Do You Chat When You Teach? Some Pluses and Minuses

In the Confer tool set, the chat tool provides text-based chat, a log or transcript of which can be saved and reviewed after the session. Private and public text messages can be supported, and the text itself can be re-sized or reformatted to personalize the messages.

Some observations about the chat tool:

• "Text chat is useful when the instructor would like all participants to respond, in contrast to using audio for a single response.”- Clark, R. C., and Kwinn, A. The New Virtual Classroom: Evidence-Based Guidelines for Synchronous e-Learning. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, 2007, p.53.


• “Depending on your familiarity with the virtual classroom features and your ability as a presenter to multitask, using the chat facility may or may not be a good option for you. Audience size should be a consideration when planning this type of feedback method. We’ve discovered that having another facilitator or production assistant available to help support direct messaging (chat) is a valuable asset when managing the event’s conversation flow.” - Sandra Johnsen Sahleen. “Creative Interactions in the Virtual Classroom.” In Clark, R. C., and Kwinn, A. The New Virtual Classroom: Evidence-Based Guidelines for Synchronous e-Learning. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, 2007, p. 124-25.


• “… 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.” - Tansey, Joe. “Learning to Effectively Use the Virtual Classroom.” In Clark, R. C., and Kwinn, A. The New Virtual Classroom: Evidence-Based Guidelines for Synchronous e-Learning. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, 2007, p. 65.


• “Because chat offers a seductive opportunity for participants to communicate with one another privately at any time during a session, we recommend setting some ground rules regarding its use. For example, we ask participants to use chat for on-task communication only during instructional activities – no passing notes in class.!” - Clark, R. C., and Kwinn, A. The New Virtual Classroom: Evidence-Based Guidelines for Synchronous e-Learning. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, 2007, p. 112.


• “One way to use private messaging is to pair participants up to discuss an exercise or question by sending messages back and forth to each other. “ - Clark, R. C., and Kwinn, A. The New Virtual Classroom: Evidence-Based Guidelines for Synchronous e-Learning. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, 2007, p. 111.


• “Instructors can also use text chat to allow all learners to respond to a question or exercise. Participants can view all responses instantly. This is a valuable way for participants to share a wealth of ideas and information. Text chat can be more efficient for some exercises than using the virtual classroom white board tool. 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.” - Tansey, Joe. “Learning to Effectively Use the Virtual Classroom.” In Clark, R. C., and Kwinn, A. The New Virtual Classroom: Evidence-Based Guidelines for Synchronous e-Learning. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, 2007, pp. 65-66.


• “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.” - Clark, R. C., and Kwinn, A. The New Virtual Classroom: Evidence-Based Guidelines for Synchronous e-Learning. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, 2007, p. 110-11.

The Blended Classroom

The virtual classroom is popular because it works and fits well with today's students and faculty. Delivery methods have improved as the tools have been tweaked and instructors have learned best practices in using them. Faculty and students have warmed to the flexibility of meeting online and/or receiving instruction and content on demand, and the convenience of learning from home, hotel, or favorite login spot is undeniable. The quality and effectiveness of online instruction has improved in both perception and reality. A 2010 study by the U.S. Department of Education actually reported that students in online courses performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.

There are downsides to virtual-only instruction, however. Online learners drop out more than face-to-face students. The Handbook of Blended Learning cites lack of support and problems with the technology as principal contributors to the lack of retention of online learners. A recent study of community college students showed that students avoided online courses "due to the weaker instructor presence (and, to a lesser extent, the weaker student-student interaction)." Student perceptions of online courses are that more independence and accountability are required in them and that students who take them are isolated and often inundated by questions and confusion.

Enter the blended (sometimes called "hybrid") classroom, which combines face-to-face with online instruction. It need not be "half bricks and half clicks": there are many examples that do not require or even recommend an even split between online and on-site time. Lower dropout rates are reported for virtually every blended classroom scenario imaginable when compared to online-only classes. Some researchers report that greater community is established when there is at least some face-to-face time with the instructor. Others indicate that students who have at even one in-person contact with their instructor and/or other students manage their time better and and have a better understanding of how to prepare for assignments and study in appropriate ways.

