate.

As Ruth Clark observes, “Spending a few minutes in a breakout room allows a group of three to five participants to actively engage with each other in ways that can lead to greater individual participation and consequent learning.” For one thing, there are less voices to contend with, so each student's audio time is more accessible. For another, research seems to indicate that group cohesion is a by-product of this kind of virtual separation and group formation.

Like every educational tool, though, breakout rooms are only effective if they're used appropriately. Since we know that this feature is designed to facilitate collaboration, we should use it to promote group activities: create a situation in which "students introduce each other, work on homework, problems, projects, research, brainstorming, and other related activities in small groups and then share the materials from the group sessions with the rest of the students” (Zeina Nehme).

Assign a group leader and/or a group scribe before you send students to breakout rooms. The scribe can enter group responses on the whiteboard and summarize group discussions when everyone reconvenes. Find a student who's comfortable using the Confer technology and ask them to lead in the breakout room.

Remember that your ability to control what happens in the online classroom will be compromised when you send students into breakout rooms. PLAN, PLAN, PLAN ahead of time to make sure you haven't introduced chaos into your well-ordered session. Create your breakout rooms ahead of the session, with all relevant information pre-loaded. Explain everything to the students before you send them into their rooms, and even consider having technical and exercise instructions on a file you transfer to them so that there are no misunderstandings. Migrate between rooms so you can be sure students are interacting and collaborating as you would hope.

Jennifer Hoffman recommends these participant "ground rules":

If you run into technical problems, contact the facilitator or producer. Don’t waste a lot of time trying to solve them yourselves.
Assign someone to manage the exercise, someone to capture information, and someone to report back to the larger group.
Don’t leave the breakout session just because the trainer isn’t "watching' you.
When using collaboration tools within the breakout rooms (whiteboard, chat, application sharing, web browsing) the ground rules for those tools apply.

I'm interested in how you use (or why you don't use) the breakout rooms feature. Feel free to share your experience here.

Student-Faculty Interaction: The Most Important Factor

2009-07-07T14:23:00.000-07:00

The Chickering-Gamson paper contends: "Frequent student-faculty contact in and out of classes is the most important factor in student motivation and involvement. Faculty concern helps students get through rough times and keep on working. Knowing a few faculty members well enhances students' intellectual commitment and encourages them to think about their own values and future plans. "

So we need to keep and maintain contact with our students. In the Confer environment, one of the key reinforcers of this contact comes from the audio tool, which allows real-time conversation. Jennifer Hoffman says that “The trainer’s voice is perhaps the most important content delivery method available in a synchronous classroom.” Similarly, Clark and Kwinn assert that "audio participation increases social presence and is the best option" for synchronous online communication. We seem to have built-in responders to audio cues, and students who can hear the instructor's voice - to say nothing of being heard by the instructor - are reassured that there is a human being teaching and guiding them in their learning.

Confer also provides a chat tool that gives an ongoing log or transcript of typed conversation during the session. Messages can be sent to a selected audience or a private individual. The text can be resized, and the chat can be saved (copied and pasted) to a text file. This tool provides another interaction option, and its proper use will empower students in the online classroom. Joe Tansey observes that the fact that all students can see the responses in the chat window instantly is a valuable way for participants to share a wealth of ideas and information... Text chat makes it easy for all involved to match responses with contributors, and no responses are overwritten or erased – which can be a risk with some white board tools.” Joe also feels that "a useful feature of text chat is that it can provide learners with a non-threatening way to pose questions or communicate other needs with the instructor. Questions on the mind of one learner are often on the minds of others. If instructors aren’t able to answer all questions during the allotted class time, they can usually save the text chat and respond to questions after class.” Jennifer Hoffman adds that “participants who are more reserved are often more likely to interact when text chat options are available.” In a study called "The Social Arena of the Online Synchronous Environment," Zeina Nehme writes that “a learner might be comfortable chatting only rather than talking on the microphone.” There are limitations to this tool, however: as Schwier and Balbar discovered, one is "the lack of nonverbal cues, and the difficulty interpreting the intentions of each other. Chatting is spontaneous by nature, and this spontaneity doesn't allow participants to craft clear prose, so subtleties were sometimes lost or misinterpreted."

The polling tools are also aimed at interaction, albeit in a more structured way than either voice or chat. Jonathan Finkelstein notes that "polling is a low-threshold way of involving even the more reticent participants, as it allows for a simple means to take part in and affect the flow of a live online session. Integrated polling tools not only help a facilitator quickly gauge interest, comprehension, and opinions of the subject matter at hand, but they can also be used to appraise more subtle measures of student engagement and understanding: those more akin to the hesitant raising of a hand in a physical classroom.” Diana Perney at the Pennsylvania Virtual Charter School says, "I use this tool throughout a session. I create on the white board a multiple-choice question to start the session and ask the learners to respond, choosing A, B, or C. The polling results give me a sense of the class and activates prior knowledge for the learner. I will repeat this process throughout the session to engage the learners and to keep my finger on the pulse of the class. It often catches the participants off guard – they don’t know when I will ask the next question. The polling tool also meets the needs of visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners. I ask the question, they see the question, and a button needs to be clicked to indicate a response.”

2009-05-11T13:10:00.000-07:00

About 20 years ago, the American Association for Higher Education (AAHE) sponsored the development of a statement of principles for good undergraduate education. These were compiled by Arthur Chickering and Zelda Gamson as a summary of decades of research and the collective wisdom of those investigating the college experience. “Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education” was published in the March 1987 AAHE Bulletin. The principles declare that good practice

1. Encourages student-faculty contact
2. Encourages cooperation among students
3. Encourages active learning
4. Gives prompt feedback
5. Emphasizes time on task
6. Communicates high expectations
7. Respects diverse talents and ways of learning

I’ve been lately interested in how these principles are applied in the online Confer environment. For example, how does one use CCC Confer to encourage the first principle, student-faculty contact? What tools are most appropriate for this goal, and what practices or techniques reinforce the principle best? Are these equivalent to traditional classroom practices, or does the online environment change the way this principle is supported?

In the traditional classroom environment, student-faculty contact is encouraged by:

office hours in which students can meet with faculty one-on-one or in small, informal groups
allowing for in-class discourse (raising hands, seeking student feedback or input)
telephone or e-mail accessibility

You can see that Confer provides a “first principle-friendly” environment, in that office hours are an option, without the space and travel constraints common to campuses, any time and any day. The opportunities to raise hands in the Confer classroom, to get feedback from students, and to actively solicit student-faculty exchanges are available with the interaction icons, chat and audio tools, and even with the whiteboard tools, if the instructor chooses. Naturally, Confer is neutral with respect to student-faculty contacts outside of the Confer environment.

We could (and I hope to in future writings) continue down the list and ask ourselves whether or not the Confer environment favors good practice, as defined by each of the principles. I’m of the opinion that each of these principles can be reinforced in the Confer classroom, but that we have to find appropriate and effective ways of using the available tools. For example, is the audio tool (voice) the best one to encourage student-faculty contact? Not necessarily, according to research. Jennifer Hoffman and Zeina Nehme suggest that some students are more comfortable chatting than talking in the virtual classroom. And, since text chat can be saved, the instructor can go back later to answer questions or provide feedback to students even after the class session.

That’s the kind of thing I’ve been thinking about lately. What about you? bmorrow@palomar.edu.