Who Owns My Lecture?

"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

"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

"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

"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?

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?

“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

"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.