It may not always be possible to provide a blended classroom, since institutional and student requirements may prohibit offering a physical setting. But the evidence is strong that retention and achievement are improved when virtual is combined with physical.

 

What DOESN'T Work in the Virtual Classroom?

I've written a lot about the benefits of the virtual classroom and included many examples of what works well in this environment. In the 10+ years of CCC Confer, we've seen exponential growth in popularity among faculty and students, and we've watched Web conferencing technology become more and more reliable and stable for our thousands of users.

But it wouldn't be accurate or fair to pretend that Web conferencing is always  the best option or that it is always the best way to reach students and deliver online instruction. In fact, there's evidence to suggest that Web conferencing provides some barriers for students and instructors, which must be recognized and overcome for a successful experience and for effective instruction to take place. For example, I just previewed an article in the June 2013 Journal of Computing Sciences in College entitled, "Under What Conditions Does Web Conferencing Inhibit Learning in a Computer Science Classroom?" The authors - Jami Cotler of Siena College and Dima Kassab and Xiaojun Yuan of SUNY-Albany - drew conclusions from two lectures (one delivered face-to-face and one delivered online via Web conferencing) and students' reactions to the experience of these lectures. I'll reserve comment on the methodology or validity of this study, but I'm interested in the students' perceptions.

Distractions. In the Cotler study, 31% of the students reported problems with distractions during the virtual lecture. The nature of these distractions were not disclosed, but we can guess that they may have involved the typical distractions online students encounter: e-mail messages, tweets, Facebook posts, instant messages, and other Web excursions. It may also be that these students found the Web conferencing interface itself distracting, with its chat window, video, whiteboard, etc. The face-to-face classroom also has distractions, of course, but eye contact with the instructor is often inhibition enough for students to block them off and pay attention to the lecturer.

To help students overcome these distractions, the experienced Confer instructor gives guidelines to students before their first online class session and even at the beginning of the session. Disable notifications from your online applications (noises, signals, pop-ups): they will interfere with your concentration. Some instructors even provide specific instructions for turning off, say, Facebook notifications. And, while the class is meeting online, it's good practice to keep the students alert by mixing up the delivery.

Engagement. Cotler's students reported that they were 38% less engaged in the virtual classroom than in the face-to-face environment. Oddly, though, 88% "felt they were able to participate during the [Web conferencing] lecture" and 56% "felt highly engaged in the course materials and the course activities" in the online classroom. So the perception of less engagement may have been related to distractions or some other subjective factor. Many (69%) of the students reported "less connection to the instructor" when using the virtual classroom. However, they reported using the whiteboard and chat features, and most of the students claimed to have reached out to either another student or the instructor during the online session.

We know from long experience that keeping students engaged in the virtual classroom is more challenging than in the traditional environment. You can't see all of your students, and you're not going to be able to validate all of their behavior all of the time. Your sense of control online is compromised because of the distance between you and the "desks" in front of you. But you can keep students engaged by doing some extra work: preparing breaks in which students provide examples, express opinions, or vote on issues. Work in assessments or chat activities, and use breakout rooms to divide a large class into manageable small groups where it's harder for students to hide or let others do all the work. Several of my blog posts provide examples of these strategies.

Unfamiliarity with Technology. I was surprised to read in Cotler's study that unfamiliarity with technology accounted for only 13% of the reported problems with the virtual classroom. Half of all the students "stated that it was convenient and that they like that they could remain in the comfort of their home," and an amazing 81% reported "feeling less stressed about tasks accomplished during the [Web conferencing] session in comparison to the face-to-face session." So technophobia (or at least fear of synchronous online interaction), while not dead, is on the wane with today's students.

It's a good idea to orient students to the virtual classroom before you make them do something in it. This can happen during a "practice" session, in a "sandbox" (we offer several on the CCC Confer Web site), or via training materials (videos, slides, documents) you provide for them. Given these results and the increasing popularity of synchronous online rooms (Skype, Google Hangouts, etc.), it may be just as important that you orient yourself to the virtual classroom and feel comfortable showing its features to your students.

What doesn't work in the virtual classroom? Mainly, not having a plan to use it!

Live Online Events: Keys to Successful Management

It sounds easy: let's all get together at noon and have a presentation from one of our speakers. We'll look at a few slides, maybe watch a video, take questions, and discuss the whole thing together. Maybe we can even poll the members to see what they think about the key issues. Let's plan to be through in an hour, but I'd like some way to record the proceedings so anyone who can't make it can review later. I'd like you to facilitate, okay?

Oh, did I mention we'd be online?

Sooner or later, if it hasn't happened yet, you'll be asked to do something like this. Live online is a fact of modern collaboration, and it's a great maximizer of time and resources, especially when managed properly. My advice to get the maximum return for these events is to invest in preparation time so that everything goes as you'd like it to go.

Protocols. If you plan to archive (record) the event, it's standard practice to inform live participants of the fact. You can do this verbally or you can prepare a slide in advance that "warns" them that the event is being recorded. This gives them the opportunity to participate accordingly. Similarly, if the event is being captioned, it's a good idea to show participants how to open and close the captioning window, along with some instructions about how to make adjustments to font, size, etc. Letting participants know how and when - or if - their questions can be asked is also important. These standard protocols are generally called "housecleaning" tasks and should occur prior to the presentation and before the "record" button is pressed.

Publicity. At CCC Confer, we send e-mails to constituents announcing Webinars well in advance. We also use our Facebook page, the TechEdge newsletter, and listservs to publicize these events. (An example of an e-mail Webinar announcement is included.) If it's possible to include a calendar link that will automatically populate an online (e.g. Outlook) calendar and include the sign-in details, you'll be better assured that your audience will remember to attend and know how to log in when they need to.

Prompts. I've noticed that the best facilitators always seem to ask the right questions of our Webinar presenters and are able to solicit audience participation precisely when it's appropriate. After discussing their techniques with them, I learned that their "spontaneity" is planned: they spend time before the event thinking up the questions they will ask and planning how to stimulate audience participation. They keep a text document handy with chat "prompts" which they copy and paste into the dialogue at appropriate times so that there is always something to interest the online participants. They call this "seeding the chat box."

Pre-Loads. If the presenter wants to show a video, the file has to be pre-loaded into the multimedia library to avoid delays during the online presentation. Similarly, large files, if they are to be shared with the audience, should be pre-loaded so that no time is lost waiting for them to be delivered. In the synchronous online environment, even the slightest delay - a few seconds - can seem to last much longer.

Practice Run. Although it's not always possible to get a guest speaker to practice with you before an event, it's very helpful. Even if they can't make it, though, you'll benefit from pre-loading and testing the software, slides, content, and timing. This allows you and/or the presenter to make adjustments beforehand and to anticipate audience reactions to the screens as they appear.

Every event has a beginning and an end, and generally there are other sequential points in the event where you want things to happen. You won't be able to determine these accurately if you can't tell when the slides will be finished, how long the video will last, or how fast (or slow) the presenter will be talking. Practicing with him or her makes it possible for you to plan the question-answer period properly and determine when breaks or interludes can be inserted. It avoids the irritating sense that you've had to speed up the presentation or cut off feedback because of the clock.

How to Encourage Active Learning Online

According to the research findings summarized by Chickering and Gamson (1987), good practice in undergraduate education encourages active learning. R.R. Hake studied the role of active learning in 1997 by comparing traditional courses to courses using active learning techniques and concluded: "the mean gain was more than twice as large for active learning classes, so you could say that courses implementing active learning are more than twice as effective as traditional courses in building basic concepts." Allison Carr-Chellman and Phillip Duchastel (2002) observed that synchronous online activities "yield a more direct sense of interaction, increased collegiality, immediate resolution of problems, and better team building." Duncan, Kenworthy, and McNamara (2012) noted that synchronous online activities had a positive effect for students on both final exam performance and overall class achievement. Oztok, Zingaro, Brett, and Hewitt (2013) recently concluded that students who interact with their instructors in synchronous online sessions also read the discussion forums more closely, respond more thoughtfully to forum prompts, and spend more time reading course materials.

 Even with evidence of its effectiveness, it's sometimes difficult to incorporate active learning into online courses because the temptation to isolate as in instructor is strong.  You feel alone and it's awkward not to lecture, to wait on the "invisible" class to respond and learn for themselves. Here are some tips from active learning advocates.

Breakout Room Collaboration. Heidi Beezley, instructional technologist at Georgia Perimeter College, advocates having students talk to each other as they collaborate in breakout rooms. "I think the trick is to try to pull them back to the main room before they get to the point where the discussion has died down... [You] need to establish a culture of accountability, making sure that they use the time wisely, or they will run out of time and won't be able to complete the task." She assigns each student to a base group of students who work together in groups of five throughout the course.

Ready, Set, Go (or One, Two, Three): Put it in the Chat Box! Peyri Herrera and Larry Green arrived at this method independently, as far as I know. They both use a spot check with a countdown to have students answer a question in chat, simultaneously. The important point is to have everyone answer at once, so that the instructor can guage how well they're understanding the concept, but also to encourage students to think in real time, to pay attention, and to be present.

Communicative Activities. Planning to involve students in the Confer session has the greatest potential for creating an active learning environment. Chat is effective, especially if you seed it,  but so is using the whiteboard for brainstorming. Allowing students to role play or debate can be effective, and a spot poll makes sure everyone is paying attention.

Think, Pair, Share. This method from North Carolina State University has gather ideas about a topic (Think), choose partners with similar interests (Pair) and work together on a presentation they will deliver to the class (Share). 

Be Quiet. Waiting for students to respond is hard, perhaps especially so online. But if you don't wait on them, you may not get them to respond. Learn the value of silence online.

Greet Your Students. Believe it or not, simply calling your students by name and acknowledging their presence has an effect on their participation. It's too easy to hide online: greeting them makes them feel less invisible and encourages them to get involved.

Give Them Control. My favorite technique is to reverse roles with a student. I like to explain a technique, demonstrate it, and then invite a student to try it out by giving desktop control to that student or inviting them to use the whiteboard to illustrate the concept. The student chosen is, of course, an active learner, but the rest of the class tends to become engaged because there is always the possibility (probability in my case) that one of them will be asked to reverse roles next.

Controlling Mayhem in the Synchronous Classroom

A seemingly ubiquitous commercial for an insurance company uses an evil, smug character called "Mayhem" to illustrate what can happen to change an ordinary day into a catastrophe. Mayhem falls through roofs, wrecks cars, spills coffee, drives lawnmowers through windows and boats, and diverts the attention of or misdirects drivers. All in all, he's a scary character.


There are moments when the Confer classroom may seem to have been invaded by Mayhem. A guest lecturer or speaker fails to connect or has audio problems, and your students begin to discuss things on their own that have nothing to do with the course. Students logging on have technical problems and insist on immediate attention; meanwhile, the rest of your online audience becomes irritable and even hostile in their chat remarks. Your network goes down in the middle of your lecture. A fire engine roars by your window, siren blaring. The software you're using freezes up. And so on.

Here are some suggestions for controlling the mayhem (and, no, these do not involve buying an insurance policy).

Roll With It

Understand that the nature of Web conferencing - like teaching itself - invites an element of mayhem. There are human factors, as in the traditional classroom, and these interact with (and sometimes exacerbate) the technical factors. If you use this technology often enough, something is sure to mess up at least once, and it will mess up when it's least convenient for you. 

When this happens, your reaction will be the most important factor in determining the outcome of your online session. Rage at the machine, roar at the outrage, or dissolve into a blubbering heap and you're certain to make the session a memorable failure. Roll with the punches and you at least have a chance of salvaging something from the shipwreck. If you remain upbeat and conversational, your audience will be more likely to wait out the problem with humor and patience.

I suggest that you deal with the problem directly instead of trying to mask or ignore it. If it's a human problem, confront the disrupters and enlist their help in restoring order. Coach your audience by explaining what you expect to see happen and providing alternatives to disrupting the session (e.g., call the help desk, take the discussion offline). Be quick to bring disruptive students on task, using the tact you would expect to receive if you were behaving similarly. When all else fails, boot them out. All the time you're doing this, keep a cool head and a smile (if possible). You're setting an example that your audience will find comforting: yes, there's a problem, and yes, I'm going to deal with it and move on. 

If the problem is technical, your best bet is to have a backup or fallback option. For example, about a month ago my campus network went down in the middle of a Webinar I was hosting. My remote presenter and the majority of our audience didn't experience the problem, but I was lost, temporarily. I have a backup network option (actually two), fortunately, and was able to re-join the session without anyone realizing that there had been a problem.

Know how to mute and un-mute your audience and speakers so that you can avoid the annoying disruptions that are otherwise beyond your control. Test your equipment, and have backups available, just in case. Deliver your slides to another moderator just in case you're prevented from presenting them. Have a way to communicate with at least one other participant without using the Confer tools (e.g., cell phone, IM, text message). 

Fortify Yourself

You can keep mayhem at bay by building a fortress that is impermeable. Get a room that can't be opened by co-workers, family members, etc. and put a "Do Not Disturb" sign on it. In selecting the room, try to make sure that it is well insulated from outside sounds and noises. If you're going to be on-camera, choose a non-distracting background. Clear your desk, get rid of the party hats, wash your face.

Check your network and phone status, and have a backup for each if possible. I like to use two computers whenever I'm presenting, and I also generally have each connected to a different network. 

Your audio equipment is important, and you can't easily handle an emergency if your audience can't hear you. Use a good microphone or headset and have substitute equipment, even if you're sure there's nothing wrong with the set you're using. Earlier this month, I used a high-end wireless microphone for a keynote speaker at a conference and was overjoyed to see the glowing reviews by online attendees at the sound quality. I used the same microphone the next day and got nothing but complaints until I plugged in the alternate equipment. 

If you have to use the bathroom, make sure you can get to it quickly from your spot and that it will be open. Likewise, prevent voice cracks by having water handy while you're speaking.

Warning: Danger, Will Robinson!

Let your students or online audience know that they're using technology that requires a certain amount of technical checking and may be susceptible to interruption. If possible, have them do the technical checking before joining the session, either by using a practice room or by running setup wizards in advance. Make this a requirement so that you're not greeted with indignant protests when they try to join the room with incompatible equipment.

You can spend some time orienting students to the environment and to acceptable behavior in your classroom. Show them how to participate, ask questions, raise hands, and communicate. Stress that you expect them to be open-minded and patient. 

Some instructors I know enlist the aid of students to perform some of the moderating tasks. They assign someone the duty of monitoring the chat, letting the instructor know when there's a question that needs answering, and some even assign students to provide the answers if possible. Another student will be asked to remind the instructor to start the recording, and another may have the job of looking for raised hands. This method - particularly if it's re-distributed over a semester - helps to keep students engaged and on-task.

An Ounce of Prevention

The worst way to come to a Confer session is on time. ALWAYS plan to be in the room at least 15 minutes early, so that you're able to deal with the unexpected in advance. It's also a good idea to have students come early, so that their problems can be fixed before the class actually begins. 

Design your class so that there are breaks where minor problems can be addressed or corrected. Have a plan of action, complete with re-actions, and keep planning right up to the time of the presentation. Sending e-mails to students to inform or remind them of the event and what you expect them to do in advance is always a good idea. Have a slide where emergency numbers are listed so that students will know what to do when all else fails. 

Know how to use private messaging so that you can deal with disrupters directly and quickly without embarrassing them. Calling out one of the audience for bad behavior has negative consequences that are very difficult to overcome. Be the adult in the room.

Your audience does not really expect a perfect world, even online. And they've all made mistakes or experienced situations where things didn't go as expected. A hint of mayhem won't send them into a panic, provided you deal with it cheerfully and appropriately. Your professionalism and commitment to getting them the materials and content you're paid to deliver will impress them.

Don't Just Tell Them: Show Them! (Application Sharing and Lecture Capture)

With the Web conferencing tools incorporated in CCC Confer, you can reach students visually as well as orally, and in more dramatic fashion than is usually possible in the face-to-face classroom environment. As our friend Donna Eyestone says, "With CCC Confer, every student has a front row seat." Would you show a blank wall to a student sitting in the front row?

Why Bother?

Confer lets you record and display anything your computer screen can display, and talk about it while you're doing it. For example, you can demonstrate software and how it works, or show students how to log into a Web application you want them to explore. You can enhance your lecture materials for both synchronous and asynchronous viewing (i.e., flip your classroom to allow for more in-class discussion and practice). Application sharing makes it possible to provide how-to instructions for assignments, and is a great solution for providing remedial materials. You can even allow students to use this tool to provide their own presentations, demonstrations, or assignments.

This is a way to avoid the typical pitfalls of lesson delivery. In a typical class, you spend a certain amount of time (say, 10 to 20 minutes) introducing a topic and trying to get the students to understand it or become interested in why it's important. You may spend some more time providing supportive materials - slides, whiteboard screens, your own notes, anecdotes, textbook content, etc. - with the hope that the students will warm to the topic and relate to something you've presented. And you spend a good part of the remainder of class time repeating the process because students didn't catch it the first time or missed something critical in your explanation, demonstration, or presentation.

Why not record what you have to show them before you ever meet with them in real time? That allows your real-time interactions to skip the 40 minutes or so you've spent repeating yourself because they've already let you do that (they can play your recorded demonstration as many times as they like in order to understand it). You now have class time for independent practice, and even to present students with more difficult or nuanced aspects of your topic. The most distracting and difficult part of the typical class - the time when individual students have to be shown how or what they didn't understand - has been moved to the pre-class period, when they're viewing your pre-recorded material and re-playing it to their hearts' content. Absent students can also benefit from this approach because they haven't missed everything.

General Guidelines

If you'd like to see how this is done, visit the Confer archives to see how others have done this. We have several tutorials on the subject, along with some helpful videos from experienced instructors. 

You'll need to be confident: this can and does work, and you can do it! Learn the basics of the software and start practicing. Record a few sessions and see what you're doing right and/or wrong. Get some good sound equipment, start writing a plan, and plan to make mistakes and learn from them.

Tips for Good Application Sharing and Recording

Plan well before you start your application sharing and recording. Write a script if you're at all uneasy with the process. Winging it inevitably produces "uhs" and "ums" that annoy your online audience. Having a storyboard for the process - where will you make transitions, what effects you want to include, which screens to bring up - will help you stay on track. Know which applications (software) you plan to use, when you want to use them, and whether or not any logins or forms need to be filled out. 

During the recording, speak slowly (this is my biggest downfall) and clearly. You don't have to talk all of the time, so don't ramble. Stick to your script if you have to. Begin with an introduction of what you're going to demonstrate or discuss and end with a summary of what you did: this helps with the casual viewer. 

Even though this is a video demonstration (mostly), the audio quality is critical to its success. If the sound is poor quality, students won't watch it. It's a good idea to test-record at least part of your demonstration to ensure good sound. You should also find a quiet place to do the recording to eliminate background noise or interruptions. 

Clean your desktop (computer screen) before sharing it with students. Too many background icons or gadgets will distract attention. Turn off applications you're not going to be using, especially those that

produce pop-up reminders and notifications. Resize the windows of the applications you'll be using so they'll fit optimally in the area of the screen you'll be sharing.

When you're sharing your desktop or an application, use slow mouse movements. When the mouse jerks around or makes circles on the screen, your students will not be amused. For similar reasons, make sure that any text you'll be showing or discussing on the screen is large enough to read and that the font is easily legible.

In the age of short commercials and frequent commercial breaks, it's a good idea to limit your recordings to 5 minutes or less. Do several short demonstrations rather than a single long one. Separate sessions will also ensure that you're at your best for each of them